Conflicts of Interest Obvious in Cellular Phone Study

Here’s more evidence the cellular phone industry is becoming just as deceptive as the tobacco industry: Mobile phone companies are funding their own upbeat research that’s, unfortunately, finding its way into medical journals.

After scientists compared some 1,700 healthy patients with nearly 1,000 people who had a “common kind” of brain tumor over four years, they found no link between tumors and regular cellular phone use.

Those results shouldn’t surprise anybody, considering four cellular phone companies were among those contributing funding for the study. Would you really expect any result, other than a positive one?

The kicker: Almost half of the patients documented in the study who suffered brain tumors weren’t interviewed at all because they died from them first. Talk about manipulating the facts to get the results you want

Fact is, long-term exposure to the radiation emitted from mobile phones can indeed be dangerous to your health, but the risk decreases the farther you keep your phone away from your body, which means finding one with a good speakerphone system.

Because using a speakerphone may not be practical — especially navigating along the highway — you’ll want to consider a headset I feature in my Web store that virtually eliminates those radiation risks.

British Medical Journal January 20, 2006

Ivanhoe.com January 23, 2006