Cell phone warnings blocked in San Francisco: judge

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By Dan Levine

Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:00pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - A U.S. judge blocked most of a San Francisco ordinance on Thursday that required warnings about cell phone safety risks, saying it violated the First Amendment.

Health questions about cell phone use grew this year after a group of World Health Organization cancer experts suggested that such use be deemed "possibly carcinogenic." Industry groups say this does not mean that cell phones cause cancer.

Among the ordinance's provisions is one requiring retailers to display large posters stating in bold that "studies continue to assess potential health effects of mobile phone use."

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said it was acceptable that customers be given "fact sheets" to discuss possible risks of cell phone use, but insisted on changes to the current sheets so they do not mislead customers into believing that cell phones are dangerous.

The judge disallowed provisions of the ordinance that mandate large posters and warning stickers on in-store displays.

The city will ask a federal appeals court to uphold part of the ruling which allows the fact sheet to go forward, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement.

However, Herrera said he will also ask the appeals court to make clear the city has even broader authority.

"I disagree with his decision to limit the city's message in the way he has done," Herrera said of Alsup's ruling.

John Walls, VP of public affairs for wireless industry group CTIA, said the organization was considering its options.

"CTIA respectfully disagrees with the court's determination that the city could compel distribution of the revised 'fact sheet,'" Walls said in a statement.

Alsup ruled that most of the ordinance violated the U.S. Constitution. San Francisco may "within reason" force retailers to communicate its message, Alsup wrote, but "cannot paste its municipal message over the message of the retailers."

Alsup temporarily blocked enforcement of the ordinance through November 30 pending expected appeals, and said he will void it entirely if the city refuses to revise the fact sheets.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is CTIA-The Wireless Association v. The City and County of San Francisco, California, 10-cv-3224.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Jon Stempel in New York, editing by Bernard Orr)

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Why the Latest Study on Cell Phone Use and Brain Cancer Won't Be the Last Word

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Proving a negative in science is really, really hard — and that may well be the task that researchers trying to evaluate the potentially carcinogenic effects of cell phone use may have before them.

PHOTOS: See a Photographic History of Cell Phones

To wit: in a new study published in the BMJ, European researchers — looking at more than 300,000 Danes who had used cell phones — concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that using a cell phone increased the chance of developing a brain tumor. That was true even for people who had used cell phones for more than a decade, and the BMJ study is the biggest so far to look at cell phone radiation and cancer. As the study authors themselves wrote in the conclusion:

In this update of a large nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, there were no increased risks of tumours of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.

Case closed, right? That all depends on your perspective. Other researchers and activists were quick to criticize the study, arguing that it was still not broad enough to fully exonerate cell phones. Devra Davis, an expert in the environmental causes of illness and the president of the Environmental Health Trust, said in a statement:

From the way it was set up originally, this deeply flawed study was designed to fail to find an increased risk of brain tumors tied with cellphone use. In order for any study of a relatively rare disease like brain tumors to find a change in risk, millions must be followed for decades.

Indeed, that's what makes it so hard to design a study that can give us a definitive answer on the potential risks — if any — posed by cell phones. Brain tumors are extremely rare and strike for mostly unknown reasons, and they can take decades to develop. Cell phones have only been used heavily for the past decade or so, which means that enough time may not have yet passed for the potential impacts of cell phone use to show up in brain cancer statistics.

MORE: 5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Cell Phone Exposure

At the same time, cell phones have become virtually ubiquitous. There are more than 5 billion cell phone subscriptions in the world, which means it's becoming nearly impossible for scientists to find a control group that hasn't used mobile phones.

Perhaps it's not surprising then that the results of research into cell phones have been so confusing and contradictory. Less than six months ago the International Agency for Research on Cancer called cell phones "possibly carcinogenic," the first official statement that mobiles could indeed pose some danger. (Earlier assessments by the World Health Organization and national public health agencies had mostly concluded that cell phones were safe.) But "possibly carcinogenic" is a long way from definitely cancer-causing — coffee and pickles, among other common things, are also classified as "possibly carcinogenic."

The multiyear, multinational Interphone study, which was supposed to lay the question to rest, mostly exonerated cell phones when the results were released last year, but that research was so muddled that it was hard for either side to make heads or tails of it.

MORE: 1 in 6 Cell Phones Contaminated with Fecal Matter, Says Study

The reality is that where you stand on cell phone risks likely has a lot more to do with your individual biases than it has to do with hard science. Skeptics of the cell phone-cancer connection point to the fact that mobile handsets emit very low levels of nonionizing radiation — too weak to damage DNA, which is the way that X-rays and other stronger forms of radiation can cause cancer.

But believers in the connection note that the radiation may impact cells in another way, and that there has yet to be a well-designed, long-term study that accurately tracks how we use cell phones today — which is to say, nearly all the time.

If you're suspicious of cell phones, however, it's going to be nearly impossible to create a study that would answer all of your fears. After all, it's difficult to prove a negative, especially given how long it takes brain tumors to form. The good thing is that you don't need to stop using cell phones if you're worried; there are simple steps, including the use of a wired handset, that can greatly reduce your exposure to any radiation. That's a better bet than waiting for scientists and activists to answer the question for good.

Bryan Walsh is a senior writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bryanrwalsh. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME

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Mobile phone cancer link rejected

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 01:11 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Mobile phone safety has been much debated over the past two decades Further research has been published suggesting there is no link between mobile phones and brain cancer.

The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years as use of the phones has soared.

The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark looked at more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over an 18-year period.

Researchers concluded users were at no greater risk than anyone else of developing brain cancer.

The findings, published on the British Medical Journal website, come after a series of studies have come to similar conclusions.

'Reassuring'

But there has also been some research casting doubt on mobile phone safety, prompting the World Health Organization to warn that they could still be carcinogenic.

In doing so, the WHO put mobile phones in the same category as coffee, meaning a link could not be ruled out but could not be proved either.

The Department of Health continue to advise that anyone under the age of 16 should use mobile phones only for essential purposes and keep all calls short.

Continue reading the main story

These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults”

End Quote Hazel Nunn Cancer Research UK The Danish study, which built on previous research that has already been published by carrying out a longer follow-up, found there was no significant difference in rates of brain or central nervous system cancers among those who had mobiles and those that did not.

Of the 358,403 mobile phone owners looked at, 356 gliomas (a type of brain cancer) and 846 cancers of the central nervous system were seen - both in line with incidence rates among those who did not own a mobile.

Even among those who had had mobiles the longest - 13 years or more - the risk was no higher, the researchers concluded.

But they still said mobile phone use warranted continued follow up to ensure cancers were not developing over the longer term, and to see what the effect was in children.

Hazel Nunn, head of evidence and health information at Cancer Research UK, said: "These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in adults."

Prof Anders Ahlbom, from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, praised the way the study was conducted, adding the findings were "reassuring".

Prof David Spiegelhalter, an expert specialising in the understanding of risk who is based at the University of Cambridge, said: "The mobile phone records only go up to 1995 and so the comparison is mainly between early and late adopters, but the lack of any effect on brain tumours is still very important evidence."

And Prof Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: "The findings clearly reveal that there is no additional overall risk of developing a cancer in the brain although there does seem to be some minor, and not statistically significant, variations in the type of cancer."

But the researchers themselves do accept there were some limitations to the study, including the exclusion of "corporate subscriptions", thereby excluding people who used their phones for business purposes, who could be among the heaviest users.

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Why the Latest Study on Cell Phone Use and Brain Cancer Won't Be the Last Word

AppId is over the quota
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Proving a negative in science is really, really hard — and that may well be the task that researchers trying to evaluate the potentially carcinogenic effects of cell phone use may have before them.

PHOTOS: See a Photographic History of Cell Phones

To wit: in a new study published in the BMJ, European researchers — looking at more than 300,000 Danes who had used cell phones — concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that using a cell phone increased the chance of developing a brain tumor. That was true even for people who had used cell phones for more than a decade, and the BMJ study is the biggest so far to look at cell phone radiation and cancer. As the study authors themselves wrote in the conclusion:

In this update of a large nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, there were no increased risks of tumours of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.

Case closed, right? That all depends on your perspective. Other researchers and activists were quick to criticize the study, arguing that it was still not broad enough to fully exonerate cell phones. Devra Davis, an expert in the environmental causes of illness and the president of the Environmental Health Trust, said in a statement:

From the way it was set up originally, this deeply flawed study was designed to fail to find an increased risk of brain tumors tied with cellphone use. In order for any study of a relatively rare disease like brain tumors to find a change in risk, millions must be followed for decades.

Indeed, that's what makes it so hard to design a study that can give us a definitive answer on the potential risks — if any — posed by cell phones. Brain tumors are extremely rare and strike for mostly unknown reasons, and they can take decades to develop. Cell phones have only been used heavily for the past decade or so, which means that enough time may not have yet passed for the potential impacts of cell phone use to show up in brain cancer statistics.

MORE: 5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Cell Phone Exposure

At the same time, cell phones have become virtually ubiquitous. There are more than 5 billion cell phone subscriptions in the world, which means it's becoming nearly impossible for scientists to find a control group that hasn't used mobile phones.

Perhaps it's not surprising then that the results of research into cell phones have been so confusing and contradictory. Less than six months ago the International Agency for Research on Cancer called cell phones "possibly carcinogenic," the first official statement that mobiles could indeed pose some danger. (Earlier assessments by the World Health Organization and national public health agencies had mostly concluded that cell phones were safe.) But "possibly carcinogenic" is a long way from definitely cancer-causing — coffee and pickles, among other common things, are also classified as "possibly carcinogenic."

The multiyear, multinational Interphone study, which was supposed to lay the question to rest, mostly exonerated cell phones when the results were released last year, but that research was so muddled that it was hard for either side to make heads or tails of it.

MORE: 1 in 6 Cell Phones Contaminated with Fecal Matter, Says Study

The reality is that where you stand on cell phone risks likely has a lot more to do with your individual biases than it has to do with hard science. Skeptics of the cell phone-cancer connection point to the fact that mobile handsets emit very low levels of nonionizing radiation — too weak to damage DNA, which is the way that X-rays and other stronger forms of radiation can cause cancer.

But believers in the connection note that the radiation may impact cells in another way, and that there has yet to be a well-designed, long-term study that accurately tracks how we use cell phones today — which is to say, nearly all the time.

If you're suspicious of cell phones, however, it's going to be nearly impossible to create a study that would answer all of your fears. After all, it's difficult to prove a negative, especially given how long it takes brain tumors to form. The good thing is that you don't need to stop using cell phones if you're worried; there are simple steps, including the use of a wired handset, that can greatly reduce your exposure to any radiation. That's a better bet than waiting for scientists and activists to answer the question for good.

Bryan Walsh is a senior writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bryanrwalsh. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME

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New health phone number to launch

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1 October 2011 Last updated at 15:36 GMT Currently, around 14,000 people a day call NHS Direct for medical advice A non-emergency telephone number for NHS services is to launch across England, the Department of Health says.

The 111 number, which has been tested in four areas, will be available nationally by April 2013.

The service will replace NHS Direct, which the government announced it was scrapping last year.

It will give health advice and information about services such as out-of-hours GPs, walk-in centres, emergency dentists and pharmacies.

The government says it will reduce confusion and effectively abolish the concept of "out-of-hours" in the NHS.

After pilot schemes in County Durham, Nottingham, Lincolnshire and Luton, the service will be extended to the Isle of Wight and Chesterfield before Christmas.

The government says NHS Direct is expected to "retain a role" in its the delivery, staffed by call advisers supported by nurses.

'Simple number'

Currently, around 14,000 people a day call NHS Direct for medical advice, with the service costing £123m a year to run.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "The new 111 service will mean patients can access the whole of the NHS through just one simple number.

"This marks another important step in modernising the NHS and giving patients greater control and choice over their healthcare."

Dr Clare Gerada, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "Not only will callers to the service be advised on what to do but also to be directed to the appropriate local service to address their need consistently.

"However, patients should be aware that this is not a replacement for the current system and that they can continue to call their GP practice as normal."

The change will not affect existing NHS helpline services in Scotland and Wales.

Critics claimed the decision to scrap NHS Direct would undermine the quality of the service by reducing the number of qualified nurses answering calls.

And shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said last year that the service saved the NHS £200m a year and played a key role in taking pressure off the health service.

But last June the British Medical Association said MPs should consider scrapping the telephone service, saying it was not cost-effective.

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