Sweden: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

Thyroid cancer among women is skyrocketing all over the world. Incidence is growing faster than for any other cancer. This has been going on for a long time, and the reasons why remain elusive.

The prevailing view is that there’s been an “epidemic of diagnosis” —that is, overdiagnosis— particularly following a screening program. The tumors have always been there, the argument goes, but new and better detection tools (ultrasound, for example) have made it easier to spot small ones, many of which would likely never present a real threat. In any case, thyroid cancer is not one of the bad ones; 98-99 percent of those diagnosed survive at least five years, the highest for all cancers. Watchful waiting is often the best prescription.

The only recognized cause for thyroid cancer is ionizing radiation.

”A few days ago, I received an urgent warning from a longtime contact in Sweden. An industry associate had told him that the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s study on cell phone cancer risks was screwed up and essentially “useless.”

I was tempted to disregard it as nothing more than a corporate delusion. But the original source was said to be Maria Feychting, a professor at the Karolinska Institute and the vice chair of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). She had cast doubt on the landmark $25 million NTP RF–animal study in a talk presented at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences —the institute that awards the Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry every year.

I decided I had to check out the rumor.

Some leading epidemiologists have been saying that cell phones don’t pose a brain tumor risk because cancer rates are not going up. Now comes word that Swedish cancer registry data are in disarray and official statistics may be masking a disquieting trend.

Since 2008, there has been a close to 30% increase in patients with a brain tumor of an “unknown nature” and that increase is not reflected in the national cancer registry, according to a new analysis by...

The incidence of acoustic neuroma is not increasing in the Nordic countries, according to researchers from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The team —made up of members of Interphone that don't believe that cell phones lead to tumors looked at cancer registry records from 1987 to 2007.

Their paper appears in the September 27 issue of the ...

It was a "mistake," says Anders Ahlbom. That's how he explains why his "expert group" left out the Lahkola study from its report on important EMF developments in 2007 for SSI, the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (see our March 14 post).

The Lahkola study points to a significant increased risk of brain tumors among long-term cell phone users in five countries participating in the Interphone project. This was a curious omission since two of the Lahkola coauthors helped prepare the SSI report. In a comment that has now been appended to the report, here's what Ahlbom, the chairman of the panel, wrote: "the paper was discussed by the group and was part of the basis for the conclusions. However, it was by mistake overlooked when preparing the report. The Expert Group regrets this accidental omission."

What's missing is any mention at to why two other Interphone studies (from France and Israel), which showed elevated tumor risks, were also omitted from this same report.

The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI) has reiterated its advice that people should adopt a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phones. In a statement issued yesterday, the SSI warned that the latest results from the Interphone study  (see our January 22 and January 26 posts) "strengthen" the possibility that cell phones can lead to tumor development —both gliomas and acoustic neuromas.

An international team of researchers has found new evidence that long-term use of a mobile phone may lead to the development of a brain tumor on the side of the head the phone is used. In a study which will appear in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Cancer, epidemiologists from five European countries report a nearly 40% increase in gliomas, a type of brain tumor, among those who had used a cell phone for ten or more years. The increase is statistically significant. In addition, there was a trend showing that the brain tumor risk increased with years of use. The new paper is posted on the journal's Web site.

Is it a warning sign or a statistical fluke?

This is the question prompted by a new epidemiological study, released on Friday (January 27) which shows —once again— that one may be more than twice as likely to develop certain types of tumors after using a cell phone for more than ten years.

Mobile phones may present a cancer risk after all. Epidemiologists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have found that the phones can increase the incidence of acoustic neuromas, benign tumors of the auditory nerve. The nerve is exposed to radiation during the normal use of a cell phone.

Those who used mobile phones for at least ten years, had close to twice the risk of developing acoustic neuromas, according to a team led by Dr. Maria Feychting and Prof. Anders Ahlbom of the Karolinska’s Institute of Environmental Medicine. Ahlbom is the deputy director of institute.