New York Times publicizes CDC inconsistency on cell phone RF safety
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.8157
At a low but persistent level, the media have continued stoking public worries over alleged health dangers from nonionizing low-level cell phone RF radiation. On 2 January, no less than the New York Times contributed with a business-section, front-page, above-the-fold report on cell phone policy confusion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Does the CDC counsel caution against cell phone RF or not?
Some of the stoking began in July with a news release headlined “Study suggests clear connection between wireless devices and cancer.” It announced the Ukrainian paper “Oxidative mechanisms of biological activity of low-intensity radiofrequency radiation” in the journal Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. The release reported that lead author Igor Yakymenko links RF not just to cancer, but to “other minor disorders such as headache, fatigue, and skin irritation.”
George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley , calling the paper “a study of hundreds of other studies,” observed that legally such findings “can put companies on notice of a possible product defect and danger” and that given “the size of this industry, the result could be a massive change in the technology and liability for market and its participants in the coming years.” A New York Daily News headline exclaimed “Hold the phone, Central! Cellphone radiation can cause cancer: study.” The opening sentence emphasized alarm: “The scientists were right—your cell phone can give you cancer.”
This commanded the attention of the conservative Breitbart website’s John Hayward, who expressed a different kind of alarm. Citing Turley, he warned that “the financial and legal fallout from product liability lawsuits could deliver a major blow to the industry, with one likely result being a significant increase in the cost of cell phones, from both redesigns meant to minimize potentially harmful radiation, and the cost of major lawsuits.”
Hayward asked, “Who knows what other sorts of nanny interventions we could face down the line? Phones treated like packs of cigarettes, slathered with warning labels? Mandatory warning messages piped into the ears of users when they’ve been on the phone too long?” He summed up:
Not to discount the results of any particular study, or meta-study, but it seems unwarranted to declare that all previous medical conclusions have been abruptly invalidated by the Ukrainian research and declare without reservation that “cell phones can cause cancer.” The proper attitude toward most science and medical stories is the “withering level of scrutiny and criticism” Professor Turley describes. If they survive that critical storm, it’s time to bust out the big headlines.
The second sentence in Hayward’s lead paragraph, though probably not the first, applies as well to the Times‘s prominently placed, indirectly related 2 January piece. Hayward wrote, “A hardy perennial of media scare stories is the ‘cell phones cause cancer’ debate, which headline writers love because it grabs the attention of virtually everyone, and it fits the general narrative of Big Business and consumerism as the ultimate predators. Stories that make the American lifestyle seem dangerous are difficult for the press to resist.”
The Times piece reported on implications of the following statement on a Centers for Disease Control webpage of frequently asked questions:
CDC has not changed its position on health effects associated with the use of cell phones. The agency updated these cell phone FAQs in June 2014 as part of efforts to ensure that health information for the public followed best practices, including the use of plain, easy-to-understand, language. During this process, revisions were introduced which inadvertently led some visitors to the web page to believe that a change in position had occurred. The corrected FAQs are now available on this page.
CDC announces changes in public health policy and recommendations through publication in the peer-reviewed literature, usually accompanied by outreach to partners and a media announcement. We apologize for any confusion that resulted from our efforts to ensure that agency information is presented in easy-to-understand language.
The Times‘s opening paragraphs summarized:
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidelines 18 months ago regarding the radiation risk from cellphones, it used unusually bold language on the topic for the American health agency: “We recommend caution in cellphone use.”
The agency’s website previously had said that any risks “likely are comparable to other lifestyle choices we make every day.”
Within weeks, though, the C.D.C. reversed course. It no longer recommended caution, and deleted a passage specifically addressing potential risks for children.
Mainstream scientific consensus holds that there is little to no evidence that cellphone signals raise the risk of brain cancer or other health problems; rather, behaviors like texting while driving are seen as the real health concerns. Nevertheless, more than 500 pages of internal records obtained by the New York Times, along with interviews with former agency officials, reveal a debate and some disagreement among scientists and health agencies about what guidance to give as the use of mobile devices skyrockets.
Although the initial C.D.C. changes, which were released in June 2014, had been three years in the making, officials quickly realized they had taken a step they were not prepared for. Health officials and advocates began asking if the new language represented a policy change. One state official raised the question of potential liabilities for allowing cellphones in schools.
A passage from early in the Times article gives a sense of the policy confusion that the newspaper is alleging:
Christopher J. Portier, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, the C.D.C. division that made the changes, disagreed with the decision to pull back the revised version. “I would not have removed it,” he said in an interview. “I would have been in support of a recommendation that parents look carefully at whether their children need cellphones or not.”
Dr. Portier, who led the center when the revision process was initiated, said he believed parents should have been presented “with enough information to say caution isn’t ill advised, because we really don’t know, and there are enough indicators to say we should be cautious.”
Dr. Portier also served on the International Agency for Research of Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization that in May 2011 called low-frequency radiation from cellphones and other devices a possible carcinogen, a designation that has also been used for coffee and pickled vegetables. He said the I.A.R.C. declaration led him to seek a review of the C.D.C. guidelines.
Immediately, however, the Times article then stipulates that “Portier’s view is not shared by many other experts. While sporadic claims about cellphones and cancer go back several decades, most American organizations echo the Federal Communications Commission, which says radio-frequency energy is not ‘effectively linked’ with ‘any known health problems.’” The article cites various scientific authorities, particularly in Europe, that present a less certain picture.
Does the CDC counsel caution against cell phone radiation or not? The Times‘s answer appears in the final paragraph: “‘Some organizations recommend caution in cellphone use,’ the agency’s guidelines now say. But the C.D.C. is not one of them.”
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Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.