So it seems that Coke and Pepsi, among others have apparently been feeding us cancer causing chemicals in the guise of caramel colouring. It seems that California passed a good consumer law in 1986 that aims to protect state residents from “chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals.”
This law works kind of weirdly, a citizen can petition to have something (a chemical in this case) placed on the banned or restricted list. One mechanism of enforcement is via a law suit brought on by a private partner acting in the public interest. In this case the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is suing so that the beverage makers abide by the government guide lines.
Apparently the caramel colouring that makes Coke look like Pepsi contains a chemical called 4-methylimidazole (4-MI or 4-MEI). The California environmental guidelines say that the cans should contain only 29 micrograms. A recent sampling by Center for Science in the Public Interest showed cans to contain as much as 153 micro grams…over the limit by quite a bit. The guidelines though are regarded as overly tight; ergo why they have not been enforced. I suspect the political deadlock for the reason the limits not being changed. That my research did not uncover.
What it did find out though was the original research that caused 4MEI to be listed as a carcinogen in the first place. The study, done I think around 2006, showed that this chemical is linked to some types of cancer in rats at doses as low 15mg/kg. That would be about 1.3 grams for the average person per day.
Of course if you do the math, one has to wonder if this might be a case of being overly cautious. Now, I acknowledge that our bio-chemist is off on sabbatical so my take on this might be off slightly.
The study lasted a little over 2 years at which time the rats involved were dissected for cancers and other medical conditions. It was discovered that rats that consumed the 15/mg a day were adversely affected. i.e. that was the level that it was dangerous to inject this chemical. If we convert that amount though to cans of coke, we find the rats were drinking the equivalent of 98 cans a day
Now, the numbers that have been bantered about by the FDA and the American Beverage Association are a lot higher…almost 3000 cans a day…because the study used variable doses on different groups as well as a control group. At the largest dose tested, the rats were effectively drinking the thousands of cans per day, but the number I am using seems to be the minimal amount needed to have some effect. Regardless of which numbers you use, still seems like a lot of pop to me.
WiFi Hysteria
Okay, but should we not err on the side of safety…i.e. better overly cautious than under-cautious? Yes and no. As you all know, I am not fan of corporations…do not think the interests of the company are equal to the interests of the society…but. There is a point where we have to worry about crying wolf. We recently decried the attempts by some to ban Wi-Fi from schools because it (electro-magnetic radiation) is listed by the UN as a possible carcinogen. Like when atheist become racist, we in the skeptical community must be just as vigilant policing “our own” as we are THEM (whoever that may be).
I note that the CSPI Interest though does seem to be a decent resource. They do think any chemical is bad…they are not a fan of caffeine (can keep you awake), any and all forms of sugar (will make you fat) or salt (we eat a lot more than you would think).
So, perhaps this post is not intended to condemn the actions of the CSPI, but to use this instance as a cautionary tale that not all smoke leads to fire. Of course, as new research comes out, I may reverse my support…as any good skeptic should do when evidence leads to an updated conclusion.
In fact, as I reach the end of this post I think I can explain why this bothered me. The real question or fight is not 4-MEI allowed but why the FDA and other regulatory agencies are not enforcing the existing limit?
As my readers know I do not trust corporations and think regulatory agencies are necessary. But for regulation to work they must be enforced…and those agencies task with oversight should be doing their job. The fight should be getting the FDA to do its job and stop being a shill for Coke and Pepsi.
This week Alien worms, Killer Caramel, Freedom’s call to escape the Pope and Don’s interview with Tony Sobrado – Part 1(of 3), a frame-work for analysis conspiracy theories.
In one of the more off-beat things Don has discovered by listening to science pod-casts, we discuss how the common earthworm you see in your garden is an immigrant, just like you are (probably). Until the European settlers arrived to the continent, earthworms in Canada were (mostly) an extinct thing.
We look at a move by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to get pop companies reduce or remove the kind of caramel used because of a risk of cancer. We looked at the research and question whether this is the battle we want to make.
We discuss the recent ad by the Freedom From Religion Foundation placed in the New York Times. The ad was an appeal to ‘liberal’ or ‘marginal’ Catholics to use the uproar over prescription contraception coverage as the final push out the door of the church…advising them to leave “En mass”. We discuss some issues with the ad as well as the hypocrisy of the Pope on family values.
Tony Sobrado interview Part 1 – Constructing a theory about conspiracy theories
This week we start a three part series with Tony Sobrado. Tony Sabrado Tony is a research analyst and social scientist currently based in London. Author of the soon to be published book “Who rules the world: An analysis to conspiracy theory”. He also contributes to the Huffington Post.
Part 1 – We define what a conspiracy is, the sociological history of conspiracy theory and the frame-work Tony has developed to help analyse conspiracy theories from a social/political science perspective.
Martin Toren talks about how Barack Obama promised ‘change’ in US politics. He hinted at a more egalitarian, less militaristic society with more social justice. There is a strong argument that, not only have these goals not been realised, but that they would be impossible to achieve in present-day US society. An analysis will consider the situation by reviewing US political history and US political culture.
When: Wed. Mar. 14, noon,
Location: Alma VanDusen Room, Vancouver Public Library
Cost: Free
As part of SFU Philosphers’ Café, moderator Randall Mackinnon asks if you agree or disagree with Robert Buckman’s belief that a non-believer can live a good and ethical life.
The 3rd Annual Cross-Canada Skeptical Smackdown – Vancouver Edition
What is the Cross Canada Skeptical Smackdown?
It’s fun and challenging! But more specifically it is a British-style pub-quiz focussing on critical thinking and scientific topics. It occurs every year in multiple locations across Canada with local and national bragging rights at stake.
When: Thursday, March 22, 2012 – 7:00pm
Cost: Free for UBC Freethinkers Club members/ $2 for non-members
Location: Billy Bishop Legion, Vancouver.
The practice of medicine has come a long way from the days of the four humours. Instead of being filled with a delicate balance blood, snot, and various forms of “bile,” we now understand that our bodies are made of millions of cells, each with a specific job to do. We are now able to pinpoint the exact type of cell not doing its job in many diseases, and to figure out just what job it’s not doing. This knowledge can help us change or replace parts in our cells in order to treat some diseases. In the future, making our own engineered human mutants may help us accomplish medical feats not possible with traditional drugs.
Each cell in our body is specialized to perform a specific function. Our nerve cells conduct electricity to pass messages around the body, our red blood cells carry oxygen, and cells on the inside of our stomachs secrete acids to help with digestion. In order to carry out these jobs, our different types of cells produce specific enzymes and other proteins. Without these specialized components, the cells don’t function like they should. For some diseases there may be only a single protein that is not being produced, and this deficiency results in a whole host of symptoms. For example, type I diabetes is an entire disease caused by the body being unable to make a single protein: insulin. All proteins are made by decoding DNA sequences, and researchers are looking at treating diseases like diabetes by adding back the specific DNA needed to make the proteins that are missing or damaged. By inserting these specific DNA sequences into the genetic material already in our cells, we hope to engineer helpful cellular mutants that can produce missing proteins and reverse disease.
Sticking helpful genes into human cells can be a great way to fill the gap of a missing protein, but there are many dangers inherent in introducing new DNA. If a new piece of DNA is inserted into one of your chromosomes, it can land in any number of places, including in the middle of another gene. This can potentially result in mutation of a different protein, in which case you might cure the first disease but could actually cause another. A more common and potentially more dangerous scenario is if the new piece of DNA disrupts an oncogene (see DNA Repair just doesn’t give me the same Buzz). In this case adding the extra DNA can cause cancer, and this only needs to happen in a single cell to result in life-threatening disease.
While humans have only been sticking extra bits of DNA into cells for a few years, viruses have been accomplishing this task for millennia. For many viruses, part of their life cycle involves taking part of their DNA and inserting it into a chromosome of the cell they’re invading. In order to do this efficiently, viruses use a specific DNA-insertion tool: an enzyme called an integrase. This enzyme recognizes specific sequences on the DNA to be inserted and on the host cell DNA and stitches in the inserted piece at specific sites on the host chromosome.
Nature doesn’t always do what we want it to (sometimes disease happens), but it also produces some pretty useful tools that we can borrow. In the case of gene-based therapies, the danger is not knowing where an introduced piece of DNA will insert into our own DNA, and whether or not that might cause even more problems. By borrowing the ability of viral integrases to insert DNA pieces into specific places in the genome, we drastically cut down this risk. Scientists are now working on giving patients the specific DNA segments needed to replace proteins missing in certain diseases and including viral integrase enzymes to make sure that DNA is inserted in safe spots in our genome.
To most people messing with their DNA, the prospect of cancer, and viral enzymes are all pretty scary concepts. By understanding how each component works, however, we are able to use these concepts to treat diseases in innovative ways. Knowing more about almost anything can help it to be less worrisome and more useful.
– and on the seventh day we learn.
Each week I hope to give a synopsis of the interesting science stories I have heard on my plethora of science podcasts I listen to each week plus anything I pick up scanning the inter-web. This week’s top stories:
Words of the Week:
Perception – the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information.
Neural coding – concerned with how sensory and other information is represented in the brain by networks of neurons. The main goal of studying neural coding is to characterize the relationship between the stimulus and the individual or ensemble neuronal responses and the relationship among electrical activity of the neurons in the ensemble. It is thought that neurons can encode both digital and analog information.
Sensory neuroscience – explores the anatomy and physiology of neurons that are part of sensory systems such as vision, hearing, and olfaction. Neurons in sensory regions of the brain respond to stimuli by firing one or more nerve impulses (action potentials) following stimulus presentation.
Neuroscience – the scientific study of the nervous system.[1] Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, and psychology. The term neurobiology is usually used interchangeably with the term neuroscience, although the former refers specifically to the biology of the nervous system, whereas the latter refers to the entire science of the nervous system.
The scope of neuroscience has broadened to include different approaches used to study the molecular, cellular, developmental, structural, functional, evolutionary, computational, and medical aspects of the nervous system. The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual nerve cells to imaging of sensory and motor tasks in the brain. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also been aided by the study of neural networks.
This week’s top stories:
Climate Change Denial tries to doom the planet yet again! -
Officials at the state environmental agency in Texas have altered a scientific report they commissioned on Galveston bay, deleting mentions of human-induced climate change and rising sea levels.
The 2010 State of the Bay report has been delayed for a year by disputes between the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and scientists at the Houston Advanced Research Center, who are contracted to provide the state with regular reports on the bay.
John Anderson, an oceanographer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, who wrote the chapter of the report that was apparently edited by TCEQ management, told British newspaper The Guardian that the cuts reflected what he called “denial” throughout the state of Texas about the effects of global warming.
The TCEQ is headed by Bryan Shaw, known for saying that scientific arguments that human activities are changing the climate are a hoax. He was appointed by Texas governor Rick Perry, who has publicly said that such science is inconclusive.
“They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” Anderson told The Guardian. “That’s not scientific review, that’s just straightforward censorship.”
TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow told the Houston Chronicle in an email that the agency disagreed with information in the article, saying: “It would be irresponsible to take whatever is sent to us and publish it.”
But the changes made by TCEQ go against known scientific evidence. In addition to editing references to the role humans play in climate change, they deleted a sentence noting that water levels in the bay have been rising five times faster than the long-term average.
“I don’t think there is any question but that their motive is to tone this thing down as it relates to global (climate) change,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s not about the science. It’s all politics.”
Climate Change denial…mental dexterity to maintain mental dogma! -
A group of scientists known for their scepticism about climate change has reanalysed two centuries’ worth of global temperature records. Their study largely confirms previous ones: it finds strong evidence that Earth is getting hotter.
“The valid issues raised by [climate] sceptics, when addressed fully and in detail, do not significantly change the answer,” says lead author Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley. In a testimony to the US Congress earlier this year, Muller questioned whether global temperature records showed a significant warming during the 20th century.
His project, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST), concludes that land temperatures have risen by 1 °C since the 1950s. This is largely in line with the three existing global temperature records
Contrary to earlier studies that are often quoted by climate sceptics, the BEST researchers find that including data from weather stations in cities – which are warmer than rural areas – makes little difference to the overall trend. “Urban warming does not unduly bias estimates of recent global temperature change,” they say.
David Whitehouse, science adviser to The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based think tank that has former British finance minister Nigel Lawson for chairman and lobbyist against efforts to reduce or regulate Greenhouse gasses (GHG). “Everybody agrees that the temperature has warmed. The people who disagree about temperatures are the barking mad end of the spectrum.”
Good, story over…the climate deniers have seen the light; now let’s start cutting GHGs!!! What? No???? They still are deniers? How?
“They’re concentrating on the wrong question,” says
He claims the uncertainty lies in the size of the human effect on the climate, as compared to natural effects (see “Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter”).
Science writer Nigel Calder, who was editor of New Scientist from 1962 to 1966, says: “The graph of global land temperature changes associated with BEST’s announcement neatly confirms that the warming stopped about 15 years ago. The sun’s recent laziness has apparently cancelled any effect of ever-increasing manmade greenhouse gases.”
In contrast, an analysis published this summer found a significant warming trend between 1995 and 2010. Studies of solar activity have found no correlation with global temperature trends.
When one starts with a position and then attempts to find data to confirm your preconceived ideas, one’s ability to delude is boundless.
James Haxby et all in a paper published in the journal Neuron has shown that different individuals’ brains use the same, common neural code to recognize complex visual images.
Haxby developed a new method called hyper-alignment. It creates a common set of parameters compared to patterns in other people’s brains that transforms an individual’s brain activity patterns (specifying the visual images) into a code.
Because of variability in brain anatomy, brain decoding had required separate analysis of each individual. Although detailed analysis of an individual could break that person’s brain code, it didn’t say anything about the brain code for a different person. In the paper, Haxby shows that all individuals use a common code for visual recognition, making it possible to identify specific patterns of brain activity for a wide range of visual images that are the same in all brains.
As a result of their research, the team showed that a pattern of brain activity in one individual can be decoded by finding the picture or movie that evoked the same pattern in other individuals.
Participants in the study watched the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark while their patterns of brain activity were measured using fMRI. In two separate experiments, they viewed still images of seven categories of faces and objects (male and female human faces, monkey faces, dog faces, shoes, chairs and houses) or six animal species (squirrel monkeys, ring-tailed lemurs, mallards, yellow-throated warblers, ladybugs and luna moths).
Analysis of the brain activity patterns evoked by the movie produced the common code. Once the brain patterns were in the common code, including responses that were not evoked by the movie, distinct patterns were detected that were common across individuals and specific for fine distinctions, such as monkey versus dog faces, and squirrel monkeys versus lemurs.
Now, to express a personal view, i think it important to note that they claim only to compare what the ‘wetware’ records not ACTUALLY what we perceive. There is a difference between the optical biology and the cognitive perception. So way may in a more objective way say they are experience the same stimulus but not that they perceive the same thing. This research may go a significant way to help delineate instinctual brain from cognitive mind.
In what is described as the largest study on the subject to date, Danish researchers found no evidence that the risk of brain tumours was raised among 358,403 mobile phone subscribers over an 18-year period.
Previous studies on a possible link between phone use and tumours have been inconclusive particularly on long-term use of mobile phones. Some of this earlier work took the form of case control studies involving small numbers of long-term users and were shown to be prone to error and bias. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields, as emitted by mobile phones, as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
The researchers say they observed no overall increased risk for tumours of the central nervous system or for all cancers combined in mobile phone users.
Case close! No, you wonder where the fear-crazies get their fuel, well at the end of the study (possibly to ensure continued research grants? no, just the conspirator in me talking) they added the line:
“However, as a small to moderate increase in risk for subgroups of heavy users or after even longer induction periods than 10-15 years cannot be ruled out, further studies with large study populations, where the potential for misclassification of exposure and selection bias is minimised, are warranted.”
Which means fear-crazies (and perhaps the overly cautious) will point to that line and say ‘See, there is a potential risk!!!!!!’ Of course what the researchers meant was ‘our study was of a limited time period, so we can’t speak about things we don’t know yet’ and ‘it’s possible for some people to be allergic or hypersensitive to cellphones…not likely but we did not study that so we cannot speak about things we did not study’.
A published paper in PloS One shows an analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
Complex systems analysts provided a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to Occupy Wall Street movement or our listeners. But the study, by James Glattfelder et all at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).
Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world’s economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy – whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.
Using Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.
At the center is a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
The super-entity may not result from conspiracy but the natural evolution of capitalism (as Marx predicted). The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, commented that he feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute, suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.
A new type of robot makes its own body parts using spray-on foam. Such a design could one day be useful in situations in which the exact type of robot needed is not known beforehand, such as space exploration or reconnaissance.
Created by Shai Revzen and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Foambot consists of a wheeled “mothership” platform along with several simple joint modules capable of powered bending and flexing. The platform has an on-board supply of chemical reagents and a spray nozzle; when mixed, the reagents expand into hard urethane foam.
Revzen says the system would be useful for situations in which robots need to navigate unforeseen obstacles. A snake-like body might be better for crawling around rocks, for example, while a quadruped might be better at traversing open ground. Since Foambots can return to the mothership to be modified, they could be used to deal with an array of tasks.
Okay, after watching the video…not so impressive but then again, primordial slime weren’t much to look at either.
Ask any graduate student and they might tell you caffeine is a lifeline. Ask a health enthusiast and they might tell you it’s a poison. Ask a physician and between sips they might advise you that it’s fine in moderation. If you decide to ask the researchers behind a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, they’ll let you know that caffeine can help prevent skin cancer. As a bonus, they’ll even tell you why.
Before we can talk about what role enzymes play in cancer, we need a very brief description of how cancer works. Cancer occurs in pretty much all life forms that exist, like us, as groups of cells. This is in contrast to single-celled organisms like bacteria and yeasts. Cancer is basically uncontrolled growth of specific cells. All the cells in our body usually divide to form new cells, thus growing the tissue, at specific rates and under specific circumstances. Cancer is when the cells divide very rapidly without obeying the rules, so to speak, of when they are supposed to replicate. One of the reasons that normal cell division is so regulated is to make sure that the new cells coming out of cell division are healthy and have accurate copies of the parent-cell DNA. When replication is happening too quickly, there is no time for the cell “quality control” mechanisms to check that everything is honky dory, and the result can be new cells with mistakes in the genetic code. These aberrant cells not only have functional due to the mutations, but will also go on to divide rapidly, causing a cascade of rapidly dividing, unhealthy cells that form the tumors associated with cancer. So what is the trigger for this cascade? What causes that initial cell to start dividing too fast? As I mentioned, normal cell division is closely regulated, and if something causes a problem in one of the tools the cell uses to regulate division, the regulation system can go out the window. The genes coding for these regulatory tools are often called oncogenes (basically “cancer genes”) as mutations in these genes are likely to cause cancer.
There are many things coming at us every day that can cause DNA damage and, if we’re unlucky, cause mutations in an oncogene. These range from UV-rays to charbroiled steak to chemicals we make inside our own cells or mistakes by our cellular DNA-manipulation machinery. In fact, much DNA damage is done every day inside each one of us, so why are we still up and walking around? Enter the enzyme. Not one enzyme, in fact, but an arsenal of enzymes, each with a specific job to do in DNA-maintenance. In thinking of enzymes in your body, you can think of each one having a very specific skill, like trades-people working to build a house. The plumber doesn’t put in the electrical work and only the floor guy puts in the tile. With enzymes it goes even further, so that in laying the tile you’d have one guy lay the grout, one guy pick up the tile, another to position it, another to press it down, another to wipe it clean, etc. In talking of DNA, there is a set of enzymes for making the DNA, specific sets of enzymes to repair specific types of DNA damage, and specific sets of enzymes to detect specific types of damage at specific times and signal to the DNA repair enzymes to get to work.
Before we get too jittery, lets talk about how caffeine affects this process. We all have an enzyme called ATR that is involved in a couple things we’ve talked about. This enzyme is a kinase, meaning that it catalyzes transfer of a phosphate group from one molecule onto another enzyme. This might seem a bit inconsequential in the context of something as huge as cancer, but this one transfer reaction is a recognizable signal in the cell that is passed along and amplified, eventually triggering the action of enzymes tasked with repairing certain types of DNA damage, including that caused by UV-rays. The enzyme ATR also happens to be part of the division regulation “tools” that we talked about. It’s a kinase that performs its role as part of a cell division checkpoint, a time when activities in the cell determine if it will go on to divide, or kill itself in a process called apoptosis.
Caffeine binds to ATR and stops it from doing its job. This means that when some kinds of DNA-damage is detected, ATR does nothing (instead of transferring that all-important phosphate), the DNA is not repaired, and instead of replicating, the cell dies. Wait a second, this sounds like a bad thing; how does this prevent cancer? The problem with DNA repair enzymes is that for certain types of DNA damage, there is no way for them to ensure that the DNA is put back together exactly like it was before the damage. Sometimes these enzymes can only physically fix the break and hope that the sequence is repaired by luck, or that it was in a spot that didn’t matter much anyway. If this type of repair happens in an unlucky spot, however, like an oncogene, the repair makes the DNA look physically okay, but the resultant mutation can have cancerous consequences. In these cases, NOT repairing the DNA effectively causes cellular suicide before the very first cancer cell can form.
Enzymes have a role in everything our bodies do, from detecting signals and passing messages, to constructing and repairing cellular components. Everything is controlled in a delicate balance, and often this control is itself achieved by enzymes. As this example illustrates, turning an enzyme “off” is an important component of cellular control mechanisms. Although our bodies have many built-in off switches, outside chemicals can also interact with our enzymes with ultimate results that can be difficult to predict. So next time you’re chowing down you can look at your food and ask, “hey, what enzyme are you hooking up with?”
If you liked this post, you might want to check out others on my blog: And That’s Science!
Recently the World Health Organization released a statement regarding cell phones and possible connection to cancer. Almost immediately newspapers and media took this release and ran headlines saying “World Health Organizations say cell phones linked to cancer”
What’s really going on here?
First, it’s important to know that the World Health Organization didn’t release a study or any research. They issued a press release – an actual report is scheduled to appear in The Lancet on July 1st. That’s right, their research, which no one has actually seen, remains…well, unseen. Instead, media and newspapers are reporting on press release, which in of itself isn’t too odd, rather, I have to wonder exactly why scientists at the W.H.O. thought it would be a good idea to release a press release on scientific findings that are not available to the public or other scientists.
It’s also important to understand exactly what the W.H.O. have said here. To quote them, they have classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
To quote them again:
The Working Group [the scientists doing the research] discussed and evaluated the available literature on the following exposure categories involving radiofrequency electromagnetic fields:
-occupational exposures to radar and to microwaves;
-environmental exposures associated with transmission of signals for radio, television and wireless telecommunication; and
-personal exposures associated with the use of wireless telephones.
According to their results, they classified the evidence for the possibility that cell phone use could cause glioma and acoustic neuroma as limited, further, they classified the evidence that cell phone use could cause other types of cancer as inadequate.
As a result of this, the working group moved cell phones into a new classification. These levels of classification are:
Group 1 Carcinogenic to humans
Group 2A Probably carcinogenic to humans
Group 2B Possibly carcinogenic to humans
Group 3 Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans
Group 4 Probably not carcinogenic to humans
Cell phones were placed into Group 2B Possibly carcinogenic to humans.
There’s a number of major problems when trying to research the relation between cell phones and cancer. One of the first being that there is no plausible mechanism for which using a cell phone could cause cancer. Basically, a cell phone emits to low amount of energy to mutate strands of DNA which would cause cancer. And since cell phones don’t contain any cancer causing carcinogens like asbestos or something, there really isn’t a mechanism that would cause the cancer.
In addition to that, we do have some rather interesting points of data to consider. There are currently over 5 billion cell phones in use right now and yet cancer rates have not increased in proportion to this figure. Now, this factoid alone isn’t science, but at the very least, people arguing that cell phones cause cancer need to find some way to address this discrepancy.
We should also consider the INTERPHONE study, whose results were reported last year, showed no evidence of a link between cell phone use and glioblastoma or meningioma. Of course, the study is now generally thought to be inadequate, for reasons laid out here. Nevertheless, the study; which involved 13 countries looking for any sort of link between cell phones and two types of brain cancer, glioblastoma and meningioma, and had a case control study including 2,708 glioma patients and 2,409 meningioma patients, along with matched controls; does at least provide some evidence in the realm of proof of concept, or rather, a lack of proof of concept; since the study failed to show a credible connection between cell phone use and cancer.
Another interesting study that was quite recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers looked at where brain cancer was forming in relation to the cell phone. The idea being that if cell phone radiation was causing cancer, the tumours would form in an area of the brain close to the source of the radiation. They based this hypotheses on the observed fact that that cell phone energy absorbed from the radio field created by cell phones depends strongly on the distance from the source.
Since the available evidence seems to indicate that it is virtually physically impossible for cell phones to cause brain cancer, now, that doesn’t mean it could never happen, but to say that it could, one would require significant evidence to essentially overturn some very established theories in physics and biology.
According to Orac, the medical blogger at Respectful Insolence, at worst cell phones are either Group 3 (Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans ) or Group 4 (Probably not carcinogenic to humans) , not Group 2B.
We are left again to ponder the bad choices of World Health Organization. My biggest concern is a matter of credibility. Because of the authority and influence the W.H.O has, one would think they would use a very strict policy to determine what they say to the media, especially about a contentious issue like cell phones and cancer. If the W.H.O stir up a controversy, which turns out to be a bust, they come across as alarmists and worse, even pandering to the evil drug companies that in turn get to sell expensive treatments. If the W.H.O don’t address concerns like this, they get accused of being in the pocket of big business like cell phone companies. This places them in a predicament that I can’t imagine they like being in.
Another concern for me is the potential for a misuse of policy because of such a pronouncement by the W.H.O. And that may be what we get. The Ontario New Democratic Party, is now pushing for warning labels on cell phones after the press release from the World Health Organization.
NDP health critic France Gelinas has gone on to say that children should not use cell phones at all. Gelinas has pushed for such labels in the past but has renewed her efforts recently. Now best case scenario, Gelinas is just misinformed and this will be a minor embarrassment once the science is explained to her. Worst case scenario is Gelinas is in the camp that scary words like radiation are scary and must be stopped. I don’t want to lump her in with those who say wi-fi will kill you or that power lines cause cancer, but it does make me worry that such policy could act as a slippery slope for more fear mongering about scary sounding words.
I discovered a study about the relative rarity of cancer in ‘ancient’ societies. It was focused on physical evidence from Egypt (mummies and bones) and a review of ‘medical’ text from Egypt, Greece and Rome. I did a review of the article and was going to present it on our Oct 19th show. My take at the time was that it was a measured and well done study. It was forthright in its methodology, made reference to limitations in its assumptions, was limited in its claims and provided a plausible mechanism to explain their results.
As often happened the SGU (Skeptics Guide to the Universe) will a few days later duplicate some of our segments, as they did on this one. I was STUNNED at how wrong they got it. It sounded to me like they only read the media spin (which often spins in the wrong direction) and did not actual read the study. As a good skeptic, I did not want to assume something with checking out the ‘source’ material…as I did with the original study. So I checked out Steve Novella’s blog Neurologica.
Neurologica did not focus on the study (something I do have issues with) but on the extensive interview one of the researched gave on the University of Manchester website. I then checked out the interview and was stunned. It seemed one of the authors of the study did not read their own study. So, it turns out the SGU did get it wrong…kinda…and at least one of the authors of the study(Dr. David) got it very wrong – I still think the study is good. Why?
Straw Man – the SGU got it totally wrong when they stated in the podcast that the study stated that there was NO cancer in the ancient world. This, sadly, coloured the rest of their conversation and led them to disprove something not actually claimed by the study (although to add confusion something claimed by Dr. David). Actually the study pointed out a number of cases where there was physical evidence for cancer and more notably used ancient ‘medical’ text to show that cancer was known and treated (poorly) although rarely cured. The text stated that ‘medicine’ was ineffective and that the most common treatment was surgery or cauterizing the tumour.
The issue with longevity – First, Steve misread (shall I be generous?) and stated the study only involved mummies between 25-50yrs that is wrong. What the study said was the life expectancy was 40-50 for the wealthy and 25-30 for the poor. Actual age of the specimens was rarely mentioned. The SGU and the study noted that there was an issue comparing cancer rates of a population that had a life expectancy of 25-50yr to one that has an expectancy of 70-80yrs. The study addressed this by pointing out that a number of conditions have been diagnosed such atherosclerosis, Paget’s disease of bone and arthritis. Further, comparisons of ‘child’ or ‘early onset’ cancers could be reasonable compared. The SGU rightfully points out that the biggest childhood cancers, leukemia, leaves little to no ‘archaeological evidence’. However Osteosarcoma, one of the top ten childhood cancers is a bone cancer leaving notable evidence. Steve inaccurate states that “there does not appear to be any child mummies in their study”. However the study does make explicit reference to Chilean child mummies. The SGU also seems to imply that NO cancers occur between childhoods and ‘old age’, this is not true.
Causes of Cancer – as is stated earlier, The SGU is not totally off based with their attack. Professor Rosalie David, one of the study’s authors, in an interview on the University of Manchester website, shows a complete lack of understanding of her own study or (as i think the SGU suspects) plans to use the study to make tangential claims. She did state that “There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer” something explicitly contradicted in her own study which stated that “Carcinogenic Environmental factors have been linked to up to 75% of human cancers” meaning that 25% are not linked and that’s assuming all carcinogenic environmental factors are ‘man-made’ which is not true either. For example, Bangladesh is plagues with high concentrations of arsenic in their water due to natural deposits. She weakens here own conclusions by stating that with regards to the ancient cancers “we are not sure what caused them”. The study also points out that “Various malignancies have been reported in non-human primates”; I am unsure how she connects these to ‘modern industrialization’.
One the SGU side, they seem to deny that ‘modern life’, with the dramatic increase in ‘man-induced’ environmental carcinogenic, could possible result in more cancers now than then. We know that chemical pollutions, nuclear bomb testing (in its day) and other factors have caused increase risk of cancer that just did not exist even 300 yrs. ago. Its equivalent to saying (and I am being perhaps too strong here) that electrocutions are about the same now as in ancient times. I think I understand why they are reacting so strongly to this, there are a number of people who claim everything in the ancient days was better or that this proved WiFi causes cancer – that’s nuts. However, I think they have overreacted (at least to the underlying article).
Lack of evidence – Steve says it is “an inherently weak form of evidence on which to base conclusions”. That is valid sometimes but not always. For example, if we had the hypothesis cancer was non-temporally correlated (ie cancer rates have changed little over history) then one would expect a similar number of cases on ancient times as now…that the fact there are dramatically fewer then than now is evidence for a change in prevalence. In fact I would have to ask Steve what evidence would he accept to show that something was worse now than then or visa-versa? I think, in this case, he got this completely wrong. I think, the worst criticism of the study I could find was the lack of numbers. There are a lot of mummies in the world, but it is not directly stated how many are represented in this meta-analysis nor is there any statistical correlation. Bone cancers, for example, are relatively common in children but that still only amounts to 5-10 per million per year. So, if 1000 mummies, we would expect < 1 case…their claim is weakest on the numbers. I would also like to have seen a graduation of evidence. Jumping from ancient Egypt to modern society seems large. If their hypothesis is true, one would expect a gradual increase in cancer rates over time with an explosion in modern times (statistically speaking).
So, I am left a little flat. I think the study was good. However, I think at least one of the authors comments made overstated some claims of the study, contradicted their own study and made comments that were demonstrably false. I think, if the SGU (and more to the point Steve’s entry on Neurologica) was based on the study then they also did a hash of it. However, if you ignore the study and focus on what the authors stated about it and the media spin, their criticisms are more accurate. Irrespective, I liked the study and hated the inaccurate spin that followed it both by the author, the media and the SGU. Better luck next time.
So it seems that Coke and Pepsi, among others have apparently been feeding us cancer causing chemicals in the guise of caramel colouring. It seems that California passed a good consumer law in 1986 that aims to protect state residents from “chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals.”
This law works kind of weirdly, a citizen can petition to have something (a chemical in this case) placed on the banned or restricted list. One mechanism of enforcement is via a law suit brought on by a private partner acting in the public interest. In this case the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is suing so that the beverage makers abide by the government guide lines.
Apparently the caramel colouring that makes Coke look like Pepsi contains a chemical called 4-methylimidazole (4-MI or 4-MEI). The California environmental guidelines say that the cans should contain only 29 micrograms. A recent sampling by Center for Science in the Public Interest showed cans to contain as much as 153 micro grams…over the limit by quite a bit. The guidelines though are regarded as overly tight; ergo why they have not been enforced. I suspect the political deadlock for the reason the limits not being changed. That my research did not uncover.
What it did find out though was the original research that caused 4MEI to be listed as a carcinogen in the first place. The study, done I think around 2006, showed that this chemical is linked to some types of cancer in rats at doses as low 15mg/kg. That would be about 1.3 grams for the average person per day.
The study lasted a little over 2 years at which time the rats involved were dissected for cancers and other medical conditions. It was discovered that rats that consumed the 15/mg a day were adversely affected. i.e. that was the level that it was dangerous to inject this chemical. If we convert that amount though to cans of coke, we find the rats were drinking the equivalent of 98 cans a day
Now, the numbers that have been bantered about by the FDA and the American Beverage Association are a lot higher…almost 3000 cans a day…because the study used variable doses on different groups as well as a control group. At the largest dose tested, the rats were effectively drinking the thousands of cans per day, but the number I am using seems to be the minimal amount needed to have some effect. Regardless of which numbers you use, still seems like a lot of pop to me.
In fact, as I reach the end of this post I think I can explain why this bothered me. The real question or fight is not 4-MEI allowed but why the FDA and other regulatory agencies are not enforcing the existing limit?
