My husband and I keep hearing about friends, or friends-of-friends, who have gotten brain cancer. It’s at the point where it is kind of freaking us out. I just heard of another one last night. The people tend to be in their 50s but other than that they have nothing in common (e.g. where they live, family history, etc.).
There are lots of statistics on the ent (such as this), but I can’t find historical information.
Is brain cancer on the rise? Or is this just a case of confirmation bias?
I did find this article, but none of the people I know were factory workers or had poor diets.
And this article talks about aspartame, but it’s kind of old. What’s the status on this?
Here’s another article. So it’s not confirmation bias. Is there any recent news on what could be causing this?
World Health Organization (WHO) released this on the 31st of May…
Your linked stories are both old, and as the National Cancer Institute has reported, brain cancer rates are stable. The postulated aspartame link has not been borne out.
From the previous NCI link:
“The relatively low variation in incidence and mortality rates for cancer of the brain and nervous system, nationally and internationally, suggests that environmental risk factors do not play a major role in this disease. In fact, other than hereditary tumor syndromes and increased familial risk without a known syndrome, the only known modifiable risk factor related to causation for brain tumors is exposure to ionizing radiation.”
The links in post #3 or #5 (which, incidentally, are to the same website) do not say anything about the frequency of brain cancer. What they say is that there is some evidence that perhaps certain electromagnetic frequencies may cause brain cancer, which may mean that perhaps cell phones may cause it. The evidence for this is rather weak though. The link in post #4 says that there has been no increase in brain cancer in the U.S. In fact, there is a very slow decrease in it. Yes, it’s just confirmation bias.
There’s an interesting article on the op-ed page of today’s Chicago Tribune, discussing what might be a cluster of brain cancer cases among those associated with Major League Baseball (players, coaches, etc.) in the late 1970s / early 1980s. The writer acknowledges that the sample is small, and it might just be random chance…but it also might be worth investigating, to see if there is some link.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0615-cancer-20110610,0,6430481.story
I guess a wireless internet router would be considered an RF emitter. Is that the same as ionizing radiation? I sit next to a router all day. Should I be concerned about this?
No it’s not, and no you shouldn’t. You should be more worried about someone outside getting fresh air and sunshine, since sunlight does contain ionizing radiation.
Yes, you should. You might be a candidate for a DVT or PE.
