Mobile madness spreads

Like a prion of ignorance the dodgy paper reported in the Independent on Sunday yesterday has infected many more media outlets.

The BBC report on the story and it isn’t good enough for them just to uncritically report this paper as fact but they feel compelled to add some embellishments of their own.

Scientists believe radiation may stimulate the body’s stress mechanism. Altneratively [sic], it may disrupt production of the hormone melatonin, which controls the body’s internal rhythms.

This statement is not attributed to any individual or organisation and is not mentioned in the paper. It’s pretty sloppy for a news outlet to make authoritative statements without providing any evidence that the statement is correct and not just made up by the journalist. I am not aware of any research linking microwave radiation from mobile phones with differences in melatonin production, only that melatonin may have a protective effect (although to show protection you would have to show that mobile phone usage causes harm which has not been done convincingly so far). In fact a quick literature search comes up with papers showing that melatonin production is unaffected.

The BBC compound this fiction with a quote from Alasdair Phillips, powerwatch director, an organisation the BBC describes that “researches the effects of electromagnetic fields on health”. Ben Goldacre has been very critical of the BBC’s pandering to Alasdair Phillips scaremongering and has pointed out many flaws in the infamous Panorama episode featuring him. It seems odd that the BBC would continue to quote such a discredited individual.

The Telegraph also cover this story today and embellish the results further.

People using a handset before going to bed take longer to reach deeper stages of sleep and spend less time in them, researchers found.

The paper didn’t actually use a handset to generate their microwaves. Rather they strapped a giant big machine to the subjects heads and blasted them for three hours.

The Telegraph, like the IoS, conflate findings that teenagers who use their phones late at night are less likely to sleep well with these results.

The Daily Mail also get in the act and ramp up the scaremongering by emphasising the importance of the study.

Using a mobile phone before going to bed can damage your health, according to a major study.

Of course it isn’t a major study. It is a tiny study under very artificial conditions that doesn’t come up with any particularly compelling evidence and neglects to present the full data set. PJ reckons that

It also sounds like this paper was derived from a conference presentation and is thus likely incomplete, preliminary, and every so slightly dodgy (I hate to think how many ‘groundbreaking’ conference abstracts I’ve seen that have subsequently failed to be published as full peer reviewed papers, or have been published showing the opposite result).

Still what do we know? The cunts in the media have decided it is a good story and fuck the accuracy of the reporting or the strength of the science. Those piss poor critically retarded scientific illiterates in fleet street know what’s best. It doesn’t matter if the evidence is weak, the conclusions suspect and the most likely explanations ignored, all that matters is the story.

I’m sure plenty of other media cesspits are uncritically reporting this too, feel free to post links in the comments and I’ll update the post.