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Comment by abainbridge | Hacker News Reader

The article says, "more than 500 studies, have found harmful biologic or health effects from exposure to RFR at intensities too low to cause significant heating." The link to the 500 articles is https://drive.google.com/file/d/19CbWmdGTnnW1iZ9pxlxq1ssAdYl....

I checked the "conclusions" of the first two: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29996112 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29709736

Conclusion of 1) Despite the improved exposure assessment approach used in this study, no clear associations were identified. However, the results obtained for recent exposure to RF electric and magnetic fields are suggestive of a potential role in brain tumor promotion/progression and should be further investigated.

Conclusion of 2) Ever use of wireless phones was not significantly associated with risk of adult glioma, but there could be increased risk in long-term users.

They both read as, "we found no significant effect".

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Careful, you’re misinterpreting the document. The two studies you’ve picked are listed as “neither evidence of an effect or a null finding”, they are not included in the “more than 500 studies” finding harmful effects. Those studies are prefixed by “P” in the document and, although I haven’t counted, a rough estimate based on the number of pages makes it plausible that there are > 500.

That said, given the scientific consensus from rigorous meta-analyses, I expect that these “positive” studies are mostly of low quality and/or limited sample size. And scepticism is generally warranted when advocates start listing large numbers of studies instead of referring to a few meta-studies. As it happens, the best available meta-studies come to the opposite conclusion (namely, that there’s probably no harm from mobile EMF), so this long list is essentially bogus.

Good point. Thanks for the patient explanation.

To partly redeem myself, I followed the links to the first two articles prefixed by "P". They were https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29725476 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29268055

The first didn't have a conclusion and the results were just the measured RF power in an apartment.

The conclusion of the second is, "A total of 900-MHz EMF applied in middle and late adolescence may cause changes in the morphology and biochemistry of the rat ovarium.", which makes no sense. "A total of 900-MHz EMF" is gibberish. The complete text is not freely available.

The codes used are:

>> Study Effect Codes:

>> P This study reported effects from the exposure or radiation category (effects can be either positive or negative and may be primary or secondary outcomes)

>> N This study reported no effects from the exposure or radiation category

>> - This study offered important insights or findings but is neither evidence of an effect or a null finding

I'll be honest, this ordering seems dubious to me. P (for positive?) can show either positive or negative effects. N (for negative) shows no effects. - (for neither?) shows neither evidence of an effect or a null finding. I would think that P needs to be subdivided better to show which papers show a positive or negative effect.

Can someone do a count on the number of each category?

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