The Acreage Cancer Study

Dr. Alonso

Question for Dr. Alonso: If soda pop and cell phones cause brain cancer then wouldn't you think everyone in the U.S. would have brain cancer by now? Use some common sense.

Posted by AcreageCancerStudy on Feb 04, 2010

361 Views

5 Comments

Reply Jeanie

08:23 PM on February 08, 2010

As well, she was pointing out a myriad of possible causes. The family data collected would rule out cell phone usage for most of the girls but may be a factor in some of the girls.

Reply Jeanie

08:21 PM on February 08, 2010

Tracy; my point is that we cannot due experiments on human subjects; that is the ONLY research methodology that determines cause and effect. I think Dr. Alonso's wording is misleading. The best science can do as far as human subjects are concerned is to do correlational studies: finding a relationship between some agent people have been exposed to and a disease. For example, we know there is a strong relationship between fetal alcohol exposure (mother drinking during pregnancy) and fetal alcohol syndrome. Do you think experiments were done where some mothers were told to drink x amount of alcohol and the control group was given a placebo and then neonatal measurements were taken to see if there were any effects? Nope. Not a chance; would never get by any human subjects review board. Instead, and sadly, we can find mothers who drank during pregnancy to see if there are neonatal outcomes and determine (1) is there a relationship and if so (2) how strong that relationship is. Of course some researchers use animals and conduct studies via the experimental method but extrapolating to humans is risky business.

Reply Jeanie

08:04 PM on February 08, 2010

I watched the video.

Reply Tracy

07:27 PM on February 08, 2010

Most of these girls did not have cell phones when diagnosed......

Reply Jeanie

06:37 PM on February 08, 2010

Who ever asked this question: more and more researchers, are in fact, bringing to light the possible relationship between cell phone usage and brain cancer. Does it CAUSE brain cancer? We'll never know this because this kind of study canNOT be ethically done.

Also, realize that smoking is associated with lung cancer but not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer and people who don't smoke get lung cancer. It's a genetic thing coupled with environmental triggers. Therefore, not everyone who uses a cell phone will get brain cancer and people who don't use cell phones will get cancer.