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To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8786)	1/12/2001 2:28:31 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 34857

<My problem with many of these studies is the latency period. Let's face it; many tumors take 20 years to develop since the exposure to carcinogens. We won't find out anything really definitive until two decades after the analog phone craze took off around 1988-1990. Partly because brain tumors are rare, partly because they might take a very long time to develop.> So we should expect the average age for those people in the study to be 50 years if we expect latency of a couple of decades. If there were 5 people in that study whose tumours were due to cellphone radiation, they would be below the margin of error or statistical significance, whichever is the lower. And that's after only 5 years or so of cellphone use. Of the 782 people with a tumour, perhaps only 100 had used a cellphone to any significant extent. If another 20 years went by, especially with continued cellphone use, the tumour development process could continue and we could end up with 50 of that many people with a cellphone-induced tumour. This study doesn't seem to exclude that. I think the study was near useless. Sure, it shows that people are not dropping like flies, but that's not what many people think anyway. It's the small numbers we are looking for. Here's the National Cancer Institute link: rex.nci.nih.gov Here's The New England Journal of Medicine link: nejm.org <Methods. We examined the use of cellular telephones in a case-control study of intracranial tumors of the nervous system conducted between 1994 and 1998. We enrolled 782 patients through hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona; Boston; and Pittsburgh; 489 had histologically confirmed glioma, 197 had meningioma, and 96 had acoustic neuroma. The 799 controls were patients admitted to the same hospitals as the patients with brain tumors for a variety of nonmalignant conditions. Results. As compared with never, or very rarely, having used a cellular telephone, the relative risks associated with a cumulative use of a cellular telephone for more than 100 hours were 0.9 for glioma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.5 to 1.6), 0.7 for meningioma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.3 to 1.7), 1.4 for acoustic neuroma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.6 to 3.5), and 1.0 for all types of tumors combined (95 percent confidence interval, 0.6 to 1.5). There was no evidence that the risks were higher among persons who used cellular telephones for 60 or more minutes per day or regularly for five or more years. Tumors did not occur disproportionately often on the side of head on which the telephone was typically used. Conclusions. These data do not support the hypothesis that the recent use of hand-held cellular telephones causes brain tumors, but they are not sufficient to evaluate the risks among long-term, heavy users and for potentially long induction periods. > It would not find needles in the haystack and that's what we are looking for. I think the easiest test is to count the tumours noting which half of the brain they are in, check which ear the person holds the phone to, [preferably by demonstration rather than a verbal test to avoid people confusing their left and right or being forgetful]. Since 70% [less than 80%, more than 60% - my count isn't accurate yet] of people hold the phone on the right side, we should see 70% of cellphone tumours on the right side. So with a large number of cases, we should see a right-side skew if cellphones are a cause [unless most people sleep on their left side and the extra blood pressure on that side balances the tumours out, or some other frustrating confounding variable does something similar, for example, driving on the right side of the road leaves the left side of the brain vulnerable to incoming high energy radiation, the right side being protected by the steel roof of the car.] Mqurice

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8786)	1/15/2001 11:50:46 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

Have you heard this one before (like 3rd straight year)? >>Look For GSM/TDMA Phones At End Of Year By Malcolm Spicer CT Wireless January 16, 2001 A year from now, wireless carriers will be offering handsets that work on both GSM and TDMA networks, according to industry groups. "We expect TDMA and GSM interoperable handsets prototypes to be out toward the end of the second quarter this year and to be commercially available at the end of this year," Chris Pearson, spokesman for the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium, told Wireless Today. "Our customers expect to be able to enjoy services from their home network, wherever they may be in the world," said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association. The GSM Association and the Universal Consortium, which promotes the TDMA standard, last week agreed to include TDMA interoperability with GSM as a core component of the GSM Global Roaming Forum. The forum represents operators and equipment suppliers developing interoperability between GSM and other interface technologies, including CDMA and TDMA, as well as the iDEN and TETRA specialized mobile radio technologies. Several handset manufacturers already offer models that work on different spectrum bands using the same digital interface standard, such as phones that operate on GSM 800, 1800 and 1900 networks. However, no mobile phones are yet available that are able to use multiple standards, which is what GSM/TDMA handsets are being designed to do. Offering interoperable handsets will enable many GSM and TDMA carriers to offer more coverage to customers. That's because roaming agreements should increase between GSM and TDMA carriers with the new handsets, Pearson said. Because some carriers own both GSM and TDMA networks, they will be able to reduce roaming costs by keeping more of their customers' airtime traffic on their own networks, Pearson added. "There's a definite advantage to keeping your traffic on your own network versus roaming with others," he said. In addition to working with existing interface technologies, GSM/TDMA handsets manufactured according to the two standards will be capable of working on 2.5- and third- generation networks, Pearson said. "It bodes well for, at some point, getting seamless global communications," he said. "Right now, they're working on existing interoperability with GSM, but beyond that is 3G waiting for interoperability to happen." The Universal Consortium began working on interoperability issues with the North American unit of the GSM Association in 1999. Expanding the collaboration extends the interoperability target from handsets that will work on GSM and TDMA technologies used in North American markets to networks deployed worldwide. "It's not so North American-centric, but more worldwide in nature for TDMA and GSM interoperability," Pearson said. According to the GSM Association, there were 465 million wireless users on GSM and TDMA networks worldwide at the end of 2000, which represents more than 70 percent of the 655 million wireless users worldwide. The Bottom Line Stop us if you've heard this before: "We'll have that new product on the market in a year." Yeah, we've heard it before also. Interoperable GSM/TDMA phones will make an impression in the market, but we'll really be impressed if they are available at this time next year. << - Eric -