Feb 4, 2018 07:30 PM
https://undark.org/article/cell-phone-ra...th-safety/
EXCERPT: . . . In response, the magazine Popular Science ran a story under the headline “There’s no evidence that cell phones pose a public health risk, no matter what California says.” In the piece, Popular Science reporter Sara Chodosh gave a rundown of why it’s so difficult to study the safety of phones, concluding: “There’s no evidence that cell phones are dangerous to your health. Period.” She also accused the State of California of fear-mongering about phone safety, and ended her piece by telling readers, “Heck, you could duct-tape [your phone] to your face if you so choose.”
Shortly afterward, in a brief segment on the public radio show Science Friday, host Ira Flatow and his guest, Popular Science senior editor Sophie Bushwick, built on Chodosh’s story. “There’s no strong evidence to suggest that these devices aren’t safe,” said Flatow. “It’s creating a lot of fear around an issue that we’re not sure people actually need to be afraid of,” Bushwick explained on air.
Within days, activists began writing to Science Friday, accusing the show of spreading misinformation, endangering public health, and dramatically misrepresenting the science. The activists connected through email lists, and many of the irate messages seemed to follow a pre-written template. (One email writer in Maryland, for example, after receiving a query from Undark, admitted that she had not actually listened to the Science Friday show.)
[...] Science Friday plans to “revisit the issue in depth, as we have done in the past.” In a phone interview, Rachel Feltman, the science editor at Popular Science, stood by the magazine’s story. “All the reputable health agencies have looked at the available studies and the available evidence and concluded that cellphones almost certainly are not a health risk,” Feltman said. “I think we make it very clear in our piece that, yes, there are individual studies that can be interpreted that way,” she added. “But when you look at the body of evidence as a whole, the scientific consensus is clear.”
In some ways, the disagreement here seems to hinge on how different stakeholders understand the word “evidence,” and how much of it they believe is necessary to present an actual risk. Does “evidence” simply mean that there is some reputable research out there that points, however tentatively, to a possible effect or impact — and if so, is that by itself something to fret over? Or does “evidence” mean, as Feltman suggests, that a clear scientific consensus has coalesced around one particular conclusion or another?
These aren’t, of course, strictly scientific questions. They’re moral and political — and even emotional and psychological ones, too. And all of that cuts to the heart of a quandary facing science journalists everywhere: On questions of scientific uncertainty and health, what does the public need to know? Should the press, in covering cell phone safety, give equal weight to every incremental study suggesting some possible health risk — or provide a platform for worried advocates each time such a study turns up in the scientific literature? Such a world would be a paralyzing and fearful place. And of course, some preliminary scientific concerns do prove overblown in the fullness of time....
MORE: https://undark.org/article/cell-phone-ra...th-safety/
EXCERPT: . . . In response, the magazine Popular Science ran a story under the headline “There’s no evidence that cell phones pose a public health risk, no matter what California says.” In the piece, Popular Science reporter Sara Chodosh gave a rundown of why it’s so difficult to study the safety of phones, concluding: “There’s no evidence that cell phones are dangerous to your health. Period.” She also accused the State of California of fear-mongering about phone safety, and ended her piece by telling readers, “Heck, you could duct-tape [your phone] to your face if you so choose.”
Shortly afterward, in a brief segment on the public radio show Science Friday, host Ira Flatow and his guest, Popular Science senior editor Sophie Bushwick, built on Chodosh’s story. “There’s no strong evidence to suggest that these devices aren’t safe,” said Flatow. “It’s creating a lot of fear around an issue that we’re not sure people actually need to be afraid of,” Bushwick explained on air.
Within days, activists began writing to Science Friday, accusing the show of spreading misinformation, endangering public health, and dramatically misrepresenting the science. The activists connected through email lists, and many of the irate messages seemed to follow a pre-written template. (One email writer in Maryland, for example, after receiving a query from Undark, admitted that she had not actually listened to the Science Friday show.)
[...] Science Friday plans to “revisit the issue in depth, as we have done in the past.” In a phone interview, Rachel Feltman, the science editor at Popular Science, stood by the magazine’s story. “All the reputable health agencies have looked at the available studies and the available evidence and concluded that cellphones almost certainly are not a health risk,” Feltman said. “I think we make it very clear in our piece that, yes, there are individual studies that can be interpreted that way,” she added. “But when you look at the body of evidence as a whole, the scientific consensus is clear.”
In some ways, the disagreement here seems to hinge on how different stakeholders understand the word “evidence,” and how much of it they believe is necessary to present an actual risk. Does “evidence” simply mean that there is some reputable research out there that points, however tentatively, to a possible effect or impact — and if so, is that by itself something to fret over? Or does “evidence” mean, as Feltman suggests, that a clear scientific consensus has coalesced around one particular conclusion or another?
These aren’t, of course, strictly scientific questions. They’re moral and political — and even emotional and psychological ones, too. And all of that cuts to the heart of a quandary facing science journalists everywhere: On questions of scientific uncertainty and health, what does the public need to know? Should the press, in covering cell phone safety, give equal weight to every incremental study suggesting some possible health risk — or provide a platform for worried advocates each time such a study turns up in the scientific literature? Such a world would be a paralyzing and fearful place. And of course, some preliminary scientific concerns do prove overblown in the fullness of time....
MORE: https://undark.org/article/cell-phone-ra...th-safety/
