“numerous studies going back to the year 2000 all indicate there is no particular reason to fear cell phones as a cause of cancer, and a new paper by Li Zhang and Joshua Muscat of the Department of Public Health Sciences at Pennsylvania State University examines the most up-to-date data from the United States to examine this question as if for the first time.
Most studies on this question so far have been case-control studies. This type of study is subject to biases (information bias and selection bias) because it selects subjects who already have the disease of interest (in this case, brain cancer). Although prospective studies avoid the biases inherent in case-control studies, they are expensive and difficult to carry out, especially for rare diseases such as brain cancer.
But now researchers can take advantage of the exponential increase in exposure to cell phones since their introduction in the mid-1980s. In the space of several decades, humans have gone from having no exposure—zero percent of the population exposed—to nearly universal exposure. This means that we can take advantage of what is referred to as a “natural experiment,” the approach that Li and Muscat take in their illuminating new study.
An earlier analysis of this type was carried out by the National Cancer Institute. That study showed no evidence of an association between cell phone use and cancer, but the data only went up to 2012. Possibly cell phones had not been in use long enough for an effect to show up. Li and Muscat extend the period of observation by nine years.
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The authors conclude that “these findings suggest that mobile phone use does not appear to be associated with an increased risk of brain cancer, either malignant or benign.””
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“in the face of this evidence, RFK Jr. insists on propagating this debunked claim, and he is sponsoring a study by a discredited researcher that he hopes will provide the answer he favors. This is an unforgivable waste of money that could be spent on addressing an important health issue. But it is also more than that.
From observing RFK Jr., and those he appeals to, we see that the belief in different bogus claims tends to be correlated. A belief that cell phones are causing cancer or that vaccines cause autism can serve as a sentinel indicator of the susceptibility to other false beliefs, such as those targeting pesticides and genetically engineered crops. It’s noteworthy that the prominent anti-biotech advocacy organization U.S. Right-to-Know is anti-vaccine in addition to being fiercely against glyphosate and other pesticides and genetically modified crops.
These, and many others, are zombie risks that never die. It doesn’t matter what the specific risk is. The credulity, the failure to take any commonsense evidence or distillations of the scientific evidence into account, the refusal to value the judgment of experts who have spent untold hours examining the issue, or the conclusions reached by institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, or the American Cancer Society, into account are the same.
RFK Jr. appears to have an implacable drive to do away with vaccines by undermining public confidence, disrupting insurance coverage, and making it too costly for pharmaceutical companies to produce them, as happened in the 1980s. Exposing his lies is literally a matter of protecting the lives of children and adults from the all-too-real infectious diseases that RFK Jr. doesn’t believe in.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/25/despite-what-robert-f-kennedy-wants-you-to-think-cell-phones-do-not-cause-brain-cancer/
“What do you do with U.S. citizen children when a noncitizen parent is deported? The Trump administration has so far answered this question by saying, Well, actually, it’s not much of a question at all, hurry up and deport them already, let’s not ask any questions or consult any lawyers.”
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“Doughty, who President Donald Trump appointed, issued an order expressing his fear that the toddler had been deported against her father’s wishes, noting that it is “illegal and unconstitutional” to deport U.S. citizens. “The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the Court doesn’t know that,” wrote the judge. “Seeking the path of least resistance, the Court called counsel for the Government at 12:19 p.m. CST, so that we could speak with VML’s mother and survey her consent and custodial rights. The Court was independently aware at the time that the plane, tail number N570TA, was above the Gulf of America. The Court was then called back by counsel for the Government at 1:06 p.m. CST, informing the Court that a call with VML’s mother would not be possible, because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras.” A hearing is set for May 16 due to the judge’s “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.””
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“Two other U.S. citizen children were deported to Honduras with their illegal immigrant mother, denying the 4-year-old child—who has metastatic cancer—access to his medication.
Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, told NBC that the boy with cancer and his 7-year-old sister were detained on Thursday; taken to El Paso, Texas; and flown to Honduras on Friday morning.”
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“the deported mothers not have sufficient access to attorneys or family members to make arrangements for the care of minor children. This runs contra ICE’s own policies, “which mandate coordination for the care of minor children with willing caretakers—regardless of immigration status—when deportations are being carried out,””
https://reason.com/2025/04/28/deporting-the-cancer-kid/
“The federal teams that count public health problems are disappearing — putting efforts to solve those problems in jeopardy.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea to cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The cuts threaten to obscure the severity of pressing health threats and whether they’re getting better or worse, leaving officials clueless on how to respond.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortions-cancer-firefighters-super-gonorrhea-140000788.html
“In Korea, sunscreens are regulated as functional cosmetics versus the US where they’re regulated as over-the-counter drugs. The Korean Ministry of Food & Drug Safety (MFDS) is the regulatory authority, similar to the FDA, that’s responsible for creating and overseeing the sunscreen approval process. The approval process includes submitting clinical safety and efficacy documentation to the MFDS, which is far simpler than what the US requires. The testing and documentation is similar to what’s required in other global regions but the process is more efficient and can be done quickly.
In contrast, because the FDA treats sunscreen like a drug (and not a cosmetic), they have some of the most stringent requirements in the world, which requires extensive testing. As a result, the FDA in the United States has not greenlit any new UV filters since 1999. Notably, the FDA has recently mandated supplementary safety data for all previously approved chemical UV filters to uphold their market presence in the US.”
https://www.vox.com/culture/354545/korean-sunscreen-is-all-the-rage-if-youre-american-you-might-be-out-of-luck
“We were just about to leave for the two-hour drive to the hospital when the nurse called back. She said Duke University Hospital was now requiring the results of virus testing prior to admitting anyone for surgery. They didn’t have a test to give me; just a policy that required me to get one. I contacted my physician in Winston-Salem, but he said the hospital there was only testing patients who had been admitted with serious virus symptoms. Almost as quickly as it had been scheduled, the surgery was canceled.
I don’t know how long it will be before there are enough tests available that someone like me can get one. But unlike other people who might just be curious about whether they are infected or not, I have a clock ticking in my body. While I wait for the test, this cancer could metastasize. By the time they can perform the surgery, it might be a moot point.”
“In 2011, a Congress member from Indiana helped pass federal legislation to strip funding from Planned Parenthood.
Two years later, the last Planned Parenthood affiliate in Scott County, Indiana, closed its doors because of budget cuts. It was also the last HIV testing center in the county. By 2015, an HIV outbreak was brewing in the state. At the peak of the outbreak, 20 new cases were being diagnosed per week, with a total of nearly 200 cases eventually reported, according to HuffPost.
But that Congress member, who became Indiana’s governor, didn’t want to authorize a needle-exchange program to stop the spread of the virus.
“I don’t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia,” he said.
That Indiana governor was, of course, Mike Pence. Now he’s the vice president, and on Wednesday, President Trump put him in charge of fighting coronavirus in the US.”
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“In general, the administration has sought to restrict funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups, reproductive health advocates say, without regard to the public health implications. The administration’s policies have already made it harder for low-income Americans to get screening for conditions like breast and cervical cancer. And some fear that, especially with Pence in charge, the administration could put politics over science when it comes to coronavirus response too.”
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“Finally, over two months after the HIV outbreak was reported, Pence said he would pray on the issue, according to the New York Times. Two days later, he issued an executive order for syringes to be distributed in Scott County.
The distribution helped stop the epidemic, according to the Times. But Pence didn’t actually allocate new money for the program, or for fighting the epidemic generally, forcing state officials to cut other health programs, Meyerson said: “overall, his governorship showed that he did not commit to an adequately funded public health infrastructure.””
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“Last year, the administration issued a rule barring Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform or refer for abortions from getting federal funding through Title X, a program aimed at providing family planning services to low-income Americans. As a result, nearly 1,000 health centers around the country have lost funding, making it harder for many Americans to get necessary services like cancer screening or HIV tests.”
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“Also in 2017, six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS resigned in protest, with one writing in Newsweek that “the Trump administration has no strategy to address the ongoing H.I.V./AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate H.I.V. policy, and — most concerning — pushes legislation that will harm people living with H.I.V. and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”
Then, in 2019, the Trump administration cut funding for fetal-tissue research, despite long-standing arguments by scientific and medical experts that such research is crucial for developing vaccines and treatments for diseases. Research into AIDS and other conditions has already suffered as a result, Carter said.”