Thursday, June 02, 2011

Lies, damned lies, statistics, and headline writers

If you read the details on the recent study that came out about cell phones and cancer, there is a "slight" chance that cell phone use "might" increase the "risk" of certain "rare" types of brain cancer in "heavy" cell phone users. But what were the headlines?

“Cellphone cancer threat raises concerns”

“Cell phones and cancer risk: How much radiation from yours?”

None of these are lies, but they are pretty inflammatory given what the study actually found. Anything to sell a paper, I guess.

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