On Slashdot.org today there was an article posted about a study relating exposure to mobile phone radio frequency radiation (GSM RF). Because I am a person who sleeps with his phone sitting on the night stand directly adjacent to my bed, I thought it might be useful to read the original research article. Following the link from Slashdot to the PIERS Online abstract, I was able to download and view the full PDF of the research paper using the link provided.
What a complete disappointment.
To their credit, the authors of the article use the right keywords for a study of this type: double blind, statistically significant, sham versus non-sham groups. The 'Method' section is decent but lacks the amount of detail that would be required if you wanted to try and reproduce their results. Worse yet is the 'Results' section, which is only two short paragraphs. They do state some of their statistical measures, but there is not a single chart (with +/- error bars), and no table of actual result data.
On the plus side there is the sponsorship declaration - The Mobile Phone Manufacturers Forum - which was nice of them to include.
My background in the life sciences and the years spent reading research articles from prestiguous journals (Science, Nature, PNAS) tells me that this paper would have been dismissed with roars of laughter from any peer-reviewed scientific journal. The omissions of actual data and statistical measures is completely inexcusable. Although it seems to be a well executed study, there is no way to assess the quality of the results based on the paper that was published.
Will I continue to leave my mobile powered on next to my bed each night? Probably. I only wish this paper included enough detail to allow me to really judge the trustworthiness of the results and their findings.





