Epidemiology of radiofrequency exposure: Ahlbom et al. respond.We thank Kundi for his comments on our review of the epidemiologic literature on health effects of radiofrequency exposure (Ahlbom et al. 2004). He points out, quite correctly, that our assessment of the literature differs from the one he and colleagues have made in a previous review (Kundi et al. 2004). We do, however, stand by our judgment that the literature we reviewed offers little support for a causal relation between radiofrequency exposure and disease risk. Although quality of research varies, most of the studies we reviewed were methodologically limited and more rigorous studies are needed. It is obviously impossible to tell what more sophisticated research along the lines suggested by Kundi, and also by ourselves, will reveal in the future. We certainly agree that consideration of latency (1) The time between initiating a request in the computer and receiving the answer. Data latency may refer to the time between a query and the results arriving at the screen or the time between initiating a transaction that modifies one or more databases and its completion. and various types of bias is important and, indeed, we did consider these at some length in our review. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. REFERENCES Ahlbom A, Green A, Kheifets L, Savitz D, Swerdlow A. Epidemiology of health effects of radiofrequency exposure. Environ Health Perspect 112:1741-1754 (2004). Kundi M, Mild K, Hardell L, Mattsson MO. Mobile telephones and cancer--a review of epidemiological evidence. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev 7:351-384 (2004). Anders Ahlbom Instititute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet Karolinska Institutet (often translated from Swedish into English as the Karolinska Institute, and in older texts often as the Royal Caroline Institute) is one of Europe's largest medical universities. Stockholm, Sweden E-mail: anders.ahlbom@imm.ki.sc Adele Green Queensland Institute of Medical Research The Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) is one of the largest medical research institutes in the southern hemisphere, and is recognised worldwide for the quality of its research. QIMR was established in 1945 by the State Government in Queensland. Brisbane Australia Leeka Kheifets School of Public Health University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). at Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. Los Angeles, California David Savitz School of Public Health University of North Carolina North Carolina, state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N). Facts and Figures Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in North Carolina and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), the oldest state-supported university in the United States. As of the 2000 census, it had a population of 48,715. As of 2004 its estimated population was 52,440. Anthony Swerdlow Institute of Cancer Research Sutton, Surrey, United Kingdom |
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