The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Chicken Council are denying a Consumer Reports study finding that 83 percent of American chickens contain harmful bacteria. They say it’s not fair to base the conclusion on 525 chickens out of an entire population of 9 billion.
The number of any study’s subjects is always a consideration in determining validity, but when you sample an entire country, your statistics should hold up. That’s the case in the latest and best slapdown of the cranks who keep contending that cell phones cause cancer. Danish scientists followed all 420,000 early adopters of cell phones in the country for up to 21 years.
“We found no evidence for an association between tumor risk and cellular telephone use among either short-term or long-term users,” the study authors categorically stated.
Studies are documenting, instead, that the biggest danger is from using cell phones is talking on them while driving.
One hopes there is already research under way on the rising incidence of surgical removal of cell phones from users who program annoying ring tones.