Public health professor Simon Chapman joins experts in criticising episode for being misleading and ignoring range of evidence about Wi-Fi and mobile phones

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A science program on the ABC which suggested Wi-Fi networks and mobile phone use may be associated with brain cancer should never have gone to air, according to an eminent professor of public health.

Simon Chapman has joined a number of high-profile doctors, researchers and scientists to criticise Tuesday night’s Catalyst program for being misleading and ignoring the full range of evidence about brain cancers.

Peak health bodies, including the Cancer Council, have found no compelling scientific evidence linking brain cancer to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields.

But the Catalyst episode, titled Wi-Fried?, heavily featured a US doctor, Devra Davis, throughout. Davis told the show: “Every single well-designed study ever conducted finds an increased risk of brain cancer with the heaviest users, and the range of the risk is between 50% to eightfold. That’s a fact.”

But Chapman said there was no evidence of any increase in the rate of brain cancer among Australians per 100,000 in the population between 1982 and today.

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“All cancer in Australia is compulsorily reported, it’s a notifiable disease, so we have extremely good data about the incidence of cancer in Australia,” Chapman told Guardian Australia.

“For brain cancer, the incidence per 100,000 flatlines for men and women throughout the whole time from 1982 to today, in spite of millions of people using cellphones and being exposed to Wi-Fi for a large number of years.”

Contrary to the claims on Catalyst that it was too early to see an increase in brain cancer incidence since the invention of Wi-Fi and mobile phones, Chapman said when cancer rates did increase, they rose gradually over a long period of time before reaching a peak.

The data for brain cancer would be reflecting this gradual rise by now, he said, as was the case with lung cancer. While a link between smoking and lung cancer was obvious by the late 1940s, incidence had been increasing since the 1930s.

“The Catalyst story just doesn’t stack up,” Chapman said. “It doesn’t go to the dogs-balls obvious question to ask, which is, if we’ve had massive exposures to the putative causes of cancer, where are the cancer cases?”

Asked if the program should have been shown and if it had a place in public awareness, Chapman replied: “No, no, no.”

“This is not the first time Catalyst have aired a questionable episode, and there really needs to be a review of their editorial process,” he said.

Catalyst was also embroiled in controversy in 2013, when the program aired a two-part series on statins, which are the most prescribed medication in Australia and reduce heart attack and stroke risk, particularly for people with heart disease.

The program described the drugs as “toxic”, suggested the link between cholesterol and heart disease was a myth, and quoted questionable “experts” with conflicts of interest to support this theory. Statistics used in the program were also later refuted.

Of the most recent episode on Wi-Fi and brain cancer, a commissioner with the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, Professor Rodney Croft, said he was “particularly disappointed to see Wi-Fried air yesterday in the guise of science journalism”.

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“[It is] important to reassure other viewers that the fringe position provided by Dr Davis and associates is merely that, a fringe position that is not supported by science,” he said.

“Of course it is impossible for science to demonstrate that anything is absolutely safe, and so regardless of whether we’re talking about Wi-Fi or orange juice, science cannot demonstrate absolute safety.



“However, given that radiofrequency emissions are one of the most heavily researched agents that science has ever assessed, and given that, contrary to Catalyst’s claims, no substantiated health effects have emerged, we can be very confident that the emissions are indeed safe.”

Prof Bruce Armstrong, a leading cancer researcher from the University of Sydney who was quoted in the episode, said parts of the program were “scaremongering”.

“We don’t have any evidence that the use of Wi-Fi causes brain tumours, or any other tumour,” he said.

“So talking in those terms is not evidence-based, and it suggests that somebody has made up their minds perhaps based on inconclusive studies about mobile phone use, that it is definitely bad, and therefore any radiofrequency must be bad for you, and therefore Wi-Fi must be bad for you.

“That conclusion leaps across a number of chasms of scientific evidence.”

An ABC spokesman told Guardian Australia that Chapman had been invited to be interviewed by the program but declined. Had he agreed to be interviewed, his views would have been included as well, the spokesman said.

“The program and its producers recognise there’s a debate, understand that the science is not settled and that it is an issue of public concern, he said.

“That’s why the Catalyst program spoke to those who consider the increased risk to be significant and concerning, and to others who do not consider it to be significant.”

However, Chapman told Guardian Australia he originally agreed to be interviewed for the episode, but changed his mind because he suspected after speaking to a researcher on the show that the link between Wi-Fi and brain cancer would be aggressively pursued, and that he would not be given the air time required to express his own thoughts on the matter.

“They were completely smitten with Dr Davis’ ideas,” he said.

The episode provoked a scathing and amused responses on social media.

ABC Catalyst Not (@Catalyst_not) Coming up. Chemtrails - are they turning us into lizard-people? This reptile refuses to rule it out. #abccatalyst pic.twitter.com/c4Yti4Un2r

Lone Wolf Ligger (@shaunc) And next week’s story on Catalyst “Is Shane Warne right about evolution and aliens? Catalyst investigates.” #ABCCatalyst

Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) "scientifically bankrupt… biased, and little short of misleading and deceptive.”

Ouch.https://t.co/rUQkt9SDAF#ABCCatalyst