ANA Discussion Forum
General Category => Inquiries => Topic started by: Kate B on June 03, 2008, 06:07:56 am
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This is an interesting summary of acoustic neuromas. It was a link from an article which debates cell phone usage linked to brain tumors.
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/acoustic-neuroma/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier
Kate
P.S. the cell phone article is in another section, but here is the link to that as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/health/03well.html?ex=1213156800&en=877d0684370c63f7&ei=5070
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Kate -
this is a great article. Very easy to understand and it sums up ANs and their treatment very nicely. It will be especially helpful for newbies :)
I also read the cell phone article. I thought the most interesting part was the comments that people wrote. One person pointed out that maybe cordless phones are just as suspect as cell phones. I really wonder about that since I am not a big cell phone user, but have used cordless phones for many, many years. I'd love to see some kind of research on that.
Thanks for posting this,
Jan
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Thanks very much for posting this, Kate!
The article is great, and the links are interesting as well.
I know it will probably be a long time before the debate over links to ANs is resolved one way or the other, but I just sent the article about heavy metal and ANs to my 15 year old son. He is a terrific electric guitarist who I'm always after to lower the amp so he holds onto his perfect pitch and phenomenally acute hearing into adulthood and beyond (being tone deaf and hard of hearing since childhood, I've always been in awe of these traits...) Hopefully an article from the NY Times will be more persuasive to him than Mom's nagging ;) ...
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Thank you for the article. Very interesting and very easy to understand.
eve
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The N.Y. Times 'health guide' description of an acoustic neuroma is precise and complete, just like the descriptions on this website.
The cell-phones-cause-cancer article was the usual rehash of well-known arguments pro and con and if you read it carefully, the 'experts' who make the claim that cell phone use can cause cancer basically say that just because it isn't proven, doesn't mean it isn't a fact. Please. Not this again.
They fault scientific studies that find absolutely no link and claim the studies aren't long-term, even though cell phone usage has been popular for over a decade. The reality is that in the long run, we'll all be dead - of something. I'm a skeptic on this issue because the folks who tout the cell phone-cancer linkage can't come up with any real evidence and when they can't, they then seem to be saying that doesn't prove their hypothesis isn't true, which is a self-serving circular argument and one that I reject. I'm quick to state that I'm not a scientist or doctor and of course, I could be wrong on this. However, I feel it is up to the people, be they physicians, scientists or window washers, to prove their premise and, to date, I don't see that has happened. The cell phone-cancer 'debate' is mostly supposition and conjecture on the part of those who believe that link actually exists. Until it has been scientifically proven, I side with the American Cancer Society and simply do not accept the thesis. However, I'm in favor of further scientific research into the issue, because, as I always add, I could be wrong. This is just my opinion based on a lack of hard evidence and the fact that people a lot smarter than I am (neurologists, scientists, electrical engineers, etc) dismiss the claims for seemingly valid reasons.
Jim
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Hi Kate
Thanks for the articles. I think I may be one who can disprove the correlation between cell phone use and an AN. I lost most of my hearing in my right ear (the AN side) 23 years ago in pre-cell and wireless days (we actually had long phone cords that got tangled around everything!). I haven't held a phone to my right ear in all those years. Of course I realize that the contention could be made that cell phone use is just one cause -- but it wasn't in my case.
David
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The N.Y. Times 'health guide' description of an acoustic neuroma is precise and complete, just like the descriptions on this website.
Good point, Jim. It's been a while since I read the ANA's acoustic neuroma literature but I definitely recall how precise and complete it is. And, it's written in basic language that "regular" people like me can understand. It's very helpful in deciphering what the doc said :) I highly recommend it to all AN patients and family members.
Jan