Cell Phones

When a warning about the health effects of cell phone use comes from a cancer doctor, does it carry greater weight? So it would seem from the attention it got this week in the media, after Pittsburgh cancer researcher Ronald Herberman issued some  guidelines to his staff urging them to limit their cell phone use as much as possible. "Better safe than sorry" was his rationale given the state of the science relating to cell phone use and brain cancer. "We shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out," he told the Associated Press.  Dr. Herberman's release led to a flurry of interesting debate about the science. Read about it here.

What's Futile Care?

Few if any would argue that it is not futile care to give chemotherapy if it will extend a person's life. What about to give hope? Or so as not to appear to be giving up? The ambiguity of what's futile and what's not is why people prefer to talk about a treatment's benefit but even that can be  tricky. In the July 1 issue of Oncology Dr. James Khatcheressian of Massey Cancer Center of Virginia Commonwealth University and his co-authors write  "application of the word 'futility' in discussions of medical care is considered ethically hazardous." Read the whole article about why patients and doctors sometimes press for treatments that may have questionable benefit here.