Did Story About Cancer Link Shave The Truth? -- Electric-Razor Studies Far From Complete

The headline in Friday's Wall Street Journal was intriguing enough: "Study Suggests Electric Razor Link to Cancer."

But the facts behind an uncompleted study by researchers at Battelle Pacific Northwest labs are an illustration of how journalists and scientists sometimes drive each other crazy.

What the Journal didn't mention in the Nov. 13 article is that Richard Lovely, the biopsychologist heading the study, and Larry Anderson, Battelle's manager of research into electromagnetic fields, still sometimes use electric razors.

"A single study like this suggests no action at all," said Lovely. "It has to be done again and again and again."

Here's why:

What the preliminary study purports to show, Lovely explained in Seattle yesterday, is that "people who shaved (with electric razors) for more than 2.5 minutes a day had 2.5 times the risk of getting (adult leukemia) cancer," a disease that affects three in 100,000 people each year.

Lovely reported this last week at a Department of Energy conference in San Diego. The meeting was held to review the latest findings in a long-running dispute over whether the electromagnetic fields caused by electrical activity - from appliances to electric blankets to power lines - can harm human health.

In reaction to the Journal story, Lovely added these cautions:

-- The study sample is small. It is based on statistical analysis of just 113 leukemia cases diagnosed by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in 1984 and 1985. Only 45 cases involved use of electric razors, all of them men. A total of 131 people without leukemia was surveyed as a control group.

-- The razor information is dated. A separate study of corded electric razors in the same period showed that they produced 1,000 to 20,000 times the normal background exposure to electromagnetic fields, leading to what Lovely called speculation that perhaps the brief exposure affects the brain's pineal gland, suppressing the production of the hormone melatonin, which in turn appears to discourage cancer. No measurements have been made of more modern, battery-operated razors, however.

-- Critical information is secondhand. The study found a correlation between electric-razor use and cancer risk only when the estimated time of daily use exceeded 2.5 minutes. But that time was only an estimate made by study subjects in response to a questionnaire. In 89 percent of the cases, the victim was already dead when researchers did the survey, and the spouse or other survivor supplied the estimate of razor-time use.

-- The study isn't finished. No study has been made of even longer razor use to see if the correlation continues. "We aren't done with the data analysis," Lovely said. The results have not been written yet in a formal paper, and have not been reviewed by other scientists, as is routine.

So why did the scientists call a press conference to discuss the incomplete results? Because the media is pursuing the story. And why this pursuit? Because the scientists discussed the incomplete results at San Diego.

"There is a concern this is premature, but here's a highly respected organizaton making a public presentation in San Diego," said Roy Harris, deputy bureau chief of the Journal's Los Angeles office. "Is it possible to tell a story on research that affects a lot of people before the research is complete? The very fact they are looking at it is certainly news. Why wait if the reader can understand what stage the research is at?"

Battelle's Anderson, a neurochemist, said there is no doubt strong electromagnetic fields can provoke lab animals' nerves and push them to extra activity. But he said science hasn't arrived at a consensus on whether they affect physical health.

Typical of the confusion of conflicting studies is a recent one from Sweden, he said, which surveyed more than 127,000 children living within 300 meters of a power line. The study suggested there was a correlation between their closeness to a line and the risk of childhood leukemia. But it found no correlation between the actual electromagnetic field level measured in the children's homes and the risk of leukemia.