Hans Skovgaard Poulsen sounded the alarm seven years ago. There’s a spike in glioblastoma —GBM— in Denmark, he warned. Poulsen, the head of neuro-oncology at Copenhagen University Hospital, called it “frightening.”

On November 2, 2012, the Danish Cancer Society dutifully sent out a press advisory under the title “Massive Increase in New Cases of Aggressive Brain Cancer.” The incidence of GBM had doubled over the last ten years, Poulsen said. Then he walked away and wouldn’t talk about it anymore. The Danish Cancer Society took down the press advisory from its Web site.¹

Turns out Poulsen was not far off, just ahead of the curve.

In May, Julius Graakjaer Grantzau, a member of the Danish Parliament, requested statistics on the incidence of GBM from the government and then released them to the public. At my request, a Danish epidemiologist plotted the graph below. (The epidemiologist asked not to be identified by name.)

GBM in Denmark 1995-2017

Incidence of GBM in Denmark, 1995-2017 (blue bars); % increase relative to 1995 (orange line).
Prepared by a Danish epidemiologist for Microwave News. (click to enlarge)

Note that the rates have not been adjusted to account for the fact that an aging population will have more brain tumors. (The older you are, the greater the odds of developing one.) The age-standardized incidence could be approximately 15% lower than shown, according to the unnamed epidemiologist.

I asked Mette Vinter Weber, a communications advisor in the office of the director of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen, for a comment on the GBM data posted by Grantzau. Over the next ten days she tried to find someone to answer my question, but in the end, came up empty. It was, she finally told me, out of the “area of expertise” of her colleagues at the Cancer Society.

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I also wrote to Christoffer Johansen, a former staffer at the Society, who is now the head of research at the Rigshospitalet, a leading hospital in Copenhagen. Johansen continues to advise the Society as a guest researcher. Back in December 2013, a year after the press advisory, Johansen told me that Poulsen was wrong, citing some unspecified computational error. Now he doesn’t want to talk about the new data. He did not reply to a request for an update.

Johansen, a coauthor of what is known as the Danish Cohort Study, has long maintained that there is no association between brain tumors and mobile phones. His epidemiological study, however, is widely considered to be flawed and unreliable. The IARC expert committee that classified RF radiation as a possible carcinogen in 2011 discounted the study as riddled with errors. (Follow the links for our coverage of the IARC decision and detailed look at the Cohort Study.)

I then tried Hans Poulsen as well as Jørgen Olsen, the former head of research at the Cancer Society. They too stayed silent. Olsen, who is now retired, has been helpful in the past while Poulsen has never replied to any e-mail messages from Microwave News since the press advisory was posted in November 2012.

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Though apparently unable or unwilling to comment on GBM rates, representatives of the Danish Cancer Society, including Johansen, continue to dismiss cancer concerns over wireless radiation —notably from the upcoming 5G networks, despite the lack of available information.

Here is what the Cancer Society’s Aslak Harbo Poulsen told DR, the Danish Broadcasting Corp., at the end of May: A single study may show a link, but an overall assessment of the existing literature does not indicate any health effects, including cancer. This Poulsen is a post-doctoral researcher and he too worked on the Danish Cohort Study.²

Russian 5G Disinformation Campaign in Denmark?

The May 31 story posted on the DR Web site is headlined, “5G Opponents Spreading Russian Misinformation in Denmark,” and promotes a conspiracy theory first floated by Bill Broad of the New York Times earlier in the month.

Whether DR was aiming at Grantzau, the member of Parliament, is not known. But he, among some others, is not satisfied by the way the Danish government is handling the rollout of 5G. In an e-mail exchange with Microwave News, this is part of what Grantzau told me:

“Getting a balanced answer about the possible dangers from 5G is impossible. The minister wants to clearly state that there is nothing to be afraid of. Even though her own government (Sundhedsstyrelsen, like the U.S. FDA) has no specific information about 5G. …

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The media has the same wish —to make sure, that nobody worries about 5G or electromagnetic radiation in general. So when I hosted a conference in the Parliament with critical scientists, telling about the dangers, the media writes about it in a ridiculing way. …

My thoughts about the 5G rollout is that it is being pushed without any public democratic debate and without listening to any of the critical voices. I think it’s difficult to find out what we actually need 5G for, but it’s easy to find a lot of problems with it.”

Please also see companion story: “GBM Rising in Denmark, Much as in England.”

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https://microwavenews.com/short-takes-archive/gbm-denmark