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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
The authors have written a review article on the adverse effect of mobile phones on following:
1. Individual Health
2. Direct impact on Enviroanment due to challenge of electronic waste disposal
3. Indirect challenge to environment due to energy consumption.
4. collateral impact in vicinity of base stations.
Because of the varied scope of the research question, the subsequent inferences lose focus. It would have been better if the authors had focused on the prime concern of mobile phones i.e. impact on individual health.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
The authors do not present it as an oringial article but a review of the existing literature on the above aspects of use of mobile phones.
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Yes
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
The authors have done a systematic review of different studies to reach a conclusion on the adverse effects on health. However, there is no firm evidence of the ill effects of mobile phones from the reveiw carreid out by the authors.
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
The paper is a systematic review so no protocol for RCT is applicable. However, the authors have described the MeSH terms used, and the search engines they used in retreiving the relevatn papers.
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
Yes
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
Yes. A meta-analyses with summary risk ratios, forest plots, publicaton bias (funnel plot) would have greatly improved the rigor fo the paper. Morever, this could have laid the foundation for an ongoing analysis of consequetive studies.
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
No. Such studies have been published in the past. The present study does not add anything novel.
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Other Comments:
There may be limitation of epidemiological studies to resolve the harmful effects of mobile phones, if any, in times to come because of the lack of a control group (i.e. because of the rapid universal penetration of mobile phones even in rural areas, a comparison group i.e. people who do not use mobile phones will not be easily available). So in future empirical research may be inadequate to reach a consensus on the health effects of mobile phones. Other research strategies, in additon to epidemiological studies, will be needed to establish any cause-effect association.
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Competing interests:
No
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
Yes
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References:
Have published a study which established the universal penetration of mobile phones even in rural and less privileged sections of the population. The details of the publication are: Banerjee A, Bhawalkar JS, Jadhav SL, Rathod H, Khedkar DT. Access to health services among slum dwellers in an industrial township and surrounding rural areas: A rapid epidemiological assessment. J Fam Med Primary Care 2012;1:20-6
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Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
None - How to cite: Banerjee A .Health Effects of Mobile Phone[Review of the article 'Health effects of Mobile Phone ' by Awadalla H].WebmedCentral 2013;4(2):WMCRW002496
Responded by Dr. Hala Awadalla on 09 Feb 2013 09:54:02 PM
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What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
This a review (rather than a study) of multiple potential and probable threats from cellular phones focusing on four areas: environmental, physical waste, energy consumption and direct health impact.
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Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
No, these are not novel claims - this paper is a review of previously published studies.
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Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Yes, there are extensive references.
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Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
A thorough review without any definite conclusions as there are not many definitive studies published.
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If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
N/A
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Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
N/A
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Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
N/A
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Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
This a thorough review, but would not qualify as outstanding since there remains much uncertainty on the topic.
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Other Comments:
None
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Competing interests:
None
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Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
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References:
None -
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
Medical Director - Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County
- How to cite: Herchline T .Health Effects of Mobile Phones[Review of the article 'Health effects of Mobile Phone ' by Awadalla H].WebmedCentral 2013;4(1):WMCRW002449
Responded by Dr. Hala Awadalla on 09 Feb 2013 09:53:34 PM
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Present review article tried to cover almost every nuke and corners of the problems associated with cellular phones working on various band widths.
NA, as it is a review article, approach is new
Good collection, 92 references on the topic like this is an axiom
Collection of various data which is yet to be established requires more extensive study; some more important contributions should also be included, but overall good collection.
NA
NA
NA
Review article can be referred for citation
NA
None
No
No
None
15 yrs.