No raised cancer risk from mobile phones: study

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) – Using a mobile phone does not increase
the risk of developing the most common type of brain tumor,
according to a study on Friday.

After a four-year survey, scientists at the Institute of
Cancer Research in London and three British universities found
no link between regular, long-term use of cell phones and
glioma.

“Overall, we found no raised risk of glioma associated with
regular mobile phone use and no association with time since
first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative hours of use, or
number of calls,” said Professor Patricia McKinney, of the
University of Leeds, in a report in the British Medical
Journal.

She added that the results were consistent with the
findings of most studies done in the United States and Europe.

Anthony Swerdlow, a co-author of the report, from the
Institute of Cancer Research, said the survey is larger than
any of the other published studies and part of a collaboration
involving 13 countries.

During the past two decades, the use of mobile phones has
risen rapidly worldwide but there has been no hard evidence to
substantiate fears that the technology causes health problems
ranging from headaches to brain tumors.

More than 4,000 new cases of brain tumors in Britain and
about 20,000 in the United States are diagnosed each year.

Last year, Swedish scientists said mobile phones could pose
a higher health risk to people living in rural areas because
they emit more intense signals in the countryside.

But the researchers on Friday said they did not find any
increased health threats for rural dwellers.

Earlier mobile phones used analog signals which emitted
higher power signals than the later digital models. If there
were health dangers from mobiles phones, they would be more
likely to result from the earlier models but the scientists
found no evidence of it.

They questioned 966 people with glioma brain tumors and
1,716 healthy volunteers about how long they had used mobile
phones, the make and model, how many calls they made and how
long the calls lasted.

McKinney, Swerdlow and scientists from the universities of
Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham said that among cancer
sufferers the tumors were likely to be reported on the side of
the head used with a mobile phone.

But Swerdlow said it could be due to over-reporting of
patients.

“People have a tendency to remember and/or embellish or
falsely remember those things that they think might be
relevant,” he said in an interview.

McKinney said there is a lack of convincing and consistent
evidence of any effect of exposure to radiofrequency fields on
the risk of cancer.

“Overall, our findings are consistent with this and with
most studies on mobile phone use,” she added.