Study on link between cell phone use and brain cancer inconclusive
Long-term harm seen with too much TV for toddlers
June 23, 2010No link between cell phone towers and children’s cancer
June 23, 2010The AP reports that “a major international study into the link between cell phone use and two types of brain cancer has proved inconclusive, according to a report due to be published” in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The data were “compiled by researchers in 13 countries including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, but not the US.”
Scientists interviewed 12,848 participants, of which 5,150 had either meningioma or glioma tumors.” The “10-year survey…found most cell phone use didn’t increase the risk of developing meningioma — a common and frequently benign tumor — or glioma — a rarer but deadlier form of cancer.”
The Washington Post “Post Tech” blog reported that the report “concluded there were ‘suggestions’ that heavy use could increase the risk of glioma, but ‘biases and error prevent a causal interpretation’ that would directly blame cellphone radiation for the tumor.”
The study’s “leaders … acknowledged that the study had flaws.”
Elisabeth Cardis, of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, who led the research, said, “This was a very complex study, and results were very difficult to interpret because of a number of methodological issues.”
Meanwhile, CNN reports that “the study defined regular cell phone user as ever having one phone call a week for at least six months. The results of the study were based on patients’ average talk time ranging from 120 minutes to 150 minutes a month; most users today far exceed that.”
Until more research comes out, we who use cell phones can take comfort in the results of a very large, very long study of just about everybody in Scandinavia that found no link between cell phone use and brain cancer. You can read my blog on this study here.
Of that study, USA Today reported that, according to the study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers found “no link between rising cell phone use and rates of brain cancer.”
The finding of no link between cell phones and cancer is “consistent with most other studies.”
