11/20/2011
“Largest Study on Cell Phones and Cancer Finds No Link”, Associated Press, Time, October 21, 2011 This article talks about how cell phones are not linked to cancer. According to Danish researchers, the biggest study ever consisting of 350,000 people found no evidence of any link. This concluded that people who have used a cell phone for a decade don’t have different cancer rates than those who have not. Last year, a different study found no connection between cell phones and cancer. But it showed a possible connection between heavy phone usage and glioma, a brain tumor that is rare but deadly. However, this information was not enough to support the case. That study of over 14,000 people in many countries, along with animal experiments, led to classifying electromagnetic energy from cell phones as possibly carcinogenic along with coffee and gasoline engine exhaust. But cell phones don’t issue the same radiation that is used in medical tests or found in radon soil so there might not be a risk. The Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission have no evidence of cell phones being linked to cancer but people still have fears of getting it, although cancer rates have not risen since cell phones were introduced. Researchers have updated a recent study examining 358,403 cell phones users 30 years of age and older in Denmark from 1990 to 2007. They found that cell phone users did not have a higher risk of cancer than those without them. Cell phone users also aren’t more likely to develop a tumor in a part of the brain where phones are held against the head. About three-quarters of the world’s population use a cell phone. This makes it difficult for scientists to compare cancer rates between users and non-users. The advocacy group MobileWise said that the Danish study wasn’t enough to consider the long-term risk since brain tumors can take decades to develop. In about 30 other studies, those with brain tumors