The facts: Do mobile phones cause cancer?



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The debate about the link between mobile phones and cancer has been raging for more than two decades – and shows no signs of slowing down.

A recent study has shown that mobile phone radiation can cause cancer in rats. on humans found that phone users do not seem to have an increased risk of developing the disease.

In the general confusion over the possible health effects, The Week takes a closer look at research.

What has the new study found?

A Peer Review of a US Government Historical Study, published in March, concluded that there was "clear evidence" that cell phone radiation caused cancer in the United States. heart in male rats

. Dr. John Bucher, co-author of the study, told Vox that radiotherapy is completely harmless

Researchers at the US Department of Health's National Toxicology Program tested 3,000 rats and mice. years – the largest survey of non-ionizing radiation and cancer in rodents ever conducted in the United States, according to Scientific American.

The review of the study also found "some evidence" that the radiation of the phone caused cancer in the brain of rats and adrenal glands.

However, experts warn that "the jury is still out of the question if wireless technology is dangerous for people," the magazine adds.

According to Mark Hertsgaard, the Nation's correspondent and historian investigator, Mark Dowie, "the lack of definitive proof that a technology is harmful does not mean that technology is safe"

. In a recent article in The Guardian, the two accuse the wireless industry of "selling this logical mistake" successfully to the public as part of an orchestrated public relations campaign

"Au Over the last 30 years, bi Millions of people around the world have been subjected to a public health experiment: using a cell phone today, find out later if this causes genetic damage or cancer, "say -they.

"Meanwhile, the industry"

Scientific evidence to date show that it is "improbable" that mobile phones can increase the number of scientists. Cancer Research UK

"But we do not know enough to completely exclude a risk," warns the organization.

The American Cancer Society has arrived similar conclusion. It should be that most research published up to now have not found any link between mobile phone use and tumor development, but notes that the studies had "some important limitations that make them unlikely to end the controversy ".

Mobile phones are currently listed as "possibly carcinogenic" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization. This puts mobiles in the same category as coffee and means that a link can not be excluded but can not be proven either.

The NHS, meanwhile, indicates that most current research suggests that it is unlikely that radio waves

However, "this evidence is based on the use of mobile phones at over the last 20 years, and there is still some uncertainty about the possible health effects of using a phone longer than that, "says the NHS website.

The most important studies and their results

The Interphone Study (2010) In this international study commissioned by IARC, researchers compared cancer patients to groups Healthy witnesses use mobile in the past had differed. The ten – year study, which covered more than a dozen countries, found that overall, cell phone users did not have an increased risk of developing brain cancer. Said Siegal Sadetzki, researcher at Interphone, a public health physician at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. The Danish Cohort Study (2011) conducted by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark, this cohort study followed more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over a period of 18 years old. The researchers compared the occurrence of brain tumors and the central nervous system in subscribers and non-mobile phone subscribers and found no increased risk among mobile phone users, even those who have them used for the longest period.

(2013) This prospective study by the NHS and Cancer Research UK is the largest to date, involving 800,000 women in the UK. The research examined the risk of developing brain tumors over a seven-year period compared with the self-reported use of cell phones at the start of the study. Researchers have found no connection between mobile phone use and most types of brain tumors or 18 other types of cancer. They have, however, seen a possible link between long-term use and a rare type of brain tumor, known as acoustic neuroma. But an update of the study, which included additional data, showed that this link was no longer visible.

What is the consensus?

Evidence published to date shows that mobiles are unlikely to cause cancer in humans. However, research in this area is still ongoing and experts are unable to ward off the dangers of long-term cell phone use.

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