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Background

Cell phones (a type of phone categorized as wireless) utilize radio frequencies (RF) with wavelengths between that of FM radio and the wavelength of microwave ovens. There are four types of wireless phones, cordless, transportable, mobile and portable. The cordless is basically a wireless house phone which uses a base station attached to traditional telephone lines.

Transportable phones utilize a headset attached to a separate electronics/battery pack. Mobile phones utilize an antenna mounted on a car while the portable phone uses an antenna which is part of the headset. This type of phone is what we normally think of as a cellular phone. Because the antennas of mobile phones are close to the user's heard the exposure to RF can be greater. This is the type of phone this article is concerned with.

Cell phones operate by means of overlapping zones or cells. Each cell has it's own transmitter which receives the mobile phone's RF transmission, assigns the phone a channel, and sends the transmission to a switching center. As the caller passes from one cell into another the signal is transferred from receiver to receiver.

 

No Evidence

In February of 2000 the Medical College of Wisconsin cited the work of Dr. John E. Moulder, M.D. in its HealthLink publication. Dr. Moulder examined the studies which claimed that exposure to RF emissions caused genetic damage to cell tissue. Although he went as far as saying that exposure of to high levels of RF (military radar and commercial radio transmission towers) could be dangerous, Dr. Moulder decided that the evidence supporting a claim that exposure to cell phone RF causes cancer just wasn't there.

The Healthlink article pointed out that it's impossible to prove a negative, and pointed out that cell phones are becoming less powerful as the technology gets more advanced. The reduction in RF power was cited as being as much as 480%. It was also suggested that anyone who remained concerned always had the option of not using a cell phone. In short the issue was brushed off with little discussion.

 

 

Transformation to a Legitimate Area of Scientific Controversy

Dr. Moulder's work wasn't the first time we've heard the discussion of whether of nor cell phones can cause cancer. As early as 1993 there were claims that cells phones will cause brain cancer. However, the issue which occasionally poped up never seemed to gain much traction.

Then, in 2005 the American Cancer Society published an article entitled, "Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?". While the article came to the conclusion that there is "no consistent association between cell phone use and brain cancer," the article did elevate the issue to a "legitimate area of scientific controvery" which shouldn't be dismissed as mere myth.

 

 

Ambiguous Answers To Difficult Questions

A year later, in 2006, the news media acting on allegations in litigation that cell phones cause brain cancer performed some testing which claimed to find that the RF from some mobile phones exceeded the maximums allowed by the FCC. At the time there the U.S. cell user population was some 219 million people and growing rapidly.

In response to the renewed interest in the cell phone issue, The American Cancer Society (ACS) published an article entitled, "Cellular Phones." The article outlined the industry and explained that RF exposure through cell phone use can vary depending on a number of factors such as the number of phones in use within a given cell; the presence of barriers to the signal causing the power level to increase. Logic would also dictate that the proximity of the antenna to the user's head would also play a roll in RF exposure.

The ACS article cited three published large "case-control" studies in which brain cancer patients and healthy patients were compared on the basis of their cell phone use. In these studies, if the cancer patients had a higher cell phone use than the cancer free patients and no other explanations could be found then the study would provide some sort of evidence of a causal link between cell phone use and the brain cancer. The case studies made the following comparisons:

1. 233 brain cancer patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1996 in Sweden with 466 controls.

2. 469 brain cancer patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1998 in the U.S. with 422 controls.

3. 782 brain cancer patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1998 in the U.S. with 799 controls.

The results reported were interesting. None of the brain cancer groups had used their cell phones more than their counterpart control group. No RF dose relationship or increased risk of cancer with an increased cell use was found. No identifiable link was found between the side of the head where the cancer was located and the side of the head predominantly used to listen to the cell phone.

The ACS also cited a Swedish study of long-term cell phone use which failed to find any "association" (we assume that means statistically significant correlation) with the types of cancerous tumors studied (glioma and meningioma). The results of a long-term study of some 420,095 cell user in Denmark between 1982 and 1995 failed to show an association between cell use and brain cancer.

Nine epidemiological studies also failed to find and association between cell use and a slow-growing tumor of the auditory nerve (acoustic neuroma). A major study of data from five European countries likewise failed to find an association between cell use and the incidence of acoustic neuroma.

Although the ACS cites a joint statement issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC ) which is favorable to the cell phone industry, at the end of the day the ACS in its 2006 conclusion is vague and ambiguous. While stating that low level RF exposure has not been found to have any biological effects the ACS admits there is no proof that cell phones are absolutely safe. The ACS notes that cell phones are a relatively new technology and all of the data isn't in. Then near the end of discussion the ACS notes that some studies have "suggested" that long-term use of cell phones may increase the risk of noncancerous acoustic neuroma tumors. On that last note the issue fades again into the background clutter.

 

 

The Issue Returns

On March 30, 2008, Geoffrey Lean of the Independent.co.uk published an article suggesting that mobile phones could kill more people than smoking or asbestos per the opinion of a cancer expert, Dr. Vini Khurana. Lean reports that Dr. Khurana's work draws on a "growing evidence" that cell use for 10 years or more can "double" the risk of cancer. Dr. Khurana's opinion that cell phones would prove to have broader health implications than either smoking or asbestos was based on the estimate that three billion people use cell phones world wide. On March 31, 2008 Fox News repeated the Dr. Khurana story.

An opposing opinion was expressed by the Mobile Operators Association which called Khurana's study "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual."

In April of 2008, two years after the ACS's ambiguous conclusions, the National Research Center for Women & Families (NRC) published an article entitled, "Can Cell Phones Cause Brain Tumors?". Which expanded the question to include both cancerous gliomas and noncancerous acoustic neuromas. The NRC article mentions Dr. Khurana's study but still comes to the conclusion that using cell phones for a few years does not have a clear relationship to brain tumors. The NRC does however come to the conclusion that in view of common high volume cell phone use spanning many years more independent research and long term studies are needed.

Then there is Dr. George Carlo who is said to have performed a multi million dollar study on behalf of the cell phone industry and subsequently turned against the industry. An interview with Dr. Carlo is contained below.

For those who are interested, the FCC has set mandatory limits for what it considers to be a safe exposure to RF energy. This dosage is expressed in terms of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). Any cell phone with an SAR of 1.6 watts per kilogram or less is considered to be a "safe" cell phone in the U.S.