Mobile phones may cause cancer

A lot has been written and spoken about the health hazards of mobile phone radiations. Now a study funded by the US government claims that use of mobile phones and subsequent exposure to radio frequency radiation can indeed cause cancer.

The 74-page partial findings of an experiment done with rats found two types of tumors—one in the brain, one in the heart—in some male rats exposed to radiofrequency radiation. These findings reiterate the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s concerns of a possible link between mobile phone radiations and cancer. “Given the widespread global usage of mobile communications among users of all ages, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to RFR could have broad implications for public health,” the study states.

The latest findings follow a series of reports published in 2011 that attempted to establish the cancer risk faced by mobile-phone users. After The International Agency for Research on Cancer’s report was released in 2011, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection's committee on epidemiology undermining those findings had concluded that using the technology may not increase the risk of tumors.

The low incidence of cancer observed in the rats as part of the study were likely the result of whole-body exposure to the radiation. However, the U.S. government study is not conclusive, as the researchers appeared more confident of the link between the radiation and the heart tumors than cancer. Cancer only appeared in male rats, with no significant effects seen in females.

The study also notes that the rats exposed to radiation lived longer than those who weren't, which is an unexpected finding, implying that the cause of cancer in these rats could be something else other than the radiation, such as old age. "The results do not appear consistent with the cancer rates within the human population, nor with the majority of other experimental research, even at the very high exposure levels, which are many times higher than humans are exposed to," Rodney Croft, director of the Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research, said. The US government study is expected to be completed by the second half of next year.Ω