Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer and other DNA defects?

Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer

By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: June 3, 2008
What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don’t?


Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”
Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.
Along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer.
That supposed link has been largely dismissed by many experts, including the American Cancer Society. The theory that cellphones cause brain tumors “defies credulity,” said Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects. CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group, said in a statement, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.”
The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures. Critics say many studies are flawed for that reason, and also because they do not distinguish between casual and heavy use.
Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation, waves of energy that are too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer. There is no known biological mechanism to explain how non-ionizing radiation might lead to cancer.
But researchers who have raised concerns say that just because science can’t explain the mechanism doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Concerns have focused on the heat generated by cellphones and the fact that the radio frequencies are absorbed mostly by the head and neck. In recent studies that suggest a risk, the tumors tend to occur on the same side of the head where the patient typically holds the phone.
Like most research on the subject, the studies are observational, showing only an association between cellphone use and cancer, not a causal relationship. The most important of these studies is called Interphone, a vast research effort in 13 countries, including Canada, Israel and several in Europe.
Some of the research suggests a link between cellphone use and three types of tumors: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and acoustic neuroma, a tumor that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. All these cancers are rare, so even if cellphone use does increase risk, the risk is still very low.
Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cellphone users. Also last year, a Swedish analysis of 16 studies in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed a doubling of risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma after 10 years of heavy cellphone use.
“What we’re seeing is suggestions in epidemiological studies that have looked at people using phones for 10 or more years,” says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an industry publication that tracks the research. “There are some very disconcerting findings that suggest a problem, although it’s much too early to reach a conclusive view.”
Some doctors say the real concern is not older cellphone users, who began using phones as adults, but children who are beginning to use phones today and face a lifetime of exposure.
“More and more kids are using cellphones,” said Dr. Paul J. Rosch, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. “They may be much more affected. Their brains are growing rapidly, and their skulls are thinner.”
For people who are concerned about any possible risk, a simple solution is to use a headset. Of course, that option isn’t always convenient, and some critics have raised worries about wireless devices like the Bluetooth that essentially place a transmitter in the ear.
The fear is that even if the individual risk of using a cellphone is low, with three billion users worldwide, even a minuscule risk would translate into a major public health concern.
“We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,” Dr. Black said on CNN. “My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.”
well@nytimes.com
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Is Cell Phone Radiation Dangerous?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=525268&in_page_id=1774


We love our mobiles... but are we being told all the facts about how safe they are?
By JEROME BURNE - More by this author »

Last updated at 22:07pm on 3rd March 2008


We love our mobile phones - all 70 million of them.

They are both fashion accessories and an essential part of our lives. Yet since they first became widely available in the 1990s, there have been nagging doubts about just how safe they are.

Could they cause cancers in the brain? Does living near a mobile phone mast raise your risk of other cancers? Despite official reassurances, we still don't seem to be any closer to a definite answer.


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Dangerous call? Opinion is divided on the safety of mobile phones


Last September, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) programme, which is funded jointly by the Government and the industry, concluded that mobile phones, base stations and masts "have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects".

This conclusion was based on the findings of the working of the cells in our bodies. A major UK report eight years ago warned that children could be especially vulnerable to mobile phone emissions because of their thinner skulls and developing nervous system.

However, the Health Protection Agency, which is responsible for safety in this area, has stated that as far as adults are concerned, wi-fi, phones and radio masts all operate on a power level that is well within the accepted guidelines, and that there is no evidence that they pose a threat to people's health.

Speaking last September, the chairman of the MTHR programme, Professor Lawrie Challis, said: "There is no evidence for immediate or short-term health effects" — though he added there was a "slight hint" of increased risk of brain tumour among long term users.

There have not been any official studies on children, but because children have been shown to react differently to environmental stimuli, Professor Challis said it was "possible that they were at greater risk".

The advice to parents is to limit children's use of mobiles, and ensure that those under the age of eight do not use them at all.

For some experts, this warning does not go nearly far enough. Professor Denis Henshaw, head of the human radiation effects group at Bristol University, says: "We are steeped in denial over the safety of mobile phones and related technologies."

He points, as an example, to a recent Austrian study which found a raised risk of breast cancer near phone masts. "We have emission levels in the UK similar to those in Austria — and yet there is no warning to people of possible dangers."

Contrast the UK position with that in other countries, where at the very least they take the approach that when it comes to this new technology, better safe than sorry.

The German government has taken a more cautious line over wi-fi. Last September, the German environment ministry recommended that people should keep their exposure to radiation as low as possible by replacing wi-fi with a cabled connection.

In 2006, the city of Frankfurt decided not to install wireless systems in schools until there was more health research.

In Austria, there is a much greater level of professional concern about the possible dangers. Three years ago, the Vienna Chamber of Doctors put up more than 21,000 posters in surgeries and other places with very specific warnings about mobile phones, such as: "Use your phone as little as possible" and "Men - never keep a phone in your trouser pockets as it can reduce fertility."

A study reported last month found that out of 360 men attending an infertility clinic, those who used their mobile the most had the poorest sperm quality.

The Austrian Medical Association is currently lobbying against the installation of wi-fi in schools. "Children using a laptop that is broadcasting wi-fi are very close to the antennae," says Dr Gerd Oberfeld, the association's spokesperson 23 research projects.


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Yet there has been a considerable amount of other research suggesting the technology might not be so safe after all.

For instance, last October, two Swedish professors pulled together the results of 11 studies involving people who had used mobiles for more than a decade and found they were 20 per cent more likely to develop a benign tumour in the inner ear, and 30 per cent more likely to develop a type of brain tumour known as a malignant glioma.

Last summer, a group of 25 international scientists — known as the BioInitiative Working Group — carried out a major review of the evidence for the effect of microwaves on health.

They found evidence for a raised risk of brain tumour from mobile phones, and also expressed concern about a possible raised risk of breast cancer, changes to genes, and inflammation in the blood vessels associated with conditions such as heart disease.

And it's not just mobiles and phone masts that are being implicated. Some experts are concerned about wi-fi networks which allow you to connect your computer directly to the internet without the need for wires.

These wi-fi networks are found increasingly in homes, offices and schools, as well as in cafes, hotels and other public places.

Last month, this long-running issue was given a new twist with the publication of a survey which found that cordless phones - used in millions of homes and offices - give off more radiation than mobile phones. The reason is that the base acts like a mini mobile phone mast, constantly broadcasting a signal.

All of these - mobile phones and masts, cordless phones and wi-fi networks - use microwaves. The fear is that these might affect on environmental issues. "There is a huge amount of evidence that being that close to an aerial poses a danger to human health."

The local government authorities of the province of Salzburg have already advised schools not to install wi-fi. Oberfeld says: "There are some perfectly good, safe alternative ways of connecting to the internet, such as infra-red."

Infra-red uses light, which our bodies are used to, rather than microwaves. Eighteen months ago, nearly 50 scientists at a meeting of the International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety in Benevento, Italy, agreed on a statement warning about the dangers of microwave emissions.

The scientists came from a range of top academic institutions, including COlumbia University in the U.S., the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the University of Washington in Seattle.

There was now evidence, the commission said, that long-term use of mobile phones could raise the risk of cancer in children and brain tumours.

These scientists called on governments to promote alternatives to wireless systems, tell people about the potential risks of mobile and cordless phones, and to limit their use by children and teenagers.

But while part of the debate is about which bits of research to take notice of and which shoudl be ignored, there is also a more fundamental difference over what are "safe" levels of intensity of microwave exposure.

The UK's levels are well within the recommended levels set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection in 1998 - so how can there be any risk?


These levels were aimed at preventing any possibility of heating damage through microwaves.


But the big question now is whether microwaves can affect us not by heating, but by interfering with the activity of cells in our bodies at a power level way below the current safety levels.


The possibility of these "non-thermal" effects was raised eight years ago in a major report on mobile phone safety by Sir William Stewart, then chairman of Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust and now head of the Health Protection Agency, the body responsible for monitoring microwave safety.

However, the report by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme last September concluded that there was no evidence for an effect other than heating and that there was "no need to support further work in this area".


It's not a view shared by the Benevento scientists in their statement in 2006: "Arguments that weak (low intensity) electromagnetic fields cannot affect biological systems do not represent the current spectrum of scientific opinion."


Indeed, the BioInitiative review last summer went further and called for safety levels to be lowered to reflect these non-thermal effects of microwaves on our bodies.


Last month, the Irish Doctors Environmental Association said that the current thermal-based guidelines were clearly no longer appropriate and called on the government to "immediately start research into the non-thermal effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation".


"There is absolutely no doubt these effects exist," says Dr Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist and expert in low frequency microwave radiation, and honorary lecturer at Imperial College in London.

"For instance, we've known for more than 30 years that electromagnetic fields affect the behaviour of calcium in living cells."

He claims that this could explain the symptoms reported by people who say they are affected by pulsed microwave radiation - the sort emitted by mobile phones.


"The textbook symptoms of too little calcium - such as fatigue, muscles cramps, irregular heart rhythm and gut problems - are very similar to those reported by people who say they are affected by microwave radiation," he says.


Professor Henshaw of Bristol University agrees. The idea that microwaves don't affect our health is "a total red herring", he says.


"The real question is: Why should anybody who understands physics and biology be surprised that low level radiation has an effect on health?


"We need to start thinking about microwave radiation the way we think about atmospheric pollution caused by cars," suggests Henshaw.


"We know that cars emit harmful chemicals: we can even calculate the number of premature deaths caused as a result (around 20,000). But we have rules and regulations on emissions - with the result that while car numbers continue to rise, pollution levels have fallen.


"Mobile phones and the rest aren't going to go away, but could we do more to acknowledge the possible problem so people can make an informed choice about using them and can learn to deal with the effects?"


The need for better warning is echoed by electromagnetic research group Powerwatch, which believes that mobiles should come with a health warning, like cigarettes.


"The evidence that passive smoking causes harm is actually much weaker than the evidence for damage by pulsed low frequency microwaves,' claims Graham Philips, Powerwatch's technical manager.


The media is sometimes accused of creating false debates over health and safety, setting the opinion of one or two renegade scientists against the evidence-based authoritative view of the majority.


The authority of the scientific sceptics suggests this isn't what is going on here. The one thing that both sides more or less agree on is the need for more research.


The last word, then, to the Health Protection Agency. "I've not seen any evidence that suggests I should be worried about my personal health as a result of using a mobile phone," says the agency's spokesman Dr Michael Clark.


"Street lamps emit radiation and I'm not worried about them. Radio waves are just next to microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum and I'm not worried about listening to Radio 4 either. But I keep an open mind on the subject."

• Mast Sanity: www.mastsanity.org; Health Protection Agency: www.hpa.org.uk