The relationship between mobile phone use and an increased risk of brain cancer is a debate that’s been around almost as long as mobile phones themselves. A huge study from the WHO that’s just been released should put the question to rest.
In 1993, a Florida man named David Reynard alleged that radiation from cell phone use contributed to his wife’s death from brain cancer. Reynard sued NEC America, the company that made his wife’s phone, claiming that the phone “was equipped with an antenna so positioned as to cause exposure to microwave radiation in an excessive and unsafe amount to the portion of the brain where the tumor was found.”
Even though that lawsuit was dismissed in 1995, the widely covered case was enough to plant the idea of cancer-causing cell phones in the popular imagination for decades.
Adding to the idea that mobile phones posed a cancer risk was the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) in conjunction with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified mobile phone radiation as a possible human carcinogen in 2011. Then, a rodent study in 2016 concluded that the radiation emitted by the devices caused cancer in the brains and adrenal glands of mice and rats.
Still, over the years, the link between mobile phone radiation and cancer has always been a little iffy. Now the WHO has released a large study that will likely put the issue to rest. The study, which was led by researchers from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) looked at over 5,000 other studies and found 63 published between 1994 and 2022 to include in their final analysis.
They concluded that even though mobile phone use has skyrocketed in the last 20 years, there has not been a corresponding increase in brain cancers or any other head and neck cancers – even among those who use their cell phones the most and for periods longer than 10 years. The study-of-studies also looked at exposure to the radio waves from cell phone towers and at occupations in which people are subjected to more radio frequency radiation at work and, again, found no link with cancer.
“This is a review and combined analysis of studies assessing whether radio frequencies increase the risk of cancers in people,” said Mark Elwood, an honorary Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Auckland, who was a study co-author. “Radio frequencies (RF) refers to electromagnetic energy in the wavelengths of 300 Hz to 300 GHz, that is, a lower frequency and lower energy than visible light. RF is used for mobile phones and radio and TV. It is also used in baby monitors, Wi-Fi connections, radar, and many industrial and medical uses.”
The findings, of course, make sense, considering that some research pegs cell phone use in America alone at four hours and 37 minutes daily, and other data shows that about three-quarters of the world’s population now use the devices. With that kind of massive mobile phone usage, you’d expect to see brain cancers spiking significantly if the radiation they caused was carcinogenic, but that’s simply not the case. In fact, the researchers say, brain cancer rates have remained more or less flat since 1982.
“When the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified radio wave exposure as a possible carcinogen to humans in 2011 it was largely based on limited evidence from human observational studies,’ said ARPANSA’s Ken Karipidis. “This systematic review of human observational studies is based on a much larger dataset compared to that examined by the IARC, that also includes more recent and more comprehensive studies, so we can be more confident in the conclusion that exposure to radio waves from wireless technology is not a human health hazard.”
The study’s findings have been published in the journal Environmental International.
