No link between mobile phones and brain cancer, concludes new study
A new review commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found no link between mobile phone usage and brain cancer.
Led by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (Arpansa), the systematic review examined more than 5,000 studies, and found that despite the sharp increase in wireless-device usage, there had not been a parallel rise in brain-cancer cases.
Only the most robust data was used, including information on people who have spent a lot of time on their phone, such as by making long phone calls or who have used mobile phones for more than a decade.
Commissioned in 2019, the final analysis included 63 observational studies from 1994 - 2022 in 22 countries, and was assessed by 11 investigators from nine countries. It looked at the effects of radio frequencies used in mobile phones as well as in TVs, baby monitors and radar.
The review focused on cancers of the central nervous system, including brain cancers in adults and children, and cancer of the meninges (three layers of tissue covering the brain and spinal cord). It also examined tumours of the salivary and pituitary glands and ear, and leukemia, while assessing risks connected with mobile phone use, base stations or transmitters and occupational exposure.
In addition, the review said:
There is 'moderate certainty evidence' that radiation from mobile phone use close to the head 'likely does not increase the risk' of central nervous systems cancers like glioma and meningioma, or paediatric brain tumours.
There is 'low certainty evidence' that radiation from cordless phone use near the head 'may not increase the risk' of glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma.
There is 'moderate certainty evidence' that whole-body radiation from fixed-site transmitters such as broadcasting antennas or base stations 'likely does not increase' the risk of childhood leukemia.
As of 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) has classified electromagnetic radiation produced by mobile phones as 'possibly carcinogenic', or Group 2B, and the classification has not be reconsidered since
What do the experts say?
'We concluded the evidence does not show a link between mobile phones and brain cancer or other head and neck cancers,' the study’s lead author, Arpansa's health impact assessment assistant director Ken Karipidis, said to The Independent.
'Even though mobile phone use has skyrocketed, brain cancer rates have remained quite stable. We can be quite confident there is no association between mobile phone use and brain tumours. Exposure to radio waves from wireless technology is not a human health hazard.'
Karipidis said that people hear the word radiation and assume it is similar to nuclear radiation. '
'Radiation is basically energy that travels from one point to another. There are many different types, for example, ultraviolet radiation from the sun,' he said.
'We’re always exposed to low-level radio waves in the everyday environment.'
However, while exposure is still low, it is much higher than exposure from other wireless devices since phones are used close to the head, Karipidis said.
Naveed Wagle, MD, a neuro-oncologist at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California, says this latest review is reassuring. 'Much of the data [in the past] has been [on] very small studies and limited tumour types,' Wagle told Healthline. 'This study allows for the pooling of these studies to give more robust statistical significance.'
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