Cell Phones and Brain Cancer? Another “ Don’t Know”!

Over 175 million US citizens use cell phones regularly. So it’s an important question: Do cell phones cause brain cancer? One prominent brain surgeon thinks it’s possible; he quotes the case of famous lawyer Johnny Cochrane, who used his cell phone a lot, always placing it to his left ear, the side where he developed a tumor. Other authorities say there’s no evidence to show an association between cell phone use and cancer. What should one believe?

The answer is, we just don’t know. Although it seems plausible that the location of a tumor in relation to the side a cell phone is used provide evidence, there’s no reliable data on this. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have reported that people who used cell phones for 10 years had an almost fourfold increase of acoustic neuroma, a non-malignant tumor on a nerve that links the ear and brain, on the side of the head where they most often held the phone, compared with the other side of the head. But this wasn’t brain cancer, and the phones were the older analog type, not the digital ones used today.

Dr H Frumkin and the American Cancer Society say there’s no plausible scientific rationale, and the evidence in favor of a link is extremely weak or non-existent.

You can get more information on what to do if you’re alarmed in a recent report from New York City Council member Eva Moskowicz . In the meantime, don’t use your cell phone when driving; it’s much more dangerous than any risk of brain cancer.

Comments

[Robert Griffith]

A new, large study reports no connection betweeen cell phone use and brain cancer. But there WAS an association between the side of the head where the tumor was and the side used for phoning. The researchers claim this was probably "recall bias", where patients with tumors systematically over-reported phone use on the side of the head where their tumor was.
This was a cross-sectional study. We need a prospective, or longitudinal study to prove, or disprove, the point. However, such a study is probably impossible to conduct given today's widespread use of cell phones.
There's a summary of the study at:
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/43093.html