Mobile Phones – Safe or not safe?

No doubt you heard about  the recent press release from the World Health Organization, saying there is a “possible” link between cell phones and brain cancer. Wow, the WHO and not just some crank, so it must be true … yes?

But wait, what about all the studies showing no link at all between cell phones and health issues … confused yet – perhaps some doubt lingers in your mind? Well, the latest news is that you are quite safe. The UK’s NHS (National Health Service) has a nice summary.

Here is a quick outline:

  • A study that looked at the folks who tragically got Brain Cancer found no correlation between their illness and their mobile phone usage
  • As for the WHO news, well they have taken a precautionary approach, and recently classified mobile phones as a “possible carcinogen”, putting them into the same risk bracket as traffic fumes and coffee. The classification means that the link is far from certain, and WHO states there is only “limited evidence” of a link, and that the results supporting a link may be due to other factors distorting study data. (Note the word “Possible”)

So anybody seriously worried about the WHO classification needs to also avoid coffee and traffic fumes.

So where are we now? Well, the authors of this latest review suggest that if there is no increase in brain tumour rates in the next few years after almost universal exposure to mobile phones in Western countries, then it is unlikely that there is a link between mobile phone usage and brain cancer in adults. The methodological weaknesses of underlying studies and the trend in brain tumour incidence shown here suggest that any risk of brain tumours resulting from mobile phone use is likely to be very small, and possibly even non-existent.

So if you really are a tad concerned, then for goodness sake stop, all that worrying is probably doing you more harm than your actual mobile phone usage.

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