Mobile phone brain cancer link rejected
29 Oct BBC
Further research has been published suggesting there is no link
between mobile phones and brain cancer.
The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years
as use of the phones has soared.
The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in
Denmark looked at more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over an
18-year period.
Researchers concluded users were at no greater risk than anyone else
of developing brain cancer.
The findings, published on the British Medical Journal website, come
after a series of studies have come to similar conclusions.
‘Reassuring’ But there has also been some research casting doubt on
mobile phone safety, prompting the World Health Organization to warn
that they could still be carcinogenic.
In doing so, the WHO put mobile phones in the same category as
coffee, meaning a link could not be ruled out but could not be proved
either.
The Department of Health continue to advise that anyone under the age
of 16 should use mobile phones only for essential purposes and keep all
calls short.
The Danish study, which built on previous research that has already
been published by carrying out a longer follow-up, found there was no
significant difference in rates of brain or central nervous system
cancers among those who had mobiles and those that did not. Of the
358,403 mobile phone owners looked at, 356 gliomas (a type of brain
cancer) and 846 cancers of the central nervous system were seen - both
in line with incidence rates among those who did not own a mobile.
Even among those who had had mobiles the longest - 13 years or more -
the risk was no higher, the researchers concluded.
But they still said mobile phone use warranted continued follow up to
ensure cancers were not developing over the longer term, and to see what
the effect was in children.
Hazel Nunn, head of evidence and health information at Cancer
Research UK, said: “These results are the strongest evidence yet that
using a mobile phone does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of
the brain or central nervous system in adults.”
Prof Anders Ahlbom, from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, praised the
way the study was conducted, adding the findings were “reassuring”.
Prof David Spiegelhalter, an expert specialising in the understanding
of risk who is based at the University of Cambridge, said: “The mobile
phone records only go up to 1995 and so the comparison is mainly between
early and late adopters, but the lack of any effect on brain tumours is
still very important evidence.”
And Prof Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Royal
Berkshire Hospital, said: “The findings clearly reveal that there is no
additional overall risk of developing a cancer in the brain although
there does seem to be some minor, and not statistically significant,
variations in the type of cancer.”
But the researchers themselves do accept there were some limitations
to the study, including the exclusion of “corporate subscriptions”,
thereby excluding people who used their phones for business purposes,
who could be among the heaviest users.
|