Danish Study Proves Cell Phones Don’t Cause Cancer

There’s good news for chattering teenagers and needlessly busy CEO-wannabes addicted to their Blackberries. A new Danish study proves almost conclusively that cell phone usage doesn’t cause cancer. This runs counter to the hysteria in some quarters anytime the word “radiation” crops up, but for those who have even the tiniest inkling of the biology and physics involved, this comes as no surprise.

Joachim Schuz of the Danish Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen led the research that studied data on 420,095 Danish cell phone users. The study covered 357,553 men and 62,542 women, all of whom first subscribed to a cell phone service between 1982 and 1995. They were followed through 2002, so some were tracked for as long as twenty years. Then, the researchers compared their cancer rates to the rate in the general Danish population. In all, the study group suffered 14,249 cancer cases, which researchers said was a smaller percentage than in the Danish population as a whole.

The radiation from a cell phone is very long wave, meaning it possesses very little energy. To damage DNA or otherwise create a biological problem that could result in cancer, very short-wave energy is needed, which would possess a lot of energy. Looking at the electromagnetic spectrum, the troublemakers are gamma and x-rays (that’s why the dentist leaves the room when snapping an x-ray of a patient’s teeth). Below x-rays in energy is ultra-violet, which can cause some cancer with long exposure and does cause sun burn. Exposure for several minutes is needed to burn all but the least protected human skin. Then, there is the visible light part of the spectrum. Retina burns from flash bulbs are about all the damage this can muster. Moving into even lower energy, one comes to infrared, microwave and radio waves. Cell phones operate in the 800-900 megahertz and 1,800-1,900 MHz (and the new “3G” at 2,200 MHz) portion of the spectrum, right around the frequencies for UHF TV and FM radio (neither of which appears to cause cancer either).

John Boice, a cancer epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University who worked on the research, told the press, “We were not able to identify any increased risks of any cancers that could be related to the use of the cellular phones. So there’s no biological mechanism that would suggest that even this type of exposure could cause cancer or DNA damage.”

So, cell phones don’t cause cancer. However, Dr. Boice did caution that cell phones do represent a danger to their users and those near them. He cautioned, “There is, in fact, a hazard from the use of a cellular phone that we have to all be concerned about. And that’s using a phone when we’re driving an automobile.” The hysteria needs redirecting.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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