The National Toxicology Program study exposed rats to radiation emitted from our cell phones for two and a half years.
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The researchers found 11 of 550 male rats developed brain cancer tumors after long-term exposure to cell phone radiation most common in the U.S. (GSM or CDMA).
The new research was conducted on rats by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, which exposed rats to radiofrequency radiation that comes from cell phones for about nine hours a day for seven days a week. Earlier in the week, the NIH said, “It is important to note that previous human, observational data collected in earlier, large-scale population-based studies have found limited evidence of an increased risk for developing cancer from cellphone use”.
Scientists have previously said there’s a possible chance that cell phone use could cause cancer (like nearly everything ever studied, pickled vegetables and coffee included), but that so far, we haven’t seen increased cancer incidence in humans that we can directly say comes from cell phone use.
“No biologically significant effects were observed in the brain or heart of female rats”, they added.
‘But these partial findings don’t cause me any real concern about health risks from mobile phone use. The full suite of study results won’t likely be published until 2017. Just this month, a survey of brain cancer rates in Australia found no increase since the introduction of mobile phones there nearly three decades ago, a finding also seen in other countries.
The study looked for gliomas, malignant tumors in the nervous system, and schwannomas of the heart, another type of tumor.
Researchers said they did not know how to explain that low rate. No schwannomas of the heart were observed in the control group of male rats.
“Unfortunately there is not sufficient detail in the present report to evaluate it fully, particularly given a number of criticisms by the reviewers”, said Rodney Croft, the director of the Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research at the University of Wollongong in Australia, in a statement to reporters. The authors also noted that it was unusual that no cancers occurred in the control group in this study.
Similarly, Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, stated: “So here we have a study that found fairly weak evidence of small effects of mobile phone radiation on tumors in rats, where it’s plausible that the effects are even smaller than what was found, and where it’s not (yet) clear how far any such results are applicable to humans”.
In a control group of 90 male rats not exposed to the radiation, none got the cancer.
The conclusions suggest that there is a small additional risk from exposure to RF similar to that used in mobile phones, although the increase is very small. She also believes FDA must develop standards to protect the public, especially children, who are more vulnerable because their brains are still developing.
Ron Melnick, who ran the NTP project until retiring in 2009 and has seen the study’s results, told The Wall Street Journal, “Where people were saying there’s no risk, I think this ends that kind of statement”.
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The findings could have enormous implications in the long-running debate over whether phone radiation has an impact on users’ health.
