Cell Phones and Brain Cancer: Radiation Without Risk?

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Of the 100 million American cellular phone subscribers, some use their wireless phone only in a crisis — to call a friend or 911. They put their rap sessions on hold until arriving home, where phoning a friend costs no cents per minute.

For other wireless phone owners, it could be the fear of brain cancer, not an unwieldy wireless bill, that keeps them from using their cell phones for leisure chats.

Convinced that a nine-year cell phone habit led to his brain cancer, neurologist Chris Newman, M.D., has filed an $800 million lawsuit in Baltimore against his cell phone's maker and several other telecommunications companies. His suit comes five years after the dismissal, for lack of evidence, of a lawsuit filed in Florida by David Reynard, who alleged that a cell phone was responsible for his wife's fatal brain cancer.

In Newman's case, his lawyer has said, "it's really not a question at all" whether the cancer is cell phone-related. The evidence, she says: Newman's own doctors made the connection between his long-time cell phone use and his tumor, which is positioned in "the exact anatomical location where the radiation from the cell phone emitted into his skull."

Newman has been front and center in a renewed public focus over the last few months on whether the fear of brain cancer from wireless phones is well-founded or folly. For his part, epidemiologist Sam Milham, M.D., recently expressed a breakaway scientific viewpoint when he told the television audience of CNN's Larry King Live show that there is "plenty of reason for concern" about cell phones causing brain cancer.

Hold the phone. Is there really cause for concern? Do steps need to be taken, as Milham told Larry King, to avoid a brain cancer epidemic among the millions of cell phone users in this country and around the world?

No, current scientific evidence does not show any negative health effects from the low levels of electromagnetic energy emitted by mobile phones, says the Food and Drug Administration. But some recent studies suggest a possible link between mobile phones and cancer and warrant follow-up, the agency says, to determine with more certainty whether cell phones are safe.

"We don't see a risk looking at currently available data," says David Feigal, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "But we need more definite answers about the biological effects of cell phone radiation, and about the more complicated question of whether mobile phones might cause even a small increase in the risk of developing cancer."

Radiation Without Risk?

Like televisions, alarm systems, computers, and all other electrical devices, mobile phones emit electromagnetic radiation. FDA can regulate these devices to ensure that the radiation doesn't pose a health hazard to users, but only once the existence of a public health hazard has been established.

In the United States, mobile phones operate in a frequency ranging from about 850 to 1900 megahertz (MHz). In that range, the radiation produced is in the form of non-ionizing radiofrequency (RF) energy. This RF energy is different than the ionizing radiation like that from a medical x-ray, which can present a health risk at certain doses.

At high enough levels, RF energy, too, can be harmful, because of its ability to heat living tissue to the point of causing biological damage. In a microwave oven, it's RF energy that cooks the food, but the heat generated by cell phones is small in comparison.

A mobile phone's main source of RF energy is its antenna, so the closer the antenna is to a phone user's head, the greater the person's expected exposure to RF energy.

Because RF energy from a cell phone falls off quickly as distance increases between a person and the radiation source, the safety of mobile phones with an antenna mounted away from the user — like on the outside of a car — has not been called into question. Also not in doubt is the safety of those so-called cordless phones that have a base unit attached to a home's telephone wiring and operate at much lower power levels than cell phones.

Many experts say that no matter how near the cell phone's antenna — even if it's right up against the skull — the six-tenths of a watt of power emitted couldn't possibly affect human health. They're probably right, says John E. Moulder, Ph.D., a cancer researcher and professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. It's true, he says, that from the physics standpoint, biological effects from mobile phones are "somewhere between impossible and implausible."

At the same time, Moulder supports further studies into the science of cell phone radiation. "Some people think the power emitted by the phones is so low, it's a silly thing to research. But I think it remains a legitimate area of study."

About the Author

www.fda.gov
FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.