Can your cell phone really cause cancer? This question has been asked by many people ever since holding an electronic device to your head for multiple minutes has become the norm. Lets look at both sides. Do the people who believe that cell phones can cause cancer truly believe that radiation can be dangerous in even small doses, or are those people just hypochondriacs? Or are the people who believe that it doesn’t cause cancer just not thinking that this could be a problem in five years if the radiation takes that slow. Let’s try and dive into this subject a little more and make a decision.
A lot of researches have thought that the increase in brain tumors since 1970 has something to do with cell phones. But the problem with that is that cell phones weren’t until the 1990’s. That study of the increase in brain tumors could be explained by the increase in medical detection of brain tumors since 1970.
There was a study that observed 420,000 cell phone users over a 20 year period, and the researchers have found that there is no link between cell phone use and brain tumors. Even though this study does not fully answer the question, it definitely supports the idea that cell phone use does not cause cancer.
The World Health Organization has agreed that their is limited evidence that cell phones have radiation that could cause cancer. To read more about that, you can read it here.
Like I said, this question is not yet completely answered. There are still tests to be done and the thing we need for that is time. But as of now, we can say that there is no evidence that cell phones cause radiation. Please comment on this post if you have any thoughts or information that I didn’t cover!
This is a pretty relevant topic in today’s society because of the fact that we’re on our phones so often. My parents always yell at me for holding the phone to close to my head when I talk, because they believe that the radiation from phones can cause brain tumors. They went as far as forcing me to put a radiation neutralizer sticker on my phone when I was in middle school. I think that there is a possibility brain cancer could be linked to excessive cell phone use, but it is hard to say because opinions of researchers are so divided on this issue.
Cell phones causing cancer is a crazy propositions. Just think how much the world would change if this was actually proven true. Here is an interesting article on laws being passed in California forcing phone companies to disclose health risks around cell phones.
Interesting post! Very relevant in todays world. My mom always warns me about this, but I never really listen. Even though there isn’t a definite answer it is still something to keep in the back of our minds because if there is a correlation then we should be concerned. Cancer is very serious, so if there is any correlation between the two I’m sure we will see it on our cell phones. Hopefully there isn’t any relation.
This is a SUPER interesting topic and I would love for Andrew to cover it in class. Because cell phones have only been around for so long it is impossible to know if they actually do. For example, with smoking we learned that there was a 20 year lag between smoking and lung cancer. Now it has been around 20 years since the birth of cell phones but maybe they are different.. maybe the lag is 30 years and we are only 5-7 years out from a brain cancer epidemic amongst a bunch of 30-50 year old people. Scary stuff.