Study: Cell Phones Do Not Increase Incidence of Brain Tumors

September 2008, National Public Radio's All Things Considered segment aired a discussion on the link between cell phone use and brain tumors. On the segment, Harvard professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos stated that recent scientific studies were not supportive of claims that cell phones cause brain tumors to develop. Very little has changed in the 15 months since the segment aired. It appears that a recently published scientific study investigating the same cell phone and health problem connection show that there is very little, if any, risk associated with the use of cell phones.

According to a recent study on a possible connection between the use of cellular phones and the development of brain tumors, there has been no observable change in the number of brain tumor cases. Scientists studied 60,000 people age 20 to 79 from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden for the study.

December 3, 2009, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the study that seems to reject the popular concern that cell phone use is linked to brain tumors. The claim that using cell phones increases the risk of developing brain tumors suggests that the incidence of brain tumors would have increased. This recent study, however, shows that the number of brain tumor have not increased, but have remained rather stable. In fact, over the past decade, there has been no apparent change.

Several factors may have contributed to the study's results, which appears to discount claims of disease caused by the use of cell phones. The results of this study may be explained by the possibility that: the five to 10 year span of cell phone use studied by researches may not allow sufficient time for cell phone related brain tumors to develop; the risk of tumor development may be remote or non-existent; there may be no risk; the individuals studied use their cell phones less than average; or certain preexisting physiological factors may cause a person to be susceptible to developing brain tumors from cell phone use.

The results of this study have compelled the United States Food and Drug Administration to report, on the FDA website that "scientific evidence has not linked cell phones with any health problems." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the American Cancer Society continue to examine studies investigating possible links between the use of cell phones health problems.