Does ever rising mobile use increase our cancer risk?
MY teenager daughter just loves her new mobile phone.
By Rachel Borrill
It
goes everywhere with her, and I literally have to prise it out of her
hands at bed time. I must admit, I am also very fond of my iPhone. I
can’t imagine how I survived so long without one. “Mum, will you get off your phone,” my children will shout. And yes, because of my job and organising their social lives, it can feel like it is permanently attached to my ear. Should I worry?
Well, yes, as according to some scientists my constant use could put me at a higher risk of developing a brain tumour or some other form of cancer.
I can still remember the first mobile phone I ever used. It was Saturday, Mar 31, 1990, and I had been asked by my then newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, to cover a demonstration against the poll tax in London.
“Here take the office phone,” my editor shouted at me as I walked out the door.
It was the size of a brick, it was very heavy to carry, with a large aerial, and ran out of battery within 15 minutes. When the demonstrators began to riot, I had to file copy from a phone box.
In 1996, Neil Whitfield, a father of six from Wigan, was promoted to sales manager and was given his first mobile phone by the company. “My job required me to use it heavily and after a few months of getting the phone I had to visit my GP as I was suffering from severe headaches,” he recalls.
“The doctor advised me that they were probably caused by driving long distances for work and to take painkillers. The headaches persisted, accompanied by fatigue and memory loss. When my hearing started to deteriorate in my left ear, I went for tests.”
Unfortunately, the neurologist discovered a tumour in Whitfield’s brain, just behind his left ear, the side he held his mobile phone on.
“The specialist asked if I had ever used a mobile phone and when I said; ‘Yes,’ he replied that the mobiles might be ‘the smoking of the 21st century.” I was given five years to live without surgery so underwent a nine-hour operation,” he says. Now completely deaf in his left ear, which affects his balance, Whitfield, 56, still gets headaches and facial twitches. All, he believes, thanks to his Nokia mobile phone. “I am angry that they don’t warn the public,” he says.
So should we be worried about our mobile phone usage ? Are they killing us ? The argument has already lasted over 20 years so what is the truth?
Will we ever find out — or, if we do will it be too late ?
The most comprehensive study was complied in 2011 by the International Agency For Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organisation, after listening to over 30 experts and reviewing all the evidence and data, they decided to reclassify radiation from category 3, with “no conclusive evidence” of causing cancer, to a Group 2B a “possible human carcinogen.”
Dr Timothy Moynihan, a medical oncologist with the Mayo Clinic in Florida, believes that more research is needed to prove a link.
“It often takes many years between the use of a cancer-causing agent, like tobacco, and the observation of an increase in cancer rates. At this point, it is possible that too little time has passed to detect an increase in cancer rates directly attributable to cellphone use,” he explains.
“The bottom line? For now no one knows if cellphones are capable of causing cancer. Although long-term studies are ongoing, to date there is no convincing evidence that cellphone use increases the risk of cancer.”
But Dr Jack Philips, a neurosurgeon for over 30 years at the Beaumont hospital, Dublin, suggests if there was a link, neurologists around the world would have already seen a marked increase in the incidence of brain cancer, especially in countries like America, where the usage of mobile phones is so high.
“Yet we haven’t,” he says. “The incidence of brain tumours has not increased at all in the 30 years I have been practising, and you can quote me on that. We normally see about 80 people with malignant tumours each year.
“I would have expected to see a change. Like always there are contrary reports, some may be based upon poor research or subjective research, which are not objective. The neurologists that I have spoken to feel that the emissions from phones have not led to brain cancer.”
In 2000, Dr Philips was part of a team at Beaumont hospital investigating a link between 73 of their patients suffering from glioma (the most common type of malignant brain tumour) and which hand they held their mobile phone in.
“We believed if there was a link the patient would get the tumour on the side of the head they held their phone too. We didn’t find any side dominant, we found often they had the tumours on the opposite side that they used the phone. Most people hold the phone in their right hand and there has not been a change in the dominance in all of these years,” he explains.
Dr Philips also points out that most of the “alarming” scientific reports tend to focus on the effect of mobile phones on children.
“They argue that the immature brain will be affected by them. The neurologist and paediatricians at Beaumont hospital meet every week, and there has never been a case in 30 years of a child presenting with cancer because of the use of mobile phones. So for me it doesn’t hold water,” he says.
The Irish Cancer Society also agrees that to date the research is “inconclusive’, but suggests more needs to be done to explore the linkage.
Dr Sinead Walsh, the research manager at the ICS, says people should be aware of the “possible risk” until it can be proved otherwise.
“Many studies around the world have found no evidence of an increased risk of cancer due to mobiles, but we cannot yet be sure about the long-term effects of their use,” she explains.
“The Irish Cancer Society recommends that until more conclusive information becomes available people are advised to limit exposure to the potential harm by keeping calls short, using hand free devices or texting.”
No doubt this debate will continue for many years to come, but as for me? Well, my mobile phone is essential for work and keeping track of my children’s hectic lives. But maybe I’ll stop charging it up, next to me as I sleep. And perhaps I will listen more to my children when they shout; “Get off the phone, mum!” At least my monthly bill will be cheaper.
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