Today’s pronouncement from the World Health Organization (WHO) that cellphone radio frequency (RF) emissions possibly cause cancer, is pusillanimous quackery with no scientific basis.
“The WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans, based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer.”
A study, sponsored by the WHO and published one year ago, showed an elevated, but not statistically significant, rate of glioma among some study participants.
“There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at higher exposure levels, but biases and error prevented a causal interpretation.”
Any unbiased investigator applying rigorous scientific method would not have relied on experimental results that failed to pass the customary tests of statistical significance. The IARC admits that “biases and error” tainted the glioma evidence. Instead of responsibly labeling the experiment as inconclusive, the agency recklessly placed cellphone emissions in the same cancer risk category as the banned insecticide DDT. By failing to observe mainstream scientific principles, the IARC most likely will subject cellphone users to unnecessary regulation that will drive up costs and drag down performance.
Scientists, including physicist Bob Park at the University of Maryland, know that ionizing radiation (from X-rays, gamma rays, radioactive isotopes, and the like) damages chromosomes, which can lead to cancer. They also have known for decades that cellphones don’t emit ionizing radiation and cellphone radio frequencies are well below the damage threshold. What’s more, for cancer, frequency is what matters most, and “exposure level” is secondary. Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize for explaining in the photoelectric effect that energy is proportional to frequency.
No mechanism has been found for radio electromagnetic fields below an 800 terahertz frequency threshold to cause cancer, regardless of exposure level. Cellphones operate at roughly one millionth of the 800 terahertz frequency threshold. So the cellphone-cancer link isn’t based on any mainstream scientific theory.
Even exposure level is low, thanks to government regulations. Though high exposure to radio frequency emissions may contribute to diseases other than cancer, cellphones operate at exposure levels that won’t hurt a fly. Cellphone exposure levels are orders of magnitude below the known threshold for harm.
Evidence of a cellphone-cancer link is exceptionally weak and almost certainly due to chance. I know of only one study with statistically significant findings out of about 20 (see this good survey of the evidence). I won’t bore you with the hideous methodological flaws and conflicts of interest that pervade many cellphone-cancer studies.
So even though cellphone usage is now among the zillion things on the IARC’s cancer risk list, the practical risk is nil. An hour in the sun at the beach or a short airline flight will expose you to more cancer-causing radiation than a lifetime of cellphone usage.
My advice: Don’t chuck your beloved Android phone just yet. Remember the power line scare of 1979? Reason ultimately prevailed, as it will on cellphones. Just don’t hold your breath.
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