The review analyzed 63 studiesperformed in 1994-2022. in 22 different countries, and found no link between cell phone use and brain cancer, ending the long-running debate over the safety of these devices.
“Anxieties about the health effects of new technologies are common and tend to increase when a new technology becomes widely used,” said Keith Petrie, a professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The study looked at the links between mobile phones and six different types of cancer – three types affecting the brain, and cancers of the pituitary gland, salivary glands and blood. The global team led by the organization ARPANSA (eng. Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency), also analyzed trends in brain cancer growth over the past few decades.
“These studies did not show an increase in cancer epidemiology,” study co-author Mark Elwood, professor of cancer epidemiology at the University of Auckland, said in a statement. “We also found no increased risk of childhood leukemia or brain cancer in the environment of radio or television transmitters or cell phone base stations.”
As 5G networks have only recently come into use, there is not yet enough data to draw firm conclusions about their security. But Mr Elwood said that based on what we were seeing so far, they were unlikely to pose a threat to public health.
“The authors carefully assessed and adjusted for potential confounding factors in the individual studies reviewed. “The main conclusions of this study are that, based on the best available evidence to date, exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones or phone antennas does not appear to significantly increase the risk of developing cancer,” said the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, who was not involved in the study. Professor of Physics Alberto Najera.
However, the authors of the study recommend continued epidemiological surveillance, especially related to new technologies such as 5G, as the evidence is still limited and some uncertainties remain, such as long-term effects and more sensitive population subgroups, according to Newsweek.
2024-09-04 22:39:09