Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Tumors? Whenever a trillion dollar industry is involved – whether it’s Big Food, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, or Big Telecom – there is so much money that science can be manipulated.
If it comes on the possible effects of mobile phone use on human health, you certainly could end on with a tingling sensation in the neck when writing excessively or even text Interruption Your neck, or the neck of someone you might meet while texting while driving. On the other hand, think of the countless lives that have existed Saved on the go, because people can now call so quickly in emergencies.
But what about cancer? There have been studies since the turn of the century to suggest that long-term cellphone use on the side of your head that you talk to is up to twice as high as the risk of developing brain tumors. This is important because the radiation only penetrates your brain up to a few inches. At 0:48 in my video Does cell phone radiation cause cancer?I’m showing views from the back of the head and the top of the head, and you can see why you could develop Cancer on one side of the head over the other.
Since it is such a local effect, you can see why there are recommendations for With the hands-free function or a hands-free headset that can to reduce Brain load by a factor of 100 or more – and that includes Bluetooth headsets. This can be especially important in children who to have thinner skulls.
Cell phone radiation, however, is not like nuclear radiation. It doesn’t damage DNA directly like gamma rays from an atom bomb. Yes, but it seems possible damage DNA indirectly by generating free radicals. Out of 100 studies that looked at this, 93 confirmed these oxidative effects of the type of high frequency radio frequency radiation that comes from cell phones. Okay, but does this oxidative stress cause DNA damage? Most of the studies found Signs of genotoxicity were found, which represent damage to our genes, DNA or chromosomes. However, many of these studies were carried out in petri dishes or in laboratory animals. I’m less interested in whether Mickey or Minnie are at risk than in the fact that brain tumors appear in humans. Yes, some population studies found increased risk of cancer, but other studies do not.
Could the source of funding for these studies have anything to do with the different results? Some of the studies were financed from cell phone companies. The researchers hypothesized that studies would be less likely to show an effect of exposure if funded by the telecommunications industry, which has a vested interest in making cell phone use safe. So they ran the numbers and – surprise, surprise – “found that the industry-only studies were actually far less likely to be statistically significant …”
In fact, most independently funded studies showed an effect while most industry-funded studies did not. In fact, industry-funded studies were about ten times less likely to find an adverse effect from cell phone use. This is even worse than the pharmaceutical industry! Studies of their own products sponsored by Big Pharma were only about four times the probability of Favoritism the drug compared to independent researchers. However, big tobacco still comes first when it comes to big bias. Why do research articles on the health effects of secondhand smoke produce different results? Well, it turns out that studies that were self-funded by the tobacco industry had a whopping 88 times the probability finally it wasn’t harmful. About ten times more for telecommunications, this means more for the end of the bias spectrum in the pharmaceutical industry.
However, there are conflicts of interest on both sides of the debate. If it’s not a financial conflict, it can be intellectual as it can be human nature show Bias towards evidence in support of your personal position. As such, you will see weak science published, like a study that I show in my study at 3:55 a.m. Video that seems to Find a “disruptive” and “very linear relationship” between the states with the most brain tumors and the states with the most cell phone subscriptions. Okay, but you could think of many reasons why states like New York and Texas might have more brain tumors and cell phones than the Dakotas, and those reasons have nothing to do with cell phone radiation.
Sometimes you could see outright fraud with allegations that the academic researchers who composed Two of these genotoxicity papers and the aforementioned review were implicated in scientific misconduct – allegations they made denyand pointed out that their main suspect turned out to be a lawyer who worked for the telecommunications industry.
Whenever there is a trillion dollar industry, be it the food industry, the tobacco industry, the pharmaceutical industry, or the telecommunications industry, there is so much money involved that science can be manipulated. Take the nuclear industry, for example. There were Decades of “high-level, institutional … cover-up” on the health consequences of Chernobyl. The official estimates of the resulting health problems were hundreds or even a thousand times lower than estimates by independent researchers. Did only 4,000 people end up dying from it, or nearly a million? It depends who you ask and who happens to be funding who you ask. When it comes to cancer, all eyes turn to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the IARC, the official body of the World Health Organization, which tries to do so independently and objectively determine What is and is not carcinogenic. You can find out what the IARC found about cell phones in my video Cell Phone Brain Tumor Risk?.
For more information on cell phones and WiFi, check out the other videos below:
I’ve talked a lot about the corrupting influence of commercial interests on science. See for example:
In health,
Michael Greger, MD
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