Cell Phone Skepticism #3: Health Risks
In the early part of the 21st century the world’s mobile phone users were presented with a quite terrifying concept – that their use of cell phones caused an increased risk of brain tumors, and that anyone using a mobile phone with regularity was presenting themselves with a possible death sentence.
It had some weight as a theory – after all, cell phones send out radio waves and those have to go somewhere.
It made sense to many people that there could be a chance of this radiation causing a tumor to grow inside the head of the cell phone user.
It was certainly enough of a story to dominate the news for at least a while, and to persuade a number of wavering non-users to remain without a cell phone.
However, research carried out since then has quite uniformly demolished the argument that mobile phone use carries any increased risk of brain tumors.
A Danish study in 2006 followed more than 400,000 users – backdated over the course of twenty years – and found that there was absolutely no increased risk of brain cancer from mobile phone use.
The extensive studies carried out before and since have also presented no argument that increased use of mobile phones makes it any more likely that the user will suffer a brain tumor.
It is hard to say if the risk is increased even when the user has what might be considered an “addiction” to talking on their mobile phone – although if you remain doubtful, sending texts when it is appropriate is a worthwhile safety option.
