Katherine Smith | NZ Journal of Natural Medicine | 26 Feb 2015
New Zealand has done it again.
In the same great tradition that has seen NZ “punching above its weight” and besting “overseas experts” a new paper from a group of researchers at the University of Auckland is being promoted as showing that there’s no connection between cell phones and brain tumours.
Somehow, this one study (which is based on statistics from the New Zealand National Cancer Registry) disproves large numbers of many other international studies that definitely show a link between cell phones and brain tumours.
Never mind that the NZ researchers chose a cohort of people (those diagnosed with brain tumours between 1995 and 2010) who would have been very unlikely to have been using cell phones for long enough for an increased risk in cell-phone induced cancer to become apparent…
No, prior research and good sense be damned, the University of Auckland still boldly goes where no sensible university would dare to go and announces in its press release: “Mobile phones not causing an increase in brain tumours”.
To be fair, one of the study’s authors did state that “a study of this type cannot exclude a small risk, or one limited to a certain subtype of cancers, or a risk only arising after more than about 15 years of phone use.” [Emphasis added]
That honest because his own paper admits that in 1995 only about 10% of the NZ population had a cell phone subscription and by 2010 only about 40% of NZers had a cell phone subscription. This means that only a minority of the general population had any exposure to microwave radiation from cellular phones until 2010 – which was chosen for the close off date of the study! Moreover few New Zealanders who had used cell phones by 2010 would have been long-term cell phone users by that time.
It is salutary to contrast the new study from the University of Auckland with a major study by Lennart Hardell and Michael Carlberg published in 2014, which showed a significant increase in glioma (a common type of brain tumour) for people who used both mobile and cordless phones.
The 2014 study (published in the journal Pathophysiology) showed that the brain tumour risk was highest after 25 years of mobile phone use and after 15-20 years of cordless phone use.
This is but one of many other studies showing a link between cell phone use and brain (and other tumours).
Links to more studies are below:
http://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2014/05/09/oemed-2013-101754
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/167/4/457.full
It is now indisputable that radiofrequency (RF) radiation in the microwave range such is produced by cordless and mobile phones, cordless phone bases and cell phone towers has been classified by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer as a “possible carcinogen” (type 2B).
It would be foolish to rely upon the new study from the University of Auckland as assuring the safety of mobile and cellular phones when there is good quality research that shows a risk.
For ideas on how to minimise health risks when using cell phones and other modern technology, please see this link:
