The ongoing debate about whether cell phones use causes brain cancer continues to rage. The Danish Cancer Institute today released what is perhaps the most extensive research to date.
The 30-year study, which covers cell phone use in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden from 1974 to 2003, found no link between mobile phones and brain cancer. However, the authors of the report conceded that more research is needed on the topic.
According to an abstract, the study showed a lack of a "trend change in [brain cancer] incidence from 1998 to 2003," when cell phone use showed a marked increase in Scandinavia. That suggests that the induction period relating mobile phone use to brain tumors exceeds five to 10 years. The report concludes that "the increased risk in this population is either too small to be observed, the increased risk is restricted to subgroups of brain tumors or mobile phone users, or there is no increased risk."
In August, an international group of electromagnetic field activists offered criticism of an Interphone study on handsets and cancer, a 13-country research effort funded in part by the telecom industry.
According to groups, including the EMR Policy Institute and the Radiation Research Trust, the Interphone study was systemically skewed because it was commissioned on behalf of wireless handset manufacturers.
The activists argued that the study ignored many types of brain tumors; excluded people who had died or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumors; and excluded children and young adults potentially at higher risk than mature segments of the population.
CTIA maintains its position that cell phones do not cause cancer.