Cellphone Cancer Study: What You Need To Know

A major study on the link between cancer and cellphones has been conducted by the U.S. government, and the findings aren’t exactly promising. The study into the cellphone/cancer link was undertaken to end the debate about the possible adverse health effects of cellphone use. The new study, which ran for multiple years and has been peer-reviewed, was released by the National Toxicology Program last week.

Here’s what they discovered.

According to the cellphone study, when male rats were exposed to the same kind of radio frequencies usually emitted by cellphones, “low incidences” of two different types of tumors occurred. The tumors that showed up in the male rats exposed to cellphone radio frequencies were schwannomas (which occur in the heart) and gliomas (which occur in the glial cells in the brain), reports The Wall Street Journal.

“Given the widespread global usage of mobile communications among users of all ages, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to [radio-frequency radiation] could have broad implications for public health.”

Following the release of the cellphone cancer study, no spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health were available to comment. The National Institutes of Health assisted in overseeing the cellphone cancer study. Interestingly, the group released a statement earlier in the week that seemed to downplay the risks of cellphone use among the general human population, effectively contradicting the findings released by the National Toxicology Program.

“It is important to note that previous human, observational data collected in earlier, large-scale population-based studies have found limited evidence of an increased risk for developing cancer from cellphone use.”

Ron Melnick ran the National Toxicology Program up until 2009, when he retired. He reviewed the results of the cellphone cancer study, and he seems to believe that the study should silence people who say or who have said that cellphones pose no risk.

“Where people were saying there’s no risk, I think this ends that kind of statement.”

Social media users didn’t seem too concerned about the findings of the study.

All Leftists should go live in the woods at Walden Pond, and sleep in a box like Henry David Thoreau, and think great thoughts.

— Bill Pauwels, Sr. (@wap1102) May 28, 2016

Well it shows that to get rid of rats you give them cellphones. Always some stupid study to prove some liberal point of view.

— Andre Haughton) (@haughtoandre) May 28, 2016

Were they exposed to little rat sized cellphones or big refrigerator-like human cell phones?

— James Nicholson (@nicholsonjf) May 28, 2016

Since cellular and other mobile phones hit the commercial market in the 1980’s, the official stance of the United States government has been that science hadn’t indicated that cellphones posed a risk of developing cancer or really any health risk at all. That opinion was (kind of) challenged in 2011.

In 2011, before the publication of the cellphone cancer study findings, the World Health Organization classified cellphone radiation as a “group 2B possible carcinogen.” While that sounds pretty scary to the layperson, it is almost completely ambiguous in scientific and/or medical terms.

Other items classified as “group 2B” include coffee and pickled veggies.

Many previous cellphone cancer studies have indicated that cellphones don’t pose health risks, specifically an increased susceptibility to cancer. In Australia earlier this month, a survey was released that indicated absolutely no increased rates of brain cancers in the nation. The survey went back thirty years, to the time before mobile phones in Australia. Other nations that have conducted similar studies and surveys found similar results

The National Toxicology Program chose the IIT Research Institute to handle the cellphone cancer study experiments back in 2005. After that, it took an additional several years to design and build the cellphone cancer study.

Over a two-year period, the cellphone cancer study was conducted on mice and rats who were exposed to radio-frequency energy at varying intervals. The rats in the studies were exposed to the frequencies for a total of nine hours every day.

Interestingly, information regarding the mice in the study wasn’t released.

While male rats showed and increased rates of two different types of tumors, female rats did not. Among rats exposed to the radio frequencies in the womb, lower birth rates were observed.

Only partial results from the cellphone cancer study have been released so far, with the rest to be released by fall 2017. The FCC has been made aware of the cellphone cancer study findings, and the regulatory body released an ambiguous statement in response.

“Scientific evidence always informs FCC rules on this matter. We will continue to follow all recommendations from federal health and safety experts including whether the FCC should modify its current policies and RF exposure limits.”

What do you think about the findings of the new study? Will the results of the cellphone cancer study cause you to reconsider or even change your cellphone habits?

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