Mobile phone usage and cancer link: The debate continues

Over the last few years, from May 2007 to be more precise, reports that mobile phone usage could trigger cell division, leading to cancer, that their usage could be ‘more dangerous than smoking’, that the risk of cancer is higher in children created a great deal of flurry in the public and most importantly, instigated debates and studies  amidst experts. Some reports also debated that there was no harm in increased mobile phone usage and that there was no proven evidence that it caused cancer. But the debate goes on at full swing even today. A recent research conducted by Dr Siegal Sadetzki, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and an epidemiologist linked the use of mobile phones with salivary gland tumours. She has been studying the effects of the usage of mobile phones in people for ten years.

Dr Sadetzki indicated that though the risk is small, the usage of four billion people worldwide could cause ‘great damage’ and that a ‘precautionary approach’ has to be adopted. She said that cancer that could be caused by their increased usage could take years to develop. Dr Sadetzki further pointed out that Governments the world over should issue health advices, prompting people to use mobile phones to the minimum extent and using a headset or speaker phone whenever possible to hold it away from the head. She submitted the evidence to the Committee on Appropriations which will then be passed on to the US Sentate Health Committee.

Dariusz Leszczynski, a research professor at the University of Finland also voiced his opinion that advices urging people to hold the phone away from the head and using texting and speaker phone to the maximum should be issued. He also pointed out that the safety standards of today are not supported sufficiently by science because of the lack of adequate research into the long term effects of exposures in humans. Mr Leszczynski called for further research. Britain health campaigners said that the UK Government should also consider precautionary measures on mobile phone usage like Finland and Israel.

The INTERPHONE study, a multi-national case-control study involving data from 13 countries including the UK is to be published by the end of this month by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A spokesperson for the Department of Health however, ruled out possibilities of health risks due to mobile phone use.

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