The argument is far from over, but for now, the latest verdict is that mobile phones do not cause cancer. A group under the World Health Organization has been doing an intensive study among mobile phone users in 13 countries. This is officially the largest study ever done to find the link between the use of mobile phones and brain cancer.
The study focused on 13,000 people and in particular the correlation of mobile phone use with occurrences of the two types of brain cancer; glioma and meningioma. The results are pretty surprising, it turns out that there is hardly any link between the use of mobile phones and the presence of cancer. Judging from the results, one might even say that the use of mobile phones actually decreases the chances of having cancer.
However, medical experts are not about to accept this conclusion. Many believe that the sample size is too small and the study should have non-phone users as part of the control group. Aside from criticism from the medical community, the study still provides a promising look into mobile phone use.
Despite the large scale of this study, it still lacked certain factors. First off, phones have different signals. The basic technology of mobile phones is the same, but there are slight differences between the network types being used. There is nothing that distinguishes the difference of the user sample that uses the older 2G networks and people who make use of 3G. The study also does not take into account the various usage patterns –which phone users prefer to make calls or which of them prefer to send emails or text messages.
In any case, the study still has plenty of merit, thanks to the large scope of the research done, this little bit of news will certainly be enjoyed by many promoters of mobile phones.
Tags: Cancer, phone-usage, research, world-health-organization