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A Scary New Study Links Cell Phones And Cancer. Don't Stress. At All.

This article is more than 7 years old.

A new study of rats and mice, funded by the government, links cell phones and cancer. “It’s the moment we’ve been dreading,” exclaims Mother Jones.

Stop with the dread, MoJo. (You too, Wall Street Journal.) Experts say the result may not be true, and even if it is, that the types of cancer involved are so rare that a person’s overall increase in risk would be negligible. Remember—a 100% increase in a risk of zero is nothing, and even a big increase in the odds of an unlikely event, like being struck by lightning, is likely to remain unlikely.

“If you’re really concerned, wear a headset, and the concern basically goes away,” says Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. .

Brawley does believe the study indicates a link between these rare types of cancer and the radiofrequencies emitted by cell phones. (More on that in a bit.) But several of his colleagues simply think the scary result is a fluke.

“Given the fact that the study is so small, it is more likely than not that these positive results are in fact false positives, that they’re spurious results,” says Michael Lauer, the Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health , who reviewed the study at the NIH's request.

The problem is that the study looked at so many different types of cancer in the rats that a positive result could have happened by random chance, Lauer says. Donald Berry, chairman of the Department of Biostatistics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, says that the authors misused statistics, and that no result in the paper should be considered statistically significant.

“Anything’s possible," Berry writes via email. "It’s always hard to completely rule out specific causes in cases such as this. But my assessment is that there is no compelling evidence that cell phones cause any type of cancer… in people or rats.”

The study, released on a web site called bioRxiv that is intended as a place for scientists to share results, was conducted by the National Toxicology Program, a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The NTP is one of the most well-regarded toxicology efforts anywhere. The study looked at both mice and rats, but right now data from only the rat portion of the study is being released.

The rats had an increased risk of two cancers: schwannoma, a rare nerve cancer, and glioma, or brain cancer. All types of brain cancer only represented 1% of cancer diagnoses last year, according to the American Cancer Society.

Brawley believes that the study does indicate that the radio frequencies from cell phones may cause some types of cancers precisely because schwannoma is so rare. “In 58 years I have never heard of rat schwannoma,” he says. That’s scientifically important, he argues, because many scientists think it’s impossible for these kinds of radio waves to cause cancer. They’re not like radioactive particles or ultraviolet radiation, which damage DNA. We don’t know by what mechanism radiofrequency radiation would cause cancer.

But Brawley also emphasizes that if there is a risk from cell phones, it’s likely to be small. Some big studies of humans have seemed to show a risk. If there is a risk, he guesses that the chances of getting glioma or schwannoma are increased by at most 20% to 40%. That may sound like a lot, until you consider that smoking increases your risk of lung cancer by 1,000%, or ten-fold, and similarly boosts risk of heart disease. Cell phones would be more like occasionally eating red meat.

So while this may be a public health concern because regulators should try to minimize the overall risk of cancer, the risks to any individual person are low.

And Lauer said that Brawley’s schwannoma argument didn’t convince him at all. He and Berry both think that the problems with the study are too deep to draw any conclusion. For instance, the increased cancer risk was seen only in male rats, not female ones. Why? The control group seemed to have a low rate of cancer, compared to previous studies. That could be a fluke. Why, Lauer asked in his review of the paper, which is included in the bioRxiv manuscript, is it that the other results from the study are not being published?

So, yes, it is possible cell phones cause some rare cancers. Maybe it’s worth using a headset. But also keep in perspective that if cell phones are causing any cancer, it’s a rare thing, and probably not even the biggest carcinogen you're encountering in your daily life. It must be balanced against the benefits of cell phones--like being able to call for medical help when you need it.

Bottom line: This study is just not a reason to freak out.