While we’d rather not pick up the line, it appears that unnecessary fears about cell phones are in the news again. A study just published in a journal called Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine has called into question the current guidelines for estimating how much microwave radiation most people receive from their cell phones.
The authors of the study, including members of Environmental Health Trust, resurrect the fears that followed the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) recent placement of cell phones in a category considered “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” As we and many others pointed out then, the non-ionizing radiation associated with cell phone electromagnetic fields is not a type of radiation that can cause cancer. But the new scare ignores this fact and takes issue with the level of exposure that most people have to this non-ionizing radiation, which the authors claim is higher than the current measurement guidelines suggest.
“I guess we have to say it again,” says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. “Non-ionizing radiation does not damage DNA and should not be expected to cause cancer. It doesn’t follow, then, that a higher exposure to this kind of radiation would result in any adverse health effects. One of the authors of this new study, Devra Davis, has made her reputation promoting such scares. Apparently she’s not done yet.”
