Cellphones: Are They Dangerous or Not?

Scientists now think it depends on whether you use an older, analog phone or a newer digital model. They?ve decided that the main danger of cellphone use lies with long-term users of first generation analog cell phones, who have up to 80 percent greater risk of developing brain tumors than non-cellphone users. A study of 1,617 Swedish patients diagnosed with brain tumors between 1997 and 2000, compared with a control group without brain tumors, found that those who had used Nordic analog cellphones had a 30 percent higher risk of developing brain tumors than people who hadn?t used them, particularly on the side of the brain that was used during calls. For people using analog phones for more than 10 years, the risk was 80 percent greater.

“Our present study showed an increased risk for brain tumors among users of analog cellular telephones. For digital cellular phones and cordless phones the results showed no increased risk overall within a five-year latency period,” the study says. Finland’s Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest mobile producer, still makes two models of analog phones like the ones used by patients in the study.

But this doesn?t mean your digital phone is safe. Analog cellphones have been in use for 20 years, making it possible to study the long term impact of microwave exposure, but researcher Kjell Hansson Mild says it?s too early to draw conclusions on the currently widely used digital cellphones “Nothing can be said about GSM at this stage,” he says. “These are tumors that develop very slowly, and GSM does not have users who have been using it for 10 years.”

In our pro-business climate, if cellphones are dangerous, do you think we?d hear about it? Who controls the U.S. media, anyway? Find out from ?Into the Buzzsaw? by Kristina Borjesson,click here.

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