> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.foodconsumer.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # New studies link cell phones to brain cancer? - URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/mobile_phones_to_brain_cancer_0704110146/ - Published: 2011-07-04T14:44:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T16:04:13.000Z - Description: Analysing Interphone data from 13 countries, the study found the heaviest mobile phone users, at 1,640 hours or more, had 40 percent higher glioma risk and 15 percent higher meningioma risk, while the second-heaviest users showed lower risk, which the authors attribute to bias. - Author: Food Consumer - Tags: Lifestyle, Health News, Cell Phone, Brain Cancer, #vivvo-import By David Liu, Ph.D. and editing by Aimee Keenan-Greene Monday July 4, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study profiled in the Environmental Health Perspectives suggests using mobile phones may not increase the risk of brain cancer. The study shows there is no increased risk of brain cancer in those who have used mobile phones, even those who regularly used mobile phones were at significantly reduced risk for brain cancer. The study was based on data from the Interphone Study conducted in 13 countries. Subjects of the case and control study reported via a questionnaire their use of mobile phones. Some subjects had used phones up to 15 years. What the authors found is that those who used mobile phones for the longest time (1640 hours or longer) were at 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with glioma, the most deadly brain cancer. For meningioma, another brain tumor, the increase was 15 percent. However, in those with the second heaviest use of mobile phones, the risk for glioma and neningioma was reduced by 29 and 24 percent respectively. The authors seem to agree that it's unlikely using mobile phones would cut the risk of brain malignancies because there is no scientific evidence to support such a possibility. The authors seem to agree with some other researchers that there might be some bias in the data collected from the Interphone Study. The report did not give out tables or pictures or graphs to show what results they obtained through their analysis. Instead, in the supplemental material which was published separately but only on the same page of the website the authors presented three graphs to show the subscription of mobile phones and incidence of glioma in men and women in Sweden. Regardless, the authors concluded "Although there remains some uncertainty, the trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumours in adults." The authors, Anthony J. Swerdlow, Maria Feychting, Adele C. Green, Leeka Kheifets, and David A. Savitz who currently sit on the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection Standing Committee on Epidemiology, claim they are independent. Swerdlow and Feychting received funding for research from organizations that are funded by the mobile Manufacturers' Forum and GSM Association, according to a statement on conflicts of interest inserted in the study report. Swerdlow was said to have shares in the telecom companies including Cable and Wireless Worldwide and Cable and Wireless Communications. Swerdlow's wife was also said to have interest in the BT group, one of the leading telecom company in the world. The study was intended to establish an association between the duration of mobile phone use and incidence of brain cancer. One possible drawback of this study, which has not been addressed by the authors, is that the duration of mobile phone use alone may not truly reflect the effect of non-ionizing radiation emitted from mobile phones on brain tissues, a health observer suggested. Two users may have the same cumulative hours of using mobile phones, but the dosage distribution over the time may be different, which may result in different risks at a specific time years later, the health observer explained. Another study reported recently was based also on the data from the Interphone Study, but only collected in five countries including Australia, Canada, French, Israeli and New Zealand. This study released in the June 9, 2011 issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine shows those whose exposure was in the highest quintile were 35 percent more likely to be diagnosed with glioma. And the risk increased as the total exposure as defined as the total cumulative specific energy increased, according to the study led by M. Vrijheid. M. Vrijheid and colleagues of Hospital del Mar Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain also found the part of the brain that was most exposed to mobile phone radiation was 180 percent more likely to develop glioma in those who used mobile phones for more than 10 years. The pattern was similar for neningioma. Swerdlow et al. did not report this observation. The researchers concluded "There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma in long-term mobile phone users with high RF (Radio frequency) exposure and of similar, but apparently much smaller, increases in meningioma risk." The study led by Swerdlow et al. resulted in no news. The International Agency for Research on Cancer that plays a role in organizing the Interphone study issued a statement presenting similar findings and conclusions in 2010. Dr. Joe Moskowwitz of the University of California at Berkeley was cited by businessweek.com as saying in 2010 that the Interphone study and conclusions may be "biased". He pointed out the study actually indicated that those who used at lease 1640 hours were at 40 percent increased risk of brain tumor glioma. Dr Moskowitz did a review on studies of mobile phones and brain cancer risk and was cited as saying many studies are of low quality. When high-quality studies are reviewed, he said, using mobile phones is correlated with the brain cancer risk. After reviewing eight high-quality studies, Dr. Moskowitz found mobile phone use was linked 10 to 30 percent elevated risk of brain cancer. The risk was much higher among those had been using mobile phones for 10 or more years. Most high quality studies were conducted by Dr. Lennart Hardell, an oncologist in Sweden. He found ipsilateral mobile phone use (or use of mobile phones on the same side) for ten or more years increases the risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor, by 140 percent and the risk of glioma, a lethal malignancy, by 100 percent. Interestingly, the International Agency for Research on Cancer on May 31, 2011 one year after it concluded that using mobile phones was not linked with brain cancer made a surprising announcement considering it officially classifies mobile phones as a Category 2B human carcinogen.