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Federal scientists released partial findings Friday from a $25 million animal study that tested the possibility of links between cancer and chronic exposure to the type of radiation emitted from cell phones and wireless devices. The findings, which chronicle an unprecedented number of rodents subjected to a lifetime of electromagnetic radiation, present some of the strongest evidence to date that such exposure is associated with the formation of rare cancers in at least two cell types in the brains and hearts of rats.
There are some major caveats, though. The results were only observed in male rats; there weren't any significant effects seen in female rats. Exposure in utero didn't seem to affect cancer risk. And in male rats, the incidence of those two cancers was quite low. But even a small increase in the incidence of those cancers could have a major public health impact given how many people in the world regularly use cell phones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @06:52AM
yes, that's true. I think the non-crazy researchers are now wondering whether consisted exposer to RF can generate problems in other ways (heating for instance). In any case, while my gut instinct is to simply ignore anyone saying "cancer" and "cellphone" in the same sentence, you have to realize that animals are very complicated things, and we don't understand how everything works. we really don't know whether or not our bodies can be affected by sustained coherent RF, even if a lot of us are doubtful of it.
as an aside: personally, I think the amount of people killed because they're on the phone while driving or crossing the street is much bigger than the number of people who get cancer from phones. in this sense, cellphones are a horrible hazard for individual lives (although, at least for the dead pedestrians, we could cynically call them a genepool clearing device).