June 2008 Issue Is Out

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Cellphone and Cancer

What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety?

Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears.

“I think the safe practice is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain,” said Dr. Keith Black of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Along with Senator Edward Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-debate about cellphones and cancer.

That supposed link has been largely dismissed by many experts. According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects.
The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures.

Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation that are supposedly too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer.