The World Health Organisation has put mobile telephones on the list of “possibly carcinogenic” items and activities. In summary, this essentially means that the WHO has concluded that a causal link between heavy mobile use and a slight increase in the incidence of brain cancer, particularly glioma, cannot be ruled out.
Indeed, such a link is hardly implausible: you are, after all, when using any mobile telephone in “candybar” mode, you are holding a microwave transmitter to the side of your head, potentially exposing the tissue around it to ionising radiation. However, the sheer fact that there are millions upon millions of mobiles in use without issue (many for extended periods of time) along with the fact that it’s only now that the WHO has enough data to declare a minuscule potential risk should indicate that, by and large, mobile telephony is safe.
Let’s not forget that this list also contains coffee and dry-cleaning as potential risks. Furthermore, the BBC news article states:
However, any link is not certain – they concluded that it was “not clearly established that it does cause cancer in humans”.
[...]
Ed Yong, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “The WHO’s verdict means that there is some evidence linking mobile phones to cancer but it is too weak to draw strong conclusions from.
“The vast majority of existing studies have not found a link between phones and cancer, and if such a link exists, it is unlikely to be a large one.
“The risk of brain cancer is similar in people who use mobile phones compared to those who don’t, and rates of this cancer have not gone up in recent years despite a dramatic rise in phone use during the 1980s.
“However, not enough is known to totally rule out a risk, and there has been very little research on the long-term effects of using phones.”
Of course, despite this relative safety (and the fact any risk could well be be decreasing, due to the proliferation of alternative communication methods such as video calling, SMS and e-mail) I can’t imagine the Mail or the Express will be showing much restraint.
The News of the World is to close. To be fair, given the furore over the voicemail hacking scandal, it’s hardly surprising, especially considering Rupert Murdoch’s desperation to appease the government enough to allow him to complete his takeover of BSkyB.