Study finds no cancer tie in children’s cell phone use
Yet another study of the potential cancer risks of cell phones has been released, this time showing no link between cell phone use and brain cancer in kids and adolescents.
The European study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute involved almost 1,000 participants, and was in response to the increase in cell phone use by kids and concerns that younger brains are more vulnerable to cell phones’ effects.
According to the study, the “large and immediate risk of cellphones causing brain tumors in children can be excluded.”
The subjects in the study had only been using their phones for about four years, which may not be long enough to determine a cancer risk. Additionally, most of the children studied used their phones’ texting features more frequently than they did voice calling.
A cancer epidemiologist at the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer pointed out one flaw with these studies during an interview with the Wall Street Journal: without going through brain cancer patients’ cell phone records, it’s not easy to get a clear idea of how often they used their phones and if that usage was a contributing factor.
The WHO released its own study in May, classifying cell phones as possibly carcinogenic, but not necessarily a direct link to cancer.
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