WHO-commissioned reviews find no link between cell phones and brain cancer

A new summary of World Health Organization-commissioned reviews finds no evidence that electromagnetic waves from phones cause cancer in the brain, head, or neck, according to analysis republished via Refractor from The Conversation by researchers at WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research). In 2019, the WHO commissioned 13 reviews on the health effects of electromagnetic waves. Two authors of the brain-cancer review summarized their own results and those of the other reviews while the WHO has not yet completed its overall analysis of the commissioned work. Their review of brain cancer and phone use analyzed 63 studies published between 1994 and 2022 and found no association between cell phone use and brain cancer or cancers of the head or neck. The finding did not depend on how much someone used their phone or whether they had used it over long periods of 10 or more years. The same review found no evidence linking radio or television transmission and leukaemia in children. Other reviews of observational studies in humans similarly found no evidence that exposure to cell phones and other devices that emit electromagnetic waves affected health. For many health effects, the quantity or quality of evidence was too poor to make firm conclusions, the authors said, though evidence for brain cancer received the highest quality rating possible for an observational study. The authors noted that if mobile phone exposures raised brain cancer risk, increases in incidence would be expected, and stated that no science can prove the absence of any risk. Their takeaway was that no clear association has been found between cell phone use and any type of brain, head, or neck cancer.