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Mobile Phone Use And Acoustic Neoroma

Posted by timothy on from the details-emerge dept.

meeiw writes "A study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institute, Sweden found that 10 or more years of mobile phone use increase the risk of acoustic neuroma (slow-growing tumor) and that the risk increase was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held."

2 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. One more reason to quit analog cell phones by jsveiga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Note that the study was performed with analog-phones only.

    Analog phones (which survive mostly in the US) transmit 100% of the time during a call (actually it starts transmitting even before the other party answers).

    GSM phones transmit at 1/8 of the time - maximum (if you are not using data - but then when you are doing GPRS/EDGE, you don't have the phone in your ears). If you use half-rate it's 1/16 of the time. If it's AMR and DTX (discontinuous transmission), it can be even less.

    TDMA phones transmit at 1/3 of the time.

    CDMA (IS2000) phones transmission can vary (similar to DTX), but its more than the GSM minimum - max power is lower, frequency is spreaded, yaddayadda, but its more RF per time.

    So, if you take GSM at it's 1/8 of the time, would that mean 80 years of usage? Maybe not. Max GSM handheld power is higher than max Analog handheld power (but then, you only use it if you are FAR from a cell site), and I bet we use cell phones more and more often if compared to 10 years ago.

    So let's say 60 years to be safe? And let's alternate the cell phone ear, so it's 120?

    I'll take it.

  2. Re:Chances are doubled! Panic! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Keep in mind that the 1:100,000 figure does not appear to assume cell phone use. Obviously, a sample size of 600 would not suffice to demonstrate an event with probability 0.00001.

    I agree that it is a little bit suspicious that they do not include number of positives in their study (depending on this number, the sample size may be inferred to be adequate). Bah; stupid press release.

    Here's another interesting article, in which the RF emission characteristic of cell phone use is correlated with a reduction in time taken to answer simple questions:
    http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000212/fob1. asp

    It seems clear that RF exposure has some biological effect. I hope that this good science can continue and come to some clear, unbiased answers. Hell, it might even be good for you, kind of like low-level background radiation!