Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double
Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours
double
By Henry Bodkin 2 MAY 2018 • 8:54PM
Fresh fears have been raised over the role of mobile
phones in brain cancer after new evidence revealed rates of a malignant type of
tumour have doubled in the last two decades.
Charities and scientists have called on the Government to
heed longstanding warnings about the dangers of radiation after a fresh
analysis revealed a more “alarming” trend in cancers than previously thought.
However, the new study, published in the Journal of
Public Health and Environment, has stoked controversy among scientists, with
some experts saying the disease could be caused by other factors.
The research team set out to investigate the rise of an
aggressive and often fatal type of brain tumour known as Glioblastoma
Multiforme (GBM).
They analysed 79,241 malignant brain tumours over 21
years, finding that cases of GBM in England have increased from around 1,250 a
year in 1995 to just under 3,000.
The study is the first recent effort of its kind to
analyse in detail the incidence of different types of malignant tumours.
The scientists at the Physicians’ Health Initiative for
Radiation and Environment (PHIRE) say the increase of GBM has till now been
masked by the overall fall in incidence of other types of brain tumour.
Last night the group said the increasing rate of tumours
in the frontal temporal lobe “raises the suspicion that mobile and cordless
phone use may be promoting gliomas”.
Professor Denis Henshaw, scientific director of Children
with Cancer UK, which is allied to PHIRE, said: “Our findings illustrate the
need to look more carefully at, and to try and explain the mechanisms behind,
these cancer trends, instead of brushing the causal factors under the carpet
and focusing only on cures.”
In 2015 the European Commission Scientific Committee on
Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks concluded that, overall, the
epidemiologic studies on cell phone radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation
exposure do not show an increased risk of brain tumors or of other cancers of
the head and neck region.
This was despite a study published the previous year
indicating long-term mobile and cordless phone use triples the risk of brain
cancer, although this contradicted other similar investigations.
According to Cancer Research UK, it is “unlikely” that
mobile phones increase the risk of brain tumours however “we do not know enough
to completely rule out a risk”.
However, the organisation cautions that because phones
are a relatively recent invention it may take many more years until the data is
sufficient to make more robust conclusions.
Responding to the new resaerch, Kevin McConway, Emeritus
Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University, said the significance
of the trend may be less clear cut than the research group claim.
But he added: “This research does point to something that
may well be worth investigating further.
“Other studies in other parts of the world have found
similar increases.”
“It’s important, though, to understand that this new
paper did not examine any new data at all about potential causes for the
increase.”
The new study list causal factors aside from mobile phone
use that may explain the GMB trend, including radiation from X-rays, CT scans
and the fallout from atomic bomb tests in the atmosphere.
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