Cell phones may cause brain cancer
World Health Organization (WHO) experts suggest that cell phone users are possibly at an increased risk of developing brain cancer.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced at the end of an eight-day meeting in Lyon, France that radio frequencies and electromagnetic fields including those emitted by mobile phones might cause cancer.
"After reviewing all the evidence available, the IARC working group classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans," said the panel’s chairman Jonathan Samet, chairman of WHO’s subsidiary investigative panel.
"We reached this conclusion based on a review of human evidence showing increased risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, in association with wireless phone use," added Samet who is also the chair of preventive medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine.
”We also carefully consider the sources of exposure of populations to radio frequency electromagnetic fields, the nature of these fields as they come from various devises, including wireless phones, and we look carefully at the physical phenomenon by which exposure to such fields may perturb biological systems and lead to cancers," he noted.
The WHO panel, however, cautioned that current scientific evidence only shows a possible link, not a proven cause and effect relation, between using wireless devices and cancer.
"We simply don’t know what might happen as people use their phones over longer time periods, possibly over a lifetime," IARC’s chair said.
Referring to the five billion registered mobile phone users across the globe, the experts emphasized on the necessity of further researches to determine the possible risks.
They also urged individuals with highest phone use to lower the magnitude of their exposure to the radiations by texting, or using a hands-free set for voice calls.
Source: presstv.ir
