http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0139-2774
Abstract
Prof Gboyega A Ogunbanjo, in his editorial entitled ‘Cell phone use and ill health: is there a definite relationship?’, published in South African Family Practice, has addressed the possible link between mobile phone use and adverse health effects such as cancer. He has also discussed the challenging issue of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). Although his editorial has remarkable strengths, this paper needs some clarifications. The main concerns regarding the evidence presented in this paper about possible association of mobile phone use with cancer are discussed. In this light, recent evidence that supports a possible link as well as the shortcomings of the reports claiming no association between exposure to radiofrequency radiation and cancer are presented.
Correspondence
We have read with interest the editorial by Prof. Gboyega A. Ogunbanjo, entitled ‘Cell phone use and ill health: is there a definite relationship?’, published in South African Family Practice. Ogunbanjo in his article has addressed the possible link between mobile phone use and adverse health effects such as cancer. He has also discussed the challenging issue of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). Despite its remarkable strengths, this paper needs some clarifications. The first concern is about possible association of mobile phone use with cancer.
Over the past decade, we have studied the health effects of exposure to different sources of electromagnetic fields such as cellular phones,Citation1–12 mobile base stationsCitation13,14 and Wi-Fi routers.Citation3,6,15–19 Regarding cancer, we have recently addressed the limitations and shortcomings of some of the studies claiming lack of association between exposure to radiofrequency radiation and cancer.Citation2, 20–22 Interestingly, in one of the papers reviewed by our research group, a 400% difference in brain tumours was ignored due to poor statistical analysis.Citation22 We have shown that current controversy, at least to some extent, can be due to the large variations in the magnitude of exposure to electromagnetic fields in different studies. In this light, we showed that in a similar pattern with ionising radiation, the dose–response relationship for carcinogenesis of non-ionising electromagnetic fields is nonlinear and J-shapedCitation.23
Furthermore, the findings of a recent large-scale study conducted by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP), is entirely ignored in the editorial of Prof. Ogunbanjo. The NTP study revealed statistically significant increases in cancer in rodents that had been exposed to GSM or CDMA signals for two years. Moreover, this study showed that when the intensity of the radiation increased, the incidence of cancer among the rats also increasedCitation.24 This US$25 000 000 study, which is the most complex study completed by the NTP, revealed that the occurrence of malignant gliomas in the brain and schwannomas of the heart can be linked to exposure to mobile phone radiofrequency radiation (RFR): ‘The occurrences of two tumor types in male Harlan Sprague Dawley rats exposed to RFR, malignant gliomas in the brain and schwannomas of the heart, were considered of particular interest, and are the subject of this report’.
Furthermore, Momoli et al. Citation25 have recently performed a re-analysis of the Canadian data from the 13-country INTERPHONE case-control study and when they applied a probabilistic multiple-bias model to address possible biases simultaneously, the odds ratio (OR) for glioma comparing highest quartile of use (> 558 cumulative lifetime hours of use) to non-regular users was 2.0 (95% confidence interval: 1.2, 3.4). When adjusted for selection and recall biases, the OR was 2.2 (95% confidence interval: 1.3, 4.1).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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