Mobile phones don’t cause brain cancer, Australian experts conclude after four-year study

Mobile phone use does not lead to brain cancers, Australian experts claim in a new study.

The research found there had been no rise in the incidence of brain cancers, despite an explosion in the use of wireless technology.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) assessed over 5000 studies to reach the conclusion.

“When the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified radio wave exposure as a possible carcinogen to humans in 2011 it was largely based on limited evidence from human observational studies,” the agency’s Associate Professor Ken Karipidis said.

“This systematic review of human observational studies is based on a much larger dataset compared to that examined by the IARC, which also includes more recent and more comprehensive studies, so we can be more confident in the conclusion that exposure to radio waves from wireless technology is not a human health hazard.”

The agency’s study was commissioned by the World Health Organisation and took four years.

“Health effects from wireless technology is one of the most researched health topics,” Professor Karipidis said.

“Our review considered over 5,000 studies published between 1994 and 2022, of which 63 were included in the final analysis.

“The findings align with previous research conducted by ARPANSA showing that, although the use of wireless technology has massively increased in the last 20 years, there has been no rise in the incidence of brain cancers.”

Study co-author, Mark Elwood, honorary Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Auckland, said researchers found no increased risk “even with 10-plus years exposure and the maximum categories of call time or number of calls.”

“We also assessed 13 studies from 12 countries studying whether more brain cancers were occurring in recent years, along with more cell phone use. These studies showed no major increases,” he said.

“Similarly, we found no increased risks of leukaemia or brain cancers in children in relationship to radio or TV transmitters or cell phone base stations.

“We also found no increased risk of brain cancers with occupational exposures in the manufacture or operation of equipment.”

Prof Elwood said newer 3G-4G networks had substantially lower RF (Radiofrequency) emissions than 1G -2G networks, which were studied.

“There are no major studies yet of 5G networks, but there are studies of radar, which has similar high frequencies; these do not show an increased risk,” he said,

“Some questions cannot be answered as there are not sufficient studies available for rare types of cancer or unusual types of exposure. Small increases in risk cannot be assessed.“The final assessments are that there are no increased risks, with ‘moderate confidence’. In the scheme we used, this is the most definite category for observational studies.“We are monitoring new studies published since our main cut-off, December 2022. There have been several, including the first report on cancer from the COSMOS international cohort study, with over 250,000 participants.

“These studies are, in general, consistent with our conclusions.”