Dr. Vini Khurana conducted a review of 465 studies, 23 case-control studies, which involved 37,916 participants (12,344 patient cases and 25,572 controls), were included in the report, published in 2009. His analysis found compared with never or rarely having used a mobile phone, the odds ratio for overall use was significantly greater for malignant and benign tumors in a meta-analysis of all 23 studies.
Mobile phone use of 10 years or longer was associated with a risk of tumors in 13 studies reporting this association. Also, additional analysis revealed the same findings in smaller groups.
The current study found that there is possible evidence linking mobile phone use to an increased risk of tumors from a meta-analysis of low-biased case-control studies. Prospective cohort studies providing a higher level of evidence are needed.
Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.
Dr. Khurana’s study is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. The debate regarding the health effects of low-intensity electromagnetic radiation from sources such as power lines, base stations, and cell phones has recently been reignited.
The results indicate that using a cell phone for more than ten years approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use. The data achieve statistical significance for glioma and acoustic neuroma but not for meningioma.
It draws on growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.
Dr. Khurana concluded that mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.
He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that “there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumors”. He believes this will be “definitively proven” in the next decade.
Noting that malignant brain tumors represent “a life-ending diagnosis”, he adds: “We are currently experiencing an unchecked and dangerous situation.” He fears that “unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps”, the incidence of malignant brain tumors and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.
“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking,” says Professor Khurana, says his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke. Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents.
In 2008, the French government warned against the use of cell phones, especially by children. Germany also advises its people to minimize handset use, and the European Environment Agency has called for exposures to be reduced.