Another study fails to show link between cell phones and brain tumors

There is no final word on the subject, but the INTERPHONE international case-control study just published in the International Journal of Epidemiology fails to turn up a 'smoking gun'. The authors compared the data of 2708 glioma and 2409 meningioma cases with matched controls in 13 countries. Some curious things showed up in their data:

"A reduced odds ratio (OR) related to ever having been a regular mobile phone user was seen for glioma [OR 0.81; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70–0.94] and meningioma (OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.68–0.91), possibly reflecting participation bias or other methodological limitations."

I wouldn't bet the farm on this, but it's interesting that "ever having been a regular mobile phone user" was associated with reduced chance of developing one of these two types of brain tumors. Additionally,

"No elevated OR was observed ≥10 years after first phone use... ORs were <1.0 for all deciles of lifetime number of phone calls and nine deciles of cumulative call time. In the 10th decile of recalled cumulative call time, ≥1640 h, the OR was 1.40 (95% CI 1.03–1.89) for glioma, and 1.15 (95% CI 0.81–1.62) for meningioma; but there are implausible values of reported use in this group."

So for ten years or more of cell phone use there was no increased chance except for all but the very highest level of exposure (so high that the authors considered the reported use "implausible"). Their data led to this conclusion:

"Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation."

Neither the authors nor the scientists who commented on the study in the same journal assert that this is the end of the story, and both support further investigation (especially for the highest usage levels). Like me, you may just feel more comfortable using a headset or the speakerphone function. So far, however, we have additional scientific evidence that there may not be much for the average user to worry about. You may wish to read the earlier post about a possible brain benefit (!) from cell phone EMF exposure.