Cell phone use is up sharply, but brain cancer rates are dropping.

[TheWraith]

FORTUNE -- During the 1980s, just as Americans began pumping low-frequency radiation through their skulls with cell phones, brain cancer rates in the U.S. slowly increased. At the beginning of the decade, doctors delivered the devastating diagnosis of brain cancer to 63 out of every 1 million Americans every year; by 1990 that number had risen to 70 per million. And that's when cell phone usage really took off.

Yet while the link between phones and tumors may have seemed certain to grow, a strange thing happened. Beginning in 1991 the rate of brain cancer incidence reversed course and began to slowly fall. By 2008, the last year for which the National Cancer Institute has data, 65 out of every 1 million Americans got a brain cancer diagnosis annually.

During those same two decades, the radiation beamed by phones into American brains increased about 500-fold, in proportion to the wild growth in cell phone use. There are roughly 60 times more cell phones in the U.S. than there were in 1990, and each one is used for an average of about 20 minutes per day, up from just a minute or two in the industry's expensive early days. The combined effect of more customers each talking more has been a stunning increase in total talk time.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/07/cell-phone-use-is-way-up-so-why-are-brain-cancer-rates-down/

The chart is based on data from the National Cancer Institute for cancer data, and CTIA for cell phone usage.

So perhaps now we can finally start putting away this nonsense about cell phones causing cancer. All the evidence says no.

[madrchsod]

1. next thing will be cancer of the fingers due to texting....

[ejpoeta]

2. how many people are using ear bugs or speakerphones? i was using an earbug

until it stopped working correctly and the replacement i got for christmas sucks. and one of the kids threw it in the bathtub. but i digress. i wonder if more people are using speakerphone or bluetooth or something. it is confusing about the cancer stuff. I am sure this is something that will not truly be known for some time.

[dkf]

3. I've been wondering about the data...

Thanks for posting.

[kick-ass-bob]

4. Be careful with this. Cancer generally is a slow developing disease.

I am trying to look up a mean time to disease for radiation exposure to cancer, but haven't found anything yet.
If the mean time between exposure and disease is 10 years, then we wouldn't see much effect yet.

With that said, I am not at all convinced of the perceived causality either, but analyzing these graphs is very tenuous.

Edit:
So far, all I have is this on ionizing radiation:

"If cancer does develop after radiation therapy, it does not happen right away. For leukemias, most cases develop within 5 to 9 years after exposure. In contrast, other cancers often take much longer to develop. Most of these cancers are not seen for 10 years after radiation therapy, and some are diagnosed even more than 15 years later."
http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/MedicalTreatments/radiation-exposure-and-cancer

[originalpckelly]

5. I'm sorry, but this should be demonstrable in the laboratory.

Someone needs to check into it. You could probably find a way to keep neurons and other cells in the brain alive in vitro and expose them to varying levels of em radiation in the microwave spectrum. If in these experiments you observed a higher rate of cancerous mutations in the cells exposed to higher levels of the microwaves, then you'd know that at least it is somehow plausible.

EM radiation in the microwave spectrum is not supposed to be cancer causing, because it is not ionizing.

In not one of these stories have I heard of such experiments. If they existed, you'd think they'd be exhibit A.

Yes, it could take a while, but you should be able to demonstrate at much higher levels an increase in cancer prevalence, and that would suggest that it is possible at lower doses of radiation.

[kick-ass-bob]

7. I'm not sure if you are arguing or agreeing with me.

I didn't say anything about laboratory science, I only commented on the graph above which may or may not have any meaning because of the time from exposure to the diagnosis of cancer.

[TheWraith]

14. Cell phones do not produce ionizing radiation. They produce radio waves. nt

[peace13]

6. One plus that I see is that the young people are texting and not holding the phone to the head.

One study that I followed said to keep the phone away from your head when you press send. There appeared to be more radiation during that time than any other. Who knows.

[Blue-Jay]

8. That's what they WANT you to think!

woo

[hlthe2b]

9. I virtually never talk without the speaker or on a hands free set-up

in the car.... I doubt I am the only one who has changed the way in which I use a cell phone. Further, they have supposedly gotten better in terms of how much radiation they release and with more cell towers, connections are more efficient, thereby reducing it further.

Still doesn't mean cell phones aren't a risk, but hopefully less so.

[SoCalDem]

10. It can take DECADES for this "type" of cancer to develop

roll those dice..some will escape it..others may not.

I'll be long gone by then, but I'd bet that in 25 years we'll be seeing some pretty grim stats from those people who are now 10 and cell-phoning non-stop.. Here's hoping the diagnostics & treatment improve with the occurrences, or there may be a LOT of orphaned children.

[Taverner]

11. Haven't newer phones been made to be less dangerous?

I remember an article about the newer phones having less microwaves than the phones of yore...

[Xithras]

21. Cellphones have become less powerful. If there's a connection, this is it.

The original Motorola bag phone broadcast with 3 watts of power.

As phones went digital in the 1990's, they also started dropping to about 1 watt of broadcast power.

Because of a higher density of towers, and in order to prolong battery life, modern cellphones broadcast at a hair over half a watt.

If telephone RF had anything to do with brain cancer, the fact that modern cellphones broadcast at 1/6th the power of the early phones could easily explain the drop. On top of that, phones now operate in entirely different frequency bands, which might have less impact on brain matter.

I've never been convinced that phones caused cancer in the first place, but this drop doesn't really prove or disprove anything.

[bemildred]

12. Cell phones cure brain cancer!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[FLPanhandle]

13. Evidence is irrelevant to woo believers

They didn't need evidence to start believing and no amount of evidence will stop them from believing.

[TheWraith]

15. Yep. But at least we can counter the woo woo with scientific facts, and maybe save some others. nt

[FLPanhandle]

22. I hope so...

But I fear many cannot be saved because our education system failed them long ago, thus they unable to distinguish between woo and science.

[kentuck]

16. More people are texting.

??

[Motown_Johnny]

17. Dieing in car accidents before the cancer is diagnosed?

:sarcasm:

[Shagbark Hickory]

18. Bluetooth headsets became popular around 2005 where you see that huge drop. nt

[0rganism]

19. What portion of the new brain cancer cases are cell phone users?

If you really want to "start putting away this nonsense about cell phones causing cancer", that's the cross-tab you need to have, and I don't see it in your graph.

[FreeJoe]

20. Easy to explain

The old cell phones were analog. They caused cancer. The new cell phones are digital. They cure cancer because cancer cells are analog.

[Exultant Democracy]

23. YES!!! best post ever.