Environmental Health Trust Questions New Study Claiming No Cell Phone-Brain Cancer Link Among Children and Adolescents
EHT Says Study in Journal of The National Cancer Institute Is Misleading
A study published July 27 in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute concludes that children and adolescents who use cell phones are not at an increased risk of brain cancer compared to their peers who do not use cell phones. Between 2004 and 2008, Martin Roosli, PhD, of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues studied 352 European brain cancer patients and 646 control subjects between the ages of 7 and 19 and reported that children with brain tumors were not more likely to have been regular cell phone users than control subjects.
Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, President of Environmental Health Trust, commented: “This new JNCI report represents an astonishing, disturbing and unwarranted conclusion. Of course, the researchers found no link between children’s brain tumors and their reported cell phone use. Brain tumors can take ten years to form and young children certainly have not been heavy cellphone users for very long. There has been a quadrupling of cell phone use in the past few years that this study could not possibly capture.”
Dr. Davis continued, “Interestingly, the researchers advocate, as we do, taking simple precautions including the use of a headset and speakerphone. But to conclude—as an editorial written by industry-associated scientists accompanying the article does—that that children face no risks from cellphones, does a profound disservice to the public. If you asked whether people who had smoked only four years had an increased lung cancer risk, you would come up empty-handed. Given the restricted time-frame of the JNCI study, the absence of brain tumor risk from cell phones in children and adolescents is precisely what is expected.”
“In fact, the JNCI researchers downplay their own finding that children who owned phones the longest had an increased risk of brain cancer. In addition, other studies indicate that children face a number of serious health risks from cellphones, including learning problems, autism, behavioral impacts, insomnia, attention disorders and a broad array of disturbances to the developing nervous system.”
About Environmental Health Trust
Environmental Health Trust (EHT) educates individuals, health professionals and communities about controllable environmental health risks and policy changes needed to reduce those risks. Current multi-media projects include: local and national campaigns to ban smoking and asbestos; working with international physician and worker safety groups to warn about the risks of inappropriate use of diagnostic radiation and cell phones, promoting research and awareness of environmental causes of breast cancer, and building environmental wellness programs in Wyoming and Pennsylvania to address the environmental impacts of energy development, the built environment and radon. EHT was created with the goal of promoting health and preventing disease one person, one community and one nation at a time. Capitalizing on growing public interest in Dr. Devra Lee Davis’s three popular books, When Smoke Ran Like Water, a National Book Award Finalist, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, and Disconnect--The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation, What Industry Has Done to Hide It and How to Protect Your Family, as well as recent documentary films, the foundation’s website offers clear, science-based information to prevent environmentally based disease and promote health, for the general public, children, and health professionals. For more information about getting involved in the numerous special projects spearheaded by the EHT, please log on to www.ehtrust.org.
Janet Vasquez
The Investor Relations Group
212-825-3210
jvasquez@investorrelationsgroup.com
Environmental Health Trust
www.saferphonezone.com
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