Cell phones rated as unlikely to cause cancer

Drinking coffee, using mobile phones or having breast implants is unlikely to cause cancer, according to a new risk-ranking system devised by an Australian cancer specialist to debunk popular myths.

The cancer risk assessment reaffirms smoking, alcohol, and exposure to sunlight as leading risk factors, but allays concerns about coffee, mobile phones, deodorants, breast implants, and water with added fluoride.

The five-point system created by Bernard Stewart, a University of New South Wales professor, lists the risk of cancer from proven and likely to inferred, unknown, or unlikely.

“Our tool will help establish if the level of risk is high, say on a par with smoking, or unlikely such as using deodorants, artificial sweeteners, drinking coffee,” Stewart said.

He found active smokers and ex-smokers to be the most at risk, although the risk is reduced for people who quit smoking.

Drinking alcohol was also a high risk factor, particularly for people who also smoke, although Stewart said no specific type of alcoholic drink was most strongly to blame.

Drinking chlorinated water and using a mobile phone was far less likely to cause cancer, Stewart said, although the risks associated with the long-term use of mobile phones have not been fully established.

He said there little risk from coffee, deodorants, fluoridated water, breast implants, or dental fillings.

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Is Wi-Fi bad for your health?

The U.K. Department of Health appears to have been wrong-footed by a member of parliament who called for an investigation into whether Wi-Fi networks pose a danger to health.

Ian Gibson, former chairman of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, last week called for the Health Department to set up an inquiry into the potential dangers of Wi-Fi communications. He said the threat should be seriously examined and that another inquiry should be carried out like the Stewart report into mobile-phone radiation.

The government agency has been unable to confirm whether it is taking Gibson’s claims seriously or whether it will launch an inquiry. Calls to the Health Department from ZDNet UK have been met with no clear response.

Gibson spoke out after two schools banned wireless networks from their premises over health fears. Of the two schools, the most notable case was a classics teacher at the prestigious Stowe School in Buckinghamshire who said he had suffered “sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes and burning sensations,” from his school’s Wi-Fi network.

These reports sparked a stream of comments on ZDNet UK’s news blog. Most comments on the blog dismissed the concerns as overly dramatic, though one reader claimed that lab tests had found that Wi-Fi radiation affects animals.

The Stewart Report of 2000 found no evidence that mobile-phone use caused damage to health, but it recommended a precautionary approach. Compared to mobile-phone networks, Wi-Fi networks use much less power and operate at frequencies less able to penetrate the human body, two factors that reduce the likelihood of health effects on current evidence.

“Any new technology will always be subjected to criticism as being dangerous initially. There is currently no conclusive evidence that Wi-Fi is a cause for health concerns. It seems to me quite dramatic to suddenly ban Wi-Fi,” commented Carsten Sorensen, senior lecturer in information systems at the London School of Economics.

One Wi-Fi operator, The Cloud, was immediately skeptical and laughed off Gibson’s concerns.

Gibson is a former dean in biological sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and he is now one of the city’s two parliament members. Norwich has become the first city in the country to deploy a free public Wi-Fi network.

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Study links cell phones, tumors

A Swedish research institute has released a report that links the use of analog cell handsets and a benign tumor–adding fodder to the long-running debate over cell phones and brain cancer.

The Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm said Thursday that it has found that 10 or more years of cell phone use may increase the risk of acoustic neuroma, a noncancerous tumor, in humans. Since digital handsets have not been in widespread circulation over that period, the researchers related their findings to analog phones alone.

According to the report–based on a survey of about 150 people already diagnosed with acoustic neuroma and 600 healthy individuals–the risk of developing the tumors almost doubled for those who began using a cell phone at least 10 years beforehand. In addition, the Karolinska Institutet study contends that when the side of the head a person typically held their cell phone against was taken into consideration, the risk of acoustic neuroma was almost four times higher than normal.

The concept that wireless devices may increase the risk of brain cancer is one that has shadowed the communications industry since at least the mid-1990s, when cell phones grew more popular. However, there have been few studies that offer hard proof that a relationship exists between wireless handset use and any illness.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said previously that while mobile phones do emit electromagnetic radiation, the amount of energy dispersed by the devices is similar to that emitted by other common household devices, such as television sets and microwave ovens, and does not pose a measurable health risk.

Acoustic neuroma tumors typically affect the auditory nerve, which is connected to the brain, and grow slowly over a period of years before they are diagnosed. On average, the tumors are found in less than one adult per 100,000 each year.

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