Under the Paperweight: The Interphone Study Released May 17, 2010


Yesterday’s San Francisco hearing on city regulations for labeling cell phones by radiation output included mention of the recently released Interphone study. Debbie Raphael of San Francisco’s Toxics Reduction Program said the study focused on users averaging 4 minutes/day of cell phone use, while in the United States the average is 28 minutes/day, very close to the 30 minutes/day Interphone study’s highest decile of call time.

The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer May 17, 2010 press release on the study stated:

There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma, and much less so meningioma, in the highest decile of cumulative call time, in subjects who reported usual phone use on the same side of the head as their tumour and, for glioma, for tumours in the temporal lobe.

The Environmental Working Group published this May 19, 2010 review of the Interphone study, with a statement from its president:

Our government has stuck to decades-old standards that pre-date the dramatic increase in cell phone use over the last ten years. We believe consumers must be informed about radiation levels at point of purchase. We also hope consumer publications that review cell phones will note radiation levels.

In First Link Found Between Mobile Phones and Brain Cancer, May 17, 2010, on Bright Side of News, Tomi Ahonen writes:

Please do go read articles about the Interphone study by the World Health Organization and please seek articles on ‘both sides’ of the story and then decide for yourself how seriously you should take this first bit of bad news about our fave gadget and our health. I don’t think it’s any cause for alarm, but I can tell you, today I am revising all my behavior relating to my two phones and my data connections on my other devices including my laptop.