After reading this title, one mind wonder why I, or anyone else, would care whether cellular phones cause brain cancer. The answer to this is very simply because just about everyone uses them. It is rare to walk down College Walk and not see at least a quarter, or more, people talking on their cell phones while they walk. Shouldn't these people want to know whether they are increasing the likelihood of fatal brain cancer each extra second they stay on their phones? Well, apparently they do, because in recent years, there has been much research completed looking for an answer to the question that is aptly in bold print at the top of this page. .
The first attempt to come up with an answer to this is common sense. Essentially, people are worried about their brains being microwaved, breaking bonds and causing genetic damage and consequently a cancerous tumor to evolve Well, a microwave operates at a much greater frequency than a cellular phone, which operates at only about 850 megahertz. This frequency is non-ionizing, that is, it can't break bonds. Common sense tells us that if cellular phone waves can't break bonds, then they can't cause cancer. Unfortunately, it isn't this easy, and because of our lack of knowledge of what exactly causes cancer, and more specifically, brain cancer, we can't assume this to be true. As a result, more sophisticated studies have been done.
There have been two types of studies completed. The first is epidemiology, which is completely on actual humans. There is an up side to this and a down side. The up side is that we are testing for humans on humans. The down side is that there are always outside influences on people. The other type of testing is on animals. The advantage to using animals is that we can control their outside exposure, but obviously something proven to be true or false on an animal doesn't necessarily hold water on a human. There have been many interesting studies and accusations worth noting, but have any of them given us the answer?.
