Originally published August 29 2008
Prominent Neurosurgeons Fear Cell Phone Use Causes Brain Tumors
by David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Three prominent neurosurgeons recently said on the CNN interview show Larry King Live that they refuse to place cellular phones directly against their heads, for fear of brain tumors.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta and Los Angeles brain surgeon Keith Black both stated that they use earpieces instead of holding the handset up against their heads.
"I think the safe practice is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain," said Black, who works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
"I use it on the speaker-phone mode," Australian National University neurosurgery researcher Vini Khurana said. "I do not hold it to my ear."
A number of recent studies have shown that the use of cell phone handsets increases people's risk of three kinds of tumors in particular: glioma, a tumor of the brain that can be either benign or malignant; acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor of the nerve that connects the ear and brain; and cancer of the salivary gland near the ear that is known as the parotid.
For example, one study found that heavy cell phone users had a 58 percent higher risk of parotid cancers, while another found that people who used mobile phones for 10 years experienced a 100 percent increased risk of acoustic neuroma and glioma.
Many of these studies found that tumors are more likely to occur on the side of the head or neck where the phone is most regularly held.
The FDA says that cell phone use is safe, based on three large epidemiological studies conducted after 2000. But the agency admits that those studies only followed participants for an average of three years, whereas it regularly takes brain tumors 10 years to develop enough to be detectable.
Concerned health professionals have warned that even if the risk from cellular phones is small, the scale on which the phones are used could still lead to a massive public health crisis.
An estimated three billion mobile people - 45 percent of the world's population - use mobile phones.
Sources for this story include: www.iht.com.
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