A new study that attempts to debunk the link between cancer and cell phones is riddled with conflicts of interest, says Environmental Health Trust (EHT).  In May 2011, in a nearly unanimous decision, 31 expert advisers to the World Health Organization (WHO) stunned the world’s five billion cell phone users and declared radiofrequency and electromagnetic radiation a “possible” cause of brain cancer. Microwave radiation from cell phones joins a list of well-reviewed cancer-causing agents that includes engine exhaust, some pesticides, lead, coffee and unusually preserved vegetables.

However, a purportedly independent report rushed into print in the Environmental Health Perspectives Journal advises that cell phones do not increase the risk of cancer. The study, conducted for the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNRP) Standing Committee on Epidemiology, looked at the same studies and reached an entirely different opinion from the WHO.   However, the INCNIRP scientists acknowledged that they could not conclusively rule out such risks.

The positions taken in this ICNRP review cannot easily be separated from the heavy industry funding for the work, which included direct financial support from the Mobile Manufacturers’ Forum, The GSM Association, the Mobile Telecommunications Health and Research Programme, AFA Insurance, VINNOA (the Swedish government agency for innovation, which received funds from TeliaSonera, EricssonAB, and Telenor.  “This is propaganda meant to raise public confusion about the issue and take on the recent WHO declaration on cell phones,” says Dr. Devra Davis, founder of EHT.

In her recent Huffington Post article, titled “Beyond Brain Cancer: Other Possible Dangers of Cell Phones,” Dr. Davis, explains that potential ills of cell phone use extend to damage of sperm, brain, liver, eyes and skin of exposed rabbit and rat offspring, as well as reduced sperm count and DNA damage in humans.  “We cannot afford to ignore a growing body of experimental evidence that finds that cell phone radiation causes brain damage, affects hearing, sperm and liver damages brain, eye, sperm and liver,” says Dr. Davis.

“We need . . .to protect [children] and ourselves from the potential impact of microwave radiation from cell phones,” Dr. Davis writes. “We need to protect…developing brains and bodies from exposure to a sea of radiofrequency radiation whose full impact cannot be gauged at this time.”

In fact, according to Dr. Davis, brain cancer is not the only health issue of concern linked to cell phone radiation, nor is cell phones the only source of radiofrequency and electromagnetic radiation. Important new research in rabbits and rats find that pulsed digital signals from today’s smartphones damage sperm, brain, liver, eyes and skin of exposed offspring, and impair their memory and behavior. According to independent studies at the Cleveland Clinic and Australia’s national research center, men who use cell phones four hours a day have about half the normal sperm and three times more damage to their DNA than those with much less use.

News studies showing that cellphone radiation increased cell death in liver and damaged brain, liver, eye and skin in rabbits were presented in Istanbul in May 2011 and co-hosted by Environmental Health Trust and Biophysics Department of Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey  (Guler et al., 2011).   Other work by the Gazi group, led by Professor Nesran Seyhan, has provided recent confirmation of the capacity of cellphone radiation to weaken the blood brain barrier—a finding first produced by Alan Frey in 1975.