A major, ten-year international study across 13 countries, has just released its results on the use of cell phones and possible links to brain tumours. It appears that their findings are somewhat inconclusive, although they have found that heavy users do appear to have a 40% higher chance of brain tumours. Heavy users are unfortunately defined in terms of how many dollars they spent on their phones over the time frame of the study, so that does not really help us much in South Africa.

The overall summary seems to be that more studies are needed. I must say I am naturally suspicious of anything where I am told that the surveys are inconclusive and more studies are needed and while some people would take it as a sign that there is nothing wrong, that always sends off warnings signals in my brain and tells me that in fact there is a problem, but everyone is too scared to make the link right now. Critics of the report also pointed out that it only included people aged 30 to 49, so they have not studied the effects on children and young adults whose brains are more susceptible to receiving radiation, and interestingly enough, the average user included in the survey uses the cell phone approximately 2 hours a month. That surely must be way below the average consumer these days? Obviously, we have not heard the end of this story, but I very much doubt that cell phones can possibly be healthy for your brain.