Cellular telephone use and time trends in brain tumour mortality in Switzerland from 1969 to 2002.
Roosli M, Michel G, Kuehni CE, Spoerri A · 2007
View Original AbstractSwiss mortality data showed stable brain tumor death rates after mobile phones arrived, but can't detect long-term risks or non-fatal tumors.
Plain English Summary
Swiss researchers analyzed brain tumor death rates from 1969 to 2002 to see if mobile phone introduction in 1987 led to increased brain cancer deaths. They found that brain tumor mortality rates remained stable after mobile phones were introduced, with no increase in younger age groups who used phones most frequently. However, the study acknowledges it cannot detect small risks or effects that take decades to develop.
Why This Matters
This population-level study provides important context for understanding mobile phone cancer risks, but it has significant limitations that prevent drawing definitive conclusions about safety. The science demonstrates that brain tumors often take 10-20 years or more to develop, yet this study only examined 15 years after mobile phone introduction. What this means for you is that the absence of increased deaths in this timeframe doesn't rule out long-term risks. The reality is that mortality data also misses non-fatal brain tumors, which represent the majority of cases. While these findings offer some reassurance about immediate catastrophic risks, they don't address the growing body of research showing biological effects from RF radiation at levels well below what causes heating. You don't have to wait for mortality statistics to take simple precautions with your phone use.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
A rising concern exists that with the widespread use of mobile communication technologies, the incidence of brain tumours may increase. On the basis of data from the Swiss national mortality registry from 1969 to 2002, annual age-standardized brain tumour mortality rates per 100,000 person-years were calculated using the European standard population.
Time trend analyses were performed by the Poisson regression for six different age groups in men and...
For the whole study period, a significant increase in brain tumour mortality was observed for men an...
We conclude that after the introduction of mobile phone technology in Switzerland, brain tumour mortality rates remained stable in all age groups. Our results suggest that mobile phone use is not a strong risk factor in the short term for mortality from brain tumours. Ecological analyses like this, however, are limited in their ability to reveal potentially small increases in risk for diseases with a long latency period.
Show BibTeX
@article{m_2007_cellular_telephone_use_and_2541,
author = {Roosli M and Michel G and Kuehni CE and Spoerri A},
title = {Cellular telephone use and time trends in brain tumour mortality in Switzerland from 1969 to 2002.},
year = {2007},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17220708/},
}