A UK-based research body has added to the debate about links between cellphone use and cancer, as its recently-published research found no evidence exists to support the claims.
The decade-long Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) programme launched in 2001 to investigate the risk of leukaemia in relation to cellphone use, and whether exposure to base station emissions during pregnancy affected the risk of developing cancer in early childhood.
Its full report was published last week by Public Health England, although research ended in 2012.
Despite the duration of the MTHR programme, and its findings, it could not draw any definitive conclusions and, as a result, there is still no final say on the link between cellphone use and cancer.
In contrast, Imperial College London researchers have said mobile phone use is relatively recent, which could mean "adverse health effects could emerge after years of prolonged use".
According to the MTHR report, the cellphone research took place in a controlled environment and 180 volunteers from the UK were exposed to radio frequency (RF) waves over a period of 11 years, using a "generic handset".
This was mounted to a headband and exposed volunteers to varying degrees of RF waves during testing.
In the pregnancy research, three measures of exposure were assessed for each of the mothers: distance from the nearest base station, total output of base stations within 700m of the address, and an estimate of power density at the birth address.
Professor David Coggon, chairman of MTHR, acknowledged the doubts around the research when the project was launched. "When the MTHR programme was first set up, there were many scientific uncertainties about possible health risks from mobile phones and related technology."
Coggon adds that no evidence exists of health risks from radio waves produced by phones or their base stations.
Debate continues
The MTHR is one of the longest research programmes since the Interphone study, which spanned a decade, also found no links between cellphones and cancer.
Key findings from the Interphone study include:
* People who use cellphones may be at a slightly higher risk from cancer compared to those who have never done so, but the risk may be due to environmental factors reflecting modern lifestyles.
* Frequency of phone use does not appear to impact the likelihood of cancer.
* The mobile communications field experiences many changes and developments, which mean research findings may be inconclusive. When the Interphone study started (in 2000), the maximum amount of time imagined using a phone was 30 minutes a day, which is vastly different to current usage patterns.
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