The archive / Technology and the internet
1995–2015 · Worldwide
Your mobile phone gives you brain tumours!
Mobile phone radiation
Panic meter
The verdict
Mobile phones were suspected of causing brain cancer. Even though almost everyone has one, brain tumours have not increased.
Reality meter
What was said?
When mobile phones became commonplace in the 1990s, concern arose that radio waves might heat up the brain and cause cancer. In 2011, the WHO's cancer research agency, IARC, classified radiofrequency fields as "possibly carcinogenic" – the same category as, for example, pickled vegetables.
The verdict: what happened next?
Mobile phones transmit at low power, and radio waves do not carry enough energy to damage DNA. Even though almost the entire population has been using mobile phones for decades, the incidence of brain tumours has not risen.
A large review of the research, commissioned by the WHO and published in 2024, found no link between mobile phone use and brain cancer.
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