A recent study on radio waves has found that cell phone use, now inundating college campuses nationwide, may lead to growth of leukemia cells.
Laboratory tests show that the same type of radio waves emitted by wireless phones make leukemia cells more aggressive, said cell biologist Fiorenzo Marinelli, who addressed the International Workshop on Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields last month.
Marinelli and his team, members of Italy’s National Research Council, exposed leukemia cells to 48 hours of the same frequency of radio waves that most European mobile networks use.
Although the waves killed off leukemia cells during the first 24 hours by triggering a “suicide gene,” the next 24 hours set off a survival mechanism that made the cancer grow more rapidly.
But Marinelli’s study is only one more piece of evidence in an inconclusive debate over the safety of cellular and wireless phones.
Denmark researchers concluded that wireless phones do not cause cancer in an 18-year study of 420,000 wireless users. After calculating the expected number of participants who would develop cancer based on national averages, researchers found mobile phone users were slightly less likely than expected to develop cancer.
But the study did not examine if mobile phones made cancer cells already in the body more aggressive, as Marinelli’s findings suggest.
This lack of conclusive data apparently has kept fears at a minimum for college students, who are now using cell phones in record numbers. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that more than half of 18- to 24-year-olds own a cellular phone.
“If it was something that had a huge risk, we would know about it by now,” said Katie McKeown, a Weinberg sophomore who said she does not own a cell phone because they are “kind of obnoxious.”
Music senior Elena Park, who uses her phone about an hour a day, said she has kept up on a few of the studies.
“I’ve heard different things and the last thing I heard was that the risks are minimal,” she said. “I just don’t use it enough, I think, to worry about the health risks.”
Cell phone companies were dealt a blow last month when George Carlo, leader of the industry’s investigation into cell phone safety, said in an interview with ABC News that there is “direct evidence of possible harm from cellular phones.”
Since he had not heard about the possible health risks of cell phones for a while, Weinberg sophomore Tyler Mark said he thought the problem was solved.
“I remember when cell phones first came out people were talking about (the risks),” he said. “I just assumed they redesigned it.”
Cell phone companies as well as private organizations are continuing their research, encouraged by both the FCC and consumers.
Martin Tallman, a hematology and oncology professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine, agreed that further experimentation is needed to truly determine the safety of wireless phones.
“There’s no (conclusive) data really,” he said. “We don’t know whether it’s safe or not safe.”
