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Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer?
The short answer is: nobody really knows.
Some studies say yes, other studies say no. And to complicate matters,
many of the studies are funded by the handset makers themselves.
Cell phones are relatively new -- only in widespread use for the past ten
years or so. The reason studies haven't been able to find a direct link
between phones and brain tumors is, simply because, not enough time has passed
to understand the long-term effects of cell phone usage.
Brain tumors may develop after 25 years, 50 years, or maybe even never at
all. The point is, researchers need more time, decades perhaps, before they can
judge the long-term health effects of constant phone use, and not just over
the past ten years.
How to Use CellRisk.com
We aren't saying that cell phones will or will not cause brain cancer,
but we can tell you which handsets have the lowest and highest radiation
levels -- and give you the tools to choose to buy phones with less radiation.
The U.S. government tests each cell phone and uses a rating system called
Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, to measure how much radiation the
human body absorbs.
Regulators set the SAR limit at 1.6 W/kg. In other words, no phones that
radiate over 1.6 W/kg of energy can be sold in the U.S. The highest SAR
value is 1.6.
But that doesn't mean it's still safe. Unfortunately, The SAR limit was
established twenty years ago, when mobile phones were only available to the few,
and rarely used. Nobody foresaw the widespread usage, or duration, that consumers
now are using their handsets -- so regulators aren't even sure if the 1.6 limit
is low enough.
Regardless, we've combed through the FCC test records to find the SAR value
for each handset -- so concerned consumers can see the lowest and highest
radiation phones to help their buying process.
We say handsets with a SAR value under 0.8 are "Low Radiation Phones" and
devices over 1.3 are "High Radiation Phones." This is not an indication of the
health danger of the devices (again, nobody knows if 1.6 is too high or low enough),
but rather saying the phone is low or high compared to the handsets on the market.
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