Cell Phones and Radiation Exposure

In November 2018, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released their results of a study on the effects of radiofrequency (RF) radiation generated from cell phones.  Their study, which was on test animals, concluded that high exposure to the RF generated from the old 2G and 3G cell phones which were used in the 1990s was associated with heart tumors.

The study subjected the test animals to whole body RF for 9 hours a day for two years.  This is obviously not how people commonly use cell phones.  Exposure experienced by people would be to specific local tissues near the cell phone for a limited period of time.  Also of interest was that the lowest exposure used in the study was equal to the maximum local tissue exposure currently allowed for cell phones.  Again, this study did not evaluate the type of RF used on today’s cell phones.

Additionally, the study showed some evidence of a link between RF and brain and adrenal gland tumors in the male rats tested.  Results were inconclusive for female rats and for male and female mice.

NTP recognized that the study was not how people commonly use cell phones, but simply addressed the “long-held assumption that radio frequency radiation is of no concern as long as the energy level is low and does not significantly heat the tissues.”

More studies are reportedly in the works.  We hope the study design of these new studies would utilize the technology commonly found on phones used today, at the concentration commonly allowed on phones and limited to how people commonly use phones.  We’ll report the findings, as results of these new studies are released.  You can find the complete report on the NTP website.