Cancer scientist warns against cellphone use

PITTSBURGH - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cellphone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that haven't linked cancer and cellphone use, and a public lack of worry by the Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman bases his alarm on early unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now, especially regarding children.

"Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," he said.

No other major academic cancer research institutions have sounded such an alarm about cellphone use. But Herberman's advice is sure to raise concern among many cellphone users and especially parents.

In the memo he sent to 3,000 faculty and staff Wednesday, he says children should use cellphones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.

Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cellphones in public places like a bus because it exposes others to the phone's electromagnetic fields.

The issue that concerns some scientists - though nowhere near a consensus - is electromagnetic radiation, especially its possible effects on children. It is not a major topic in conferences of brain specialists.

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies - including some Herberman cites - with thousands of brain tumor patients and concludes "we found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone users. The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies."

Studies last year in France and Norway concluded the same thing.

"If there is a risk from these products - and at this point we do not know that there is - it is probably very small," the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.

Still, Herberman cites a "growing body of literature linking long-term cellphone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer."

Of concern are the still unknown effects of more than a decade of cellphone use, with some studies raising alarms, said Devra Lee Davis, the director of the university's center for environmental oncology and a former health adviser in the Clinton administration.

The largest published study, which appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2006, tracked 420,000 Danish cellphone users, including thousands who had used the phones for more than 10 years.