After two years of wrangling, the World Health is preparing to publish the Interphone study, consisting of 16 tests conducted in 13 countries on the effects of mobile phones on health. In recent years, studies with conflicting findings have fueled the confusion.
One of the most important was published in early December. An analysis of Danish file tumors in Scandinavia has shown no increase in cancers of the brain linked to portable between the mid-90s and early 2000s. The study was immediately criticized because of the slowness with which to develop brain tumors.
Other studies are more worrisome. In mid-October, a team US-South Korean pooled 23 studies totaling 38 000 participants and has calculated that using a laptop for 10 years or more increased by 18% the risk of having a brain tumor. And in November, a Swedish study showed that mobile phones increase the amount of a molecule in the brain of blood.
This study is particularly important because the medical and environmental authorities will consider for the moment that a "thermal risk" to calculate the riskiness of phones. As the energy of the phones is much lower than that found in a microwave oven or near the transmission towers for television (telephone transmission towers are less powerful), the thermal risk is negligible. But there are other biological effects, the risk should be reassessed.
"The few studies that have shown biological effects failed to prove a mechanism," says David Coggon, British epidemiologist who has published a commentary on the issue in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "This is equivalent to an increase in skin temperature when you're in the sun. So that does not sunburn, there is no sequel. "
The French Agency for the safety of the environment and labor has reached a similar conclusion this fall, which led her to suggest precautionary measures: increasing the number of studies to inform users of emissions of each phone cards and waves, and encourage municipalities to find ways to reduce exposure to air.
A committee of the French Senate is able to recommend to reduce exposure of children by prohibiting the advertising of mobile phones for them and by forbidding students to use a laptop to school. In France, more than half of 10 year olds have a mobile phone.
Such a measure is it necessary here? "Yes, because the industry will soon turn to children to continue its growth," says François Therrien, the Quebec organization Save our children from the microwave.
The release of the Interphone study of the WHO certainly fuels the debate. Some of the smallest countries in the study have published their results, some are disturbing.
Last year, the director of the Interphone study, Elisabeth Cardis, the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona, had said the French daily Le Monde that the late issuance of Intercom is not related to pressures of the industry but a problem of "interpretation" of data.
Director of Communications CREAL said in early December to La Presse that Dr. Cardis did not give interview before the release of Intercom. It must be said that a French epidemiologist has its share of pressure from all sides. Dr. Cardis is no stranger to controversy: in 2006 it had published for the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the largest study on the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident on human health. The impact, wrote Dr. Cardis, was much lower than we had originally planned. This prudence earned him the scorn of environmental groups. Intercom know may be the same if it whitens home laptops.