A study by the “National Toxicology Program” has revived the scientific debate on the dangerousness of cell phone waves.
The links between mobile telephony and cancer have been the source of many contradictory studies in recent years, without any of them succeeding in gaining unanimity within the scientific community. A new study released on May 26 and carried out by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), a program run by the US Department of Health, brings the issue back to the fore. And this is not just any study: “It is the largest study of this type conducted to date on the subject”, says the toxicologist Christopher Portier, former deputy director of the NTP, according to The world, since it cost $ 20 million and was carried out for two and a half years.
In order to perform this study, the researchers exposed several groups of 90 rats to radiation levels ranging from 1.5 Watt per kilogram (W / kg) to 6 W / kg. Two limits should be pointed out from the outset: these are exposure levels higher than those of humans since most mobile phones have levels below 1 W / kg. In addition, during the experiment, the entire body of the rats was exposed to radiation unimaginable for a human since the rats were exposed throughout their lives, 18 hours a day.
Females do not contract these diseases
Results? The incidence of two types of cancer, cerebral glioma and cardiac schwannoma, is observed and generally increases with the level of radiation received by the animals.
Scientists are also observing a gender difference in the results since the females do not contract the diseases, which is so far unexplained. The NTP also specifies that these results are only partial and that others, currently being revised, will come in the coming months to complete and clarify the table.
Australian study showed opposite results 15 days ago
Results which in any case refute those of a study unveiled at the beginning of May. This Australian study indicated that the cell phone would not be responsible for an increase in cases of brain cancer over the past 30 years. To reach this reassuring conclusion, researchers from the University of Sidney compared the incidence of brain cancer and the evolution of the mobile telephone market between the mid-1980s and 2012, observing that the incidence of cancer cerebral cerebral cells has remained almost stable over the past thirty years. The dangerousness of cell phone waves is therefore still far from unanimous among scientists.
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