Abstract
There is ongoing discussion whether the mobile phone radiation causes any health effects. The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, the International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety and the World Health Organization are assuring that there is no proven health risk and that the present safety limits protect all mobile phone users. However, based on the available scientific evidence, the situation is not as clear. The majority of the evidence comes from in vitro laboratory studies and is of very limited use for determining health risk. Animal toxicology studies are inadequate because it is not possible to "overdose" microwave radiation, as it is done with chemical agents, due to simultaneous induction of heating side-effects. There is a lack of human volunteer studies that would, in unbiased way, demonstrate whether human body responds at all to mobile phone radiation. Finally, the epidemiological evidence is insufficient due to, among others, selection and misclassification bias and the low sensitivity of this approach in detection of health risk within the population. This indicates that the presently available scientific evidence is insufficient to prove reliability of the current safety standards. Therefore, we recommend to use precaution when dealing with mobile phones and, whenever possible and feasible, to limit body exposure to this radiation. Continuation of the research on mobile phone radiation effects is needed in order to improve the basis and the reliability of the safety standards.
Highlights
When evaluating the possible health effects of mobile phone radiation, as with any other environmental factor, no matter naturally occurring or man-made, are needed several types of scientific evidence such as (i) the possible mechanism how the effect is induced in living organism, (ii) in vitro laboratory studies that confirm the existence of a biophysical and biochemical mechanism of the effect, (iii) animal studies, (iv) human volunteer studies, and (v) epidemiological evidence of the effect on human population
Because of the lack of studies that would provide unbiased information whether the human body responds to mobile phone radiation, it is problematic to consider that the presently available safety standards protect all users of mobile phones [19]
Even though there have been executed numerous in vitro laboratory studies, these in vitro studies are of value only for discovering the biochemical mechanism of the effect and they provide support for human and animal studies, but they can not be directly used to determine the probability of health risk or in providing information for setting of human health safety standard
Summary
There is continuously ongoing controversy whether the users of mobile phones should be concerned about:. Standing out among the epidemiological studies is a series of papers published by the group of Lennart Hardell from Sweden (for review see [12]) These studies show that the exposure to mobile phone radiation causes increase in risk of brain cancer. To this time, we do not have available objective information whether human body recognizes mobile phone radiation (at levels permitted by the current safety standards) as an external stressor and responds to it at molecular level Such responses are prerequisite for any physiological/health-related responses. Because of the lack of studies that would provide unbiased information whether the human body responds to mobile phone radiation, it is problematic to consider that the presently available safety standards protect all users of mobile phones [19]. Even though there have been executed numerous in vitro laboratory studies, these in vitro studies are of value only for discovering the biochemical mechanism of the effect and they provide support for human and animal studies, but they can not be directly used to determine the probability of health risk or in providing information for setting of human health safety standard
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