PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE: Comprehensive Study Finds High Cell Phone Use Causes Heart Tumors In Rats

The results of a massive study involving the effect of high levels of radio frequency radiation used in mobile phones on rats may be a warning sign for humans: the male rats developed cancerous heart, brain and adrenal gland cancerous tumors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had asked for the study to be conducted on radio frequency radiation (RFR) emissions of wireless communication devices for several reasons: the potential for health effects of long-term exposure had not been comprehensively tested; epidemiology and toxicology studies had yielded mixed results, and the studies that were conducted on laboratory animals were limited in their scope.

For the study that was just released, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) collaborated with technical experts from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Boulder, CO) and the Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (Zurich, Switzerland).

The male rats in the study were exposed to radio frequency radiation like that used in 2G and 3G cell service.

The study noted:

We studied the effects of nearly lifetime exposures to two different types, or modulations, of RFR (GSM and CDMA) used in cellular telephone networks in the United States in male and female rats and mice to identify potential toxicity or cancer-related hazards.

The study pointed out that its focus on 2G and 3G was still relevant as the more modern 4G technology has supplanted them, explaining, “While newer technologies have continued to evolve, it is important to note that these technologies have not completely replaced the older technologies. In fact, today’s phones are very complex in that they contain several antennas, for wi-fi, GPS, 2G/3G bands, etc. Thus, the results of these studies remain relevant to current exposures, although the power levels of the exposures were much higher than typical patterns of human use.”

The study offered some hard facts about the heart tumors that were found:

In the heart of male rats, exposure to RFR for 2 years resulted in a statistically significant positive trend in the incidences of cardiac schwannoma for both GSM and CDMA modulations. The incidence at 6 W/kg for CDMA was statistically significantly increased compared to sham controls. Additionally, cardiac Schwann cell hyperplasia occurred in groups of male rats exposed to both GSM- and CDMA-modulated cell phone RFR. These hyperplastic lesions are relevant to the evaluation of neoplasms because Schwann cell hyperplasia in the heart may progress to cardiac schwannoma (MacKenzie and Alison, 1990; Berridge et al., 2016).

Then, the central issue at hand: “In both studies (GSM and CDMA), exposure to RFR in male rats resulted in higher numbers of animals with tumors of the heart and brain. In the GSM study, increased numbers of animals with tumors of the adrenal gland were also observed in exposed males.”

The study concluded, “In males for both GSM- and CDMA-modulated RFR, we conclude that exposures increased the number of animals with tumors in the heart. Tumors of the brain were also considered to be related to exposure; and increased numbers of male rats with tumors of the adrenal gland were also related to exposure.”