BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG C72 Manuale Utente

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held mobile phones might be harmful?
Briefly, there is not enough evidence 

to know for sure, either way; how-

ever, research efforts are on-going. 

The existing scientific evidence is 

conflicting and many of the studies 

that have been done to date have 

suffered from flaws in their research 

methods. Animal experiments inves-

tigating the effects of RF exposures 

characteristic of mobile phones have 

yielded conflicting results. A few ani-

mal studies, however, have sug-

gested that low levels of RF could 

accelerate the development of can-

cer in laboratory animals. In one 

study, mice genetically altered to be 

predisposed to developing one type 

of cancer developed more than 

twice as many such cancers when 

they were exposed to RF energy 

compared to controls. There is much 

uncertainty among scientists about 

whether results obtained from ani-

mal studies apply to the use of 

mobile phones. First, it is uncertain 

how to apply the results obtained in 

rats and mice to humans. Second, 

many of the studies showed 

increased tumor development used 

animals that had already been 

treated with cancer-causing chemi-

cals, and other studies exposed the 

animals to the RF virtually continu-

ously – up to 22 hours per day.
For the past five years in the United 

States, the mobile phone industry 

has supported research into the 

safety of mobile phones. This 

research has resulted in two findings 

in particular that merit additional 

study:
1. In a hospital-based, case-control 

study, researchers looked for an 

association between mobile phone 

use and either glioma (a type of 

brain cancer) or acoustic neuroma (a 

benign tumor of the nerve sheath). 

No statistically significant associa-

tion was found between mobile 

phone use and acoustic neuroma. 

There was also no association 

between mobile phone use and glio-

mas when all types of gliomas were 

considered together. It should be 

noted that the average length of 

mobile phone exposure in this study 

was less than three years.
When 20 types of glioma were con-

sidered separately, however, an asso-

ciation was found between mobile 

phone use and one rare type of gli-

oma, neuroepithelliomatous tumors. 

It is possible with multiple compari-

sons of the same sample that this 

association occurred by chance. 

Moreover, the risk did not increase 

with how often the mobile phone 

was used, or the length of the calls. In 

fact, the risk actually decreased with 

cumulative hours of mobile phone 

use. Most cancer causing agents 

increase risk with increased expo-

sure. An ongoing study of brain can-

cers by the National Cancer Institute 

is expected to bear on the accuracy 

and repeatability of these results.

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