Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?

Do cell phones cause cancer? The short version: it’s unclear, but the news releases have vastly overblown the evidence. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists a large number of “possible” cancer risks, including many things that are far more likely to be carcinogenic than cell phones. However, don’t take my word for it; here are two pieces, a long, fairly in-depth post by science writer extraordinaire Ed Yong, and a shorter, pithier one from the BBC.

In other words, don’t throw your cell phone away just yet.

Corrected: I said Ed Yong wrote the BBC piece, but that’s an error caused by me writing too fast! It’s fixed now.

One response to “Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?”

  1. […] As usual, xkcd gets it right. You don’t have to have a huge amount of physics or medical knowledge — or even much ability to read graphs — to understand that there is no evidence of cell phones causing cancer. […]

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