In today’s society, there are a countless number of people: adults, teens, and even kids who all use cell phones. Some find it necessary to have a cell phone. Whether it is for work or socializing few people know of the danger, some scientists say, are in using these devices. I went to a school function recently, and noticed the number of people with cell phones. With no exaggeration, almost everyone had a cell phone. Only about one in every five or six people did not have a cell phone. This, in my mind, called for some concern. Do these people know of the potential danger of these phones? I asked a couple people, most knew nothing. The rest knew very little, they said they heard of the risks but did not know much. This poses for the question of whether these devices actually cause brain tumors. Do these companies know something we do not? Are they masking discoveries of a correlation between brain tumors and cell phones? Alternatively, are they settling, out of court, with victims?
About cell phones
 A brief description of the mechanics of the cell phones
 What it is exactly about the way it works that may be the cause of cancer
 Approximately how many people own cell phones
 If this number is growing, if so by how much and how fast

A cell phone is actually a radio that picks up and transmits cellular frequencies. This radio emits radiation, like microwave radiation. Cellular technology provides a two-way radio communications system between a portable handset and the nearest base-station. A given geographical region is divided into zones or cells, each of which is equipped with a base station. The base station receives radio frequency signals from cell phones and sends radio frequency signals to neighboring stations and other cell phones. The base station is also connected to the conventional landline telephone network. When a call is placed from a cellular phone, a signal is sent from the antenna of the phone to the base station antenna. The base station routes the voice signal though a switching center, where the call can be transferred to another cellular telephone, another base station, or to the local land-line telephone system.
The intensity of radio frequency exposure depends on the power level of the signal which depends, in part, on the distance of the telephone from the base station. The farther the telephone is from the base station antenna, the higher the power level needed to maintain the connection. In a rural area, the cell may extend over many miles and in urban areas may cover only a fraction of a mile. Radio frequency radiation covers a range of frequencies (from about 10,000 Hz to 1,000,000,000,000 Hz or 1 million MHz) of which microwave radiation is one type. Cellular telephones operate in the microwave frequency range (about 800 MHz - 2,100 MHz). AM/FM radios, and VHF/UHF TVs operate at lower radio frequencies than cellular phones, while microwave ovens, radar, and satellite-stations operate at higher radio frequencies than those used for cellular phones. The number of people using cellular telephones has increased dramatically during the past decade and is likely to continue increasing for the near future. According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, there are currently about 107 million mobile phone subscribers in the United States, increasing at a rate of about 2 million per month.

Because cell phones and base stations use low-power transmitters, the same frequencies can be reused in non-adjacent cells. The two purple cells can reuse the same frequencies. Each cell has a base station that consists of a tower and a small building containing the radio equipment.

Studies Conducted
 Number of studies
 Who’s doing these studies
– What labs, schools, companies, organizations
 Description of each study such as:
– The number of people in the group
– What exactly was done
– Conclusion of studies
The principal investigators at NCI are Peter Inskip, Sc.D. and Martha Linet, M.D. of NCIs Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics in Rockville, M.D. The NCI study included 782 brain tumor cases and 799 controls from three medical institutions: St. Josephs Hospital and Medical Centerin Phoenix; Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston; and Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh. The study included brain tumor patients recently diagnosed with glioma (489 cases), meningioma (197 cases) or acoustic neuroma(96 cases). The controls are people who were admitted to the same hospitals as the brain tumor cases for a variety of non-cancerous conditions. Controls were matched with cases by hospital, sex, race, age, and distanceof residence from hospital. This type of study is known as a case-control study. The study was restricted to adults who were age 18 or older who received care at one of the participating hospitals, resided within50 miles of the hospital, and could understand English or Spanish. Data collection began in 1994 and was completed in 1998. The largest of these is a multicenter, international case-control study involving about 3,000 cases and 3,000 controls, coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), based in Lyon,France. Results are expected in several years. (http://www.iarc.fr).
A Danish study, which includes a cohort of 550,000 cellular phone subscribers from 1982 to 1995, is expected to be published soon.

A $10 million program on cell phone research was recently announced in the United Kingdom. (http://www.doh.gov.uk/mobilephones/mobilephones.htm). Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) have recently signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). FDA will provide scientific and technical guidance for studies that evaluate the health effects of cellular phone use. (http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/ctia-research-plan.html)


Scientists vs. Services
 What the scientists have to say about this
– If they believe cell phones are cancer causing
 What cell phone service suppliers have to say about this
– If and what they are doing to help with research
There was no indication of higher brain tumor risk among persons who had used hand-held cellular phones compared to those who had not used them. More importantly, there was no evidence of increasing risk with increasing years of use or average minutes of use per day, nor did brain tumors among cellular phone users tend to occur more often than expected on the side of the head on which the person reported using their phone. Specifically, there was no indication of increased risk associated with use of a cell phone for one hour or more per day, for five or more years, or for cumulative use of more than 100 hours. These findings pertain to all three tumor types considered (glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma).

Conclusion
 Summary of research
 Whether or not cell phones are a threat (according to scientists)
 Which side has more supporting information
The results pertain primarily to patterns of cell phone use in the United States during the early to middle 1990s. During the period of this study, there was no evidence that use of hand-held cellular phones caused tumors of the brain and nervous system. The findings suggest that, if there was any increase in risk, it was small, particularly for malignant tumors (glioma).
Caution should be used in interpreting the findings for several reasons: (1) Widespread use of cellular telephones is a recent phenomenon, and few people used cell phones before the 1990s in the United States. This study included a small number of persons who reported using a cellphone frequently for more than five years. If there is an increased risk of brain tumors due to use of cellular phones that only appears after five or more years, or only among very heavy users, it is probable that this study would have failed to detect it. (2) This study was designed to be large enough to detect an increased risk of all types of glioma combined. The study was not large enough to detect an increased risk for different subtypes of glioma. (3) Information about duration and frequency of cellular phone use was obtained by interview and thus dependent on the ability of study participants to recall this information accurately. (4) Other factors influence the level of exposure of brain and nervous system tissue in the head to radio frequency radiation from cellular phones ,in addition to amount of use. These include distance from the cellular base station, local topography and vegetation, whether the phone is used indoors or outdoors, design of the particular model of phone, and position of the antenna and phone in relation to the head. (5) During the time period covered by our study, the overwhelming majority of cellular phones in use were analogue phones. Today, most cellular phones use are based on digital, rather than analogue, technology.
Given these limitations, it would be premature to conclude that use of hand-held cellular telephones does not cause tumors of the brain and nervous system.

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