Maryland researchers deny link between cell phone radiation and brain cancer

University of Maryland researchers in the A. James Clark School of Engineering have expressed concerns regarding the validity of recent findings announced in the Journal of the American Medical Association and a World Health Organization panel suggesting that radiation from cell phones may be carcinogenic. Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Christopher Davis and Senior Research Scientist Quirino Balzano co-wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on this subject that was published in the most recent issue of the journal, Vol. 35, No. 20, dated May 25, 2011.  

In the letter, Davis and Balzano, who each have more than 35 years of research experience in the biological effects of wireless telecommunications technology, offered a critique of a paper by N.D. Volkow, D. Tomasi, and G.J. Wang, titled "Effects of cell phone radiofrequency signal exposure on brain glucose metabolism," that had been published in a previous issue of JAMA. Davis and Balzano pointed out that the highest temperature elevations that occur in the brain during cell phone use as a result of radiofrequency fields from the cell phone are on the order of 0.1 degrees C to 0.2 degrees C, and that these temperature elevations are smaller than those resulting from physical activity. They also argued that the study did not evaluate the exposure of the brain to the fields from the cell phone correctly, so a causal relation between the radiofrequency signal and the effect detected by Volkow et al. has no valid experimental support.