"Brain Cancer Kills more Australian Children and Women Under 35 Than Any Other Cancer" (2012 Article by Dr. Charlie Teo, Neurosurgeon)

Brain tumor in young girl
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Dr. Charlie Teo, author of the article, “What if your mobile phone is giving you brain cancer?”, published on The Punch, Australia, 7 May 2012, is a specialist in pediatric neurosurgery.  The link to the article is no longer available.

The article begins:  “There are three undisputed facts about the link between mobile phones and brain tumours. Firstly, the jury is still out. Secondly, the number of mobile phone users is increasing rapidly and currently stands at over five billion worldwide. Thirdly, IF there is a causal link between exposure to non-ionising radiation and brain tumours, then the social and financial consequences would be devastating and on a scale never before witnessed in history.”

“With over twenty one million mobile phones in use in Australia, why are we not spending the resources on finding the answer? Perhaps the answer is one that all of us would rather not imagine. Could those with a vested interest be misguiding us?”

Teo writes that as an expert on brain cancer, he witnesses every day the devastating effects that brain tumors have on families and society:  “I see 10 to 20 new patients each week and at least one third of those patients’ tumours are in the area of the brain around the ear. As a neurosurgeon I cannot ignore this fact and while I may personally believe there is a link between brain tumours and EMR exposure…

“Brain cancer statistics are not pretty. Two of the largest centres in the world have documented a disturbing rise in the incidence of brain tumours, the CBTRUS (Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States) and the Office of National Statistics in the UK where figures suggest a 50 per cent increase in frontal and temporal lobe tumours between 1999 and 2009.

“Brain cancer has no cure. It is the leading cause of cancer deaths for those under 39 in Australia and it kills more Australian children and women under 35 than any other cancer.  The time to address brain cancer is now.”

The article goes on to discuss studies on mobile phones:  “Most of the largest studies on mobile phones are flawed by study design. The Interphone Study refused to include children and corporate users, arguably two of the highest risk groups.  We need to design a study that is not flawed from the start and one that acknowledges that non-ionising radiation, if responsible for cancer, will take at least 10 years of exposure to manifest because exposure to ionising radiation has a ten-year latency before resulting in cancer.”