Cell Phones, Do They Really Cause Brain Tumors Research Paper

Cell Phones, Do They Really Cause Brain Tumors - Research Paper Example This research is intended to ascertain the fact that cell phones are not associated with brain tumor. The use of cell phones began in 1980s and its wide spread use began in 1990s (National Cancer Institute, 2010). Since then, the technology has been constantly evolving and there has a soar in the use of cell phones all over the world. In 2009, in United States alone, there were more than 285 million cell phone users (National Cancer Institute, 2010). Thus, any health implications of cell phone usage target a large number of people. Cell phones use non-ionizing radiation, a type of electromagnetic radiation for their functioning. This radiation is actually different from the radiation used in X-rays which is ionizing and associated with risk of development of cancer. The radiation of cell phones falls into the same band of radiofrequency waves which are used in microwave to cook food. However, the radiowaves from cellphones do not cause damage to the genetic material DNA and thus does not cause cancer. The main source of radiofrequency energy for a cell phone comes from the antenna, which, in the newer cell phones is in the hand set and while taking, the portion of antenna lies along the side of the head (Wenner, 2008). Thus, closer the antenna towards the head, greater is the exposure to radiofrequency energy. The absorption of radiofrquency energy is directly proportion to the distance between the users head and the antenna and the intensity of the signal which is again, dependent on the level of the signal (National Cancer Institute, 2010). Thus, the levels of exposure to radiofrequency energy depends on various factors like the number and duration of the phone calls, the amount of traffic of cell phone at the time of talking over phone, the distance of the antenna of the cell phone from the nearest based station, the quality of radiofrequency transmission, the size of the hand set, extension of the