LYONS, France, May 31 (UPI) -- A U.N. agency in Paris says cellphone use has been classified as a possible danger to humans based on an increased risk for a malignant type of brain cancer.
The World Health Organization/International Agency for Research on Cancer made the announcement about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields from cellphones in a report released Tuesday.
While a review of evidence suggests an increased risk of a malignant type of brain cancer known as glioma cannot be ruled out, the report said the link is not certain and it was "not clearly established that it does cause cancer in humans."
Experts have been meeting in Lyon, France, to review evidence coming from all relevant human studies of people using cellphones and those exposed to electromagnetic fields at work.
WHO said it estimates there are 5 billion cellphone subscribers around the globe.
"The WHO's verdict means that there is some evidence linking mobile phones to cancer but it is too weak to draw strong conclusions from," Ed Yong, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, told the BBC.
"The risk of brain cancer is similar in people who use mobile phones compared to those who don't, and rates of this cancer have not gone up in recent years despite a dramatic rise in phone use during the 1980s," he said. "However, not enough is known to totally rule out a risk, and there has been very little research on the long-term effects of using phones."
