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population at a rate of about 6 new cases per 100,000 people
each year. At that rate, assuming 80 million users of mobile
phones (a number increasing at a rate of about 1 million per
month), about 4800 cases of brain cancer would be expected
each year among those 80 million people, whether or not they
used their phones. Thus it is not possible to tell whether any
individual's cancer arose because of the phone, or whether it
would have happened anyway. A key question is whether the
risk of getting a particular form of cancer is greater among
people who use mobile phones than among the rest of the
population. One way to answer that question is to compare the
usage of mobile phones among people with brain cancer with
the use of mobile phones among appropriately matched people
without brain cancer. This is called a case-control study. The
current case-control study of brain cancers by the National
Cancer Institute, as well as the follow-up research to be
sponsored by industry, will begin to generate this type of
information.
What is FDA's role concerning the safety of mobile
phones?
Under the law, FDA does not review the safety of radiation-
emitting consumer products such as mobile phones before
marketing, as it does with new drugs or medical devices.
However, the agency has authority to take action if mobile
phones are shown to emit radiation at a level that is hazardous
to the user. In such a case, FDA could require the manufacturers
of mobile phones to notify users of the health hazard and to
repair, replace or recall the phones so that the hazard no longer
exists.
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