what surprised me is voices urging caution are not only getting louder, but they re getting more prominent. all right. i m on my way. if you ve ever put a cell phone to your ear, you should listen to what neurosurgeon dr. keith black has to say. there s no way to say that cell phone use is safe. i think the public has a right to know there could be a potential risk. the public generally assumes that if one is selling something on the market, that we have had assurances that that device is safe. to be clear, dr. black s message is at odds with headlines from the largest international study on cell phones and cancer. their conclusion, little or no evidence cell phones are associated with brain tumors. if you look just one layer deeper into the appendix of that same study, you ll see something unsettling. turns out participants in the study who use a cell phone for ten years or more had double the rate of a type of tumor. keep in mind cell phone use in the united states
on camera interview. the type of radiation coming out of your cell phone is non-ionizing. it s more like a how powered microwave oven. what microwave radiation does, in the most simplistic terms, is very similar to what happens to your food when you put your food in a microwave oven. it s essentially cooking the brain. reporter: based on their past statements, the fcc isn t convinced there s a real risk and maintain they do not endorse the need for consumers to take any precautions to predeuce exposure. sanjay, this piece is really fascinating and terrifying, i got to say. these cell phones haven t been around long enough to have an accurate sense of whether or not they re safe. that s the issue. there haven t been studies to show they re dangerous but there are not studies to show they re safe either.
but how can they be so sure? keeping them honest, we decided to come here and find out for ourselves, but they declined an on camera interview. the type of radiation coming out of your cell phone is non-ionizing. it s not like an x-ray, but it s more like a how powered microwave oven. what microwave radiation does, in the most simplistic terms, is very similar to what happens to your food when you put your food in a microwave offen, it s essentially cooking the brain. reporter: based on their past statements, the fcc isn t convinced there s a real risk and maintain they do not endorse the need for consumers to take any precautions to reduce exposure. sanjay, this piece is really fascinating and terrifying, i got to say. these cell phones haven t been around long enough to have an accurate sense of whether or not they re safe. that s the issue. there haven t been studies to show they re dangerous but there are not studies to show they re safe either.
user? they have safety guidelines. in this case they say keep it 25 millimeters from your body. meaning your head or your pocket. dr. keith black has been talking about this longer than many. but the voices joining him are becoming louder and more prominent. the city of san francisco pushed for radiation warning labels on cell phones. the head of a prominent cancer institute sent a memo to all employees urging them to reduce cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. and the european environmental agency has pushed for more studies, saying cell phones could be as big a risk as smoking, asbestos and leaded gasoline. the federal communication commission, the fcc, set the guidelines for how much radiation a cell phone can emit, and they say cell phones are safe. but how can they be so sure? keeping them honest, we decided to come here and find out for ourselves, but they declined an on camera interview. the type of radiation coming out of your cell phone is non-ionizing.
that number is not constant. if you have a bad signal, if you re overseas and having a difficult time hearing somebody, you re getting more radiation at that time. what sit about the microwave radiation that can potentially cause problems? ionizing radiation is one end of the spectrum. that s x-rays. nonionizing is more like a low-powered microwave oven. the question is, at low powers, could this be causing tissue to heat up and causing damage that way? we know for the first time this year, from a study at the nih, that cell phones change the way the brain metabolizes. so the question is, what is that heating and increased metabolism going to do in the long run? could it lead to capser?