The evidence continues to mount that radiation from cellphones and cellphone towers does not cause cancer. A just-published World Health Organization meta analysis of 5,000 studies published between 1994 and 2022, of which 63 were included in the final analysis, found no link between even the heaviest cellphone use and brain cancer, and that radiation from cellphone towers does not increase the likelihood of childhood cancers, including leukemia.
It’s time to move past what has become a knee-jerk fear of anything associated with the stigmatized word “radiation,” rooted in historic concerns dating back to the founding of the modern environmental movement and worries about radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. (See Spencer Weart’s fabulous book, “The Rise of Nuclear Fear.”) One relic of that fear is the town bylaw restricting the placement of cellphone towers, passed 26 years ago when we knew far less than we know now.
While a few honorably passionate citizens continue to cite bits and pieces of seemingly worrisome evidence, nearly all of which is generated by avowed anti-cellphone radiation advocates, the vast bulk of the evidence should now reassure critical-thinking Concord citizens that the bylaw should be removed and our once-understandable but now dispelled worries about this type of radiation should be laid to rest.
David Ropeik
Baker Avenue
