Grant: Operating Grant: Industry-partnered Collaborative Research - Other Partner

In Canada, the widespread use of mobile phones has drawn public attention to their possible human health and safety effects. A substantial body of experimental evidence has demonstrated that radiofrequency (RF) radiation affects biologic processes that are believed to influence the development of cancers. The few epidemiologic studies evaluating the association between mobile phone use and cancers have been limited to an adult population and also by several factors particularly insufficient exposure times. With many unanswered questions regarding children and adolescents, the European Commission funded an international multi-centre case control study including 13 countries. The present Canadian study is to conduct a national epidemiologic case-control study in major Canadian metropolitan cities of brain tumours (malignant and benign) diagnosed in young people aged 10 to 24 years in relation to EMF exposure from mobile telephones and other environmental exposures. Such a study would be timely and cost-effective since it could benefit from expertise of the EU members and adapt the protocol and questionnaire developed by the EU consortium. Results of this project are expected to be of great importance in the assessment of potential health risks from mobile telephones as well as from EMF in general.