• Question: is it true that having your mobile in your bra could cause breast cancer?

    Asked by ciaraistall to Amylou, Maria, Mark L, Mark U on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Mark Uphill

      Mark Uphill answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Hi ciaraistall, I don’t wear a bra :/ but the implication that for a “bloke” carrying a phone in his trouser pocket could relate to testicular cancer is similar…
      Simply phrased – I don’t know, but I doubt it. It’s an interesting question scientifically speaking, because of (a) establishing cause and effect (difficult to get ethical approval for an experiment to test something that you hypothetically think might induce cancer), (b) establishing the mechanisms by which one “thing” causes “another”, (c) if you could do an experiment in the laboratory on breast tissue as opposed to living people, how might this extrapolate to the “real person”, and (d) ruling out other explanations.

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