Cancer from Cell Towers: Dose and Distance

Combined findings from Brazil and Nigeria

Living closer than 200 meters (656 feet; just over two football fields away), from a cellular tower (base station) leads to a statistically-significant 25% increase in cancer death. Living within half of that distance leads to a statistically-significant 35% increase in cancer death.

That’s because of the radio-frequency/microwave radiation it emits. At 150 meters overnight, you get exposed to an average power density of 21 microWatts per square-centimeter* (9 V/m of electric field strength):

The cancer statistics come from a study in Brazil, while the average night-time power density comes from a study in Nigeria. Here are the notes on the study in Brazil:

[click to enlarge]

A 99% confidence interval was formed around the cancer death rates at each distance. Such high confidence allows for multiple comparisons, while retaining “inferential validity” (valid generalization of results).

When moving from 300 meters away from a cell tower to within 200 meters away the lower bound cancer death rate at 200 meters away was even higher than the upper bound cancer death rate at 300 meters away.

That’s highly-significant, though all increases out to 900 meters away were statistically-significant (but 1000 meters away was not significant at alpha = .01).

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*Image of cell tower extracted from: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Departments-and-Agencies/DPH/dph/environmental_health/eoha/pdf/051115CellPhoneTowerFINALpdf.pdf

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Reference

[up to 35% more cancer death when close to cell tower] — Dode AC, Leão MM, Tejo Fde A, Gomes AC, Dode DC, Dode MC, Moreira CW, Condessa VA, Albinatti C, Caiaffa WT. Mortality by neoplasia and cellular telephone base stations in the Belo Horizonte municipality, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Sci Total Environ. 2011 Sep 1;409(19):3649-65. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.05.051. Epub 2011 Jul 13. PMID: 21741680. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21741680/

[at 150 meters from cell tower, you get a night-time exposure of 21 microWatts per square-centimeter of radio-frequency radiation (9 V/m of electric field strength)] — K O Olawale et al 2021. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2034 012009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2034/1/012009