GSMA: Long Term Animal Studies of Cancer

Starting in 2001, four laboratories in Europe conducted a series of six animal studies investigating whether mobile phone signals at 900 MHz or 1800 MHz are carcinogenic or co-carcinogenic in rats and mice. Funding was received under the EU 5th Framework Program with sponsorship from the GSMA, the MMF, Elettra2000 and national authorities from Austria and Switzerland. In addition a related study was supported at Zhejiang University (China) with encouragement from the WHO.

The objective of these seven studies (known collectively in Europe as PERFORM-A) is to provide high quality and reliable data for risk assessments by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). In particular, these studies address the WHO research agenda recommendations for long term animal bioassays for cancer induction/promotion as well as follow-up previously reported findings, most notably the 1997 study which reported an increase of leukaemia in genetically modified mice exposed to 900 MHz signals, though another study has since failed to confirm this result.

The University of Helsinki coordinated the programme and provided a firewall between the sponsors and the researchers.

Partial results have been published and the findings of the remaining studies were reported at the European Bioelectromagnetics Association scientific conference in France in April 2007 and have been peer reviewed and published. The final reports are also available for PERFORM-A (PDF, 104kb) and the Zhejiang study
(PDF, 1,3mb).