The best answer science can offer so far is maybe. Given that uncertainty and the fact that everyone from the National Cancer Institute to the World Health Organization is investigating cell-phone radiation, many experts caution that it is far too early to give the phones a clean bill of health.
Cell phones work by transmitting radio waves to base stations that plug calls into a network.
Non-ionizing radiation can also be dangerous. At the high levels found in radar or inside microwave ovens, it can heat and severely damage tissue. Cancer studies have been inconclusive since 1993, when a Florida man brought an unsuccessful lawsuit that blamed his wife's fatal brain tumor on her use of a cell phone. In a frequently cited 1997 report, Australian researchers exposed mice bred with a predisposition to lymphomas to two daily 30-min. The mice developed tumors at twice the rate of animals that were radiation-free.