The government recently made a startling admission: Cell phones can cause cancer.

A study conducted by the National Toxicology Program, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, found that cell phones increased the risk of gliomas, a type of cancerous brain tumor, and schwannomas, a rare tumor of the heart.

We’ve known this for years, of course, just as we knew for years that cigarettes caused cancer. But the government and tobacco industry refused to admit it.

The reason that previous studies linking cell phones with cancer have been downplayed boils down to money.

A recent analysis of thousands of articles written on the subject of cell phone safety found that the majority of scientific papers in major journals that reported no medical problems or biological damage related to radiation exposure were financially supported by the cell phone industry.

On the other hand, studies that were completely independent found just the opposite — damage was indeed occurring.