STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — Families who have lost loved ones to a certain type of cancer are saying they have another, small reason to be hopeful.

Like the woman in Stone Mountain who lost her father to a cancerous brain tumor.

She said Wednesday night she is not surprised that doctors with the World Health Organization just declared cell phones may cause cancer.

Her father practically lived on his cell phone.

Her father was Attorney Johnnie Cochran, who developed “a glioblastoma multiforme, which basically is the most deadly type of brain tumor.”

Johnnie Cochran died in 2005 at the age of 67. He might have jumped at the chance to take on the cell phone companies in court.

His neurosurgeon, to this day, thinks Cochran’s cell phone use might have caused his brain tumor.

“He’s always believed it,” said his daughter, Tiffany Cochran, of her father’s neurosurgeon. “And he’s always said it may be one of those things where research needs to catch up to societal use of the cell phone…. He said he really thought it was his cell phones,” which Johnnie Cochran always held tight against the same ear — cell phones that, Tiffany pointed out, were, in the 1990s and early 2000s, possibly less safe than cell phone companies insist their phones are now.

Tiffany Cochran is a former 11Alive News anchor and reporter who lives in Stone Mountain, and she supports what the doctors with a World Health Organization medical panel just declared about cell phones being a possible cancer risk, a risk that requires further scientific and medical study and research.

“Absolutely, because it’s what we’ve always felt, and I think the more information people have, they can make their own decision. You know, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, you’re just coming at it from an emotional point of view.’ But there’s really no other way to explain why someone of his age would have developed the type of brain tumor that he developed.”

Tiffany Cochran is devoted to raising money for brain tumor research and for the research center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center named in honor of her father — research that may determine causes of and cures for many types of brain cancers, including once and for all whether there is any link between cell phone use and brain tumors.

“My husband uses ear buds. I’m a texter. I try not to be on the cell phone. If it’s warm, if the cell phone is hot to the touch, I won’t put it to my ear. But, there definitely needs to be more research done…. Everybody’s on their cell phone. We need more research.” 

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