Research finds mobile phone cancer threat
ALAN MacDERMID
The Herald, 5 September, 2001
USING mobile phones more than doubles the
risk of developing brain tumours over 10
years, according to new research.
The evidence emerged from Sweden
yesterday as the UK government's senior
adviser on mobile phones called for the cost of
calls to be raised to discourage over-use by
children.
Sir William Stewart, president of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, also attacked recent
"irresponsible" marketing of mobile phones as
a back-to-school accessory when he
addressed the British Association's science
festival at Glasgow University.
The study by Lennart Hardell, Professor of
Oncology at Obrero University in Sweden, is
one of the most authoritative and damning on
the subject to date.
He compared the fate of 1617 patients
diagnosed with brain tumours since 1997 with
a control group of healthy subjects.
Those who had used mobile telephones over
a 10-year-period were two-and-a-half times
more likely to have a brain tumour on the
temporal area of the brain on the side where
they had held the handset.
The incidence of cancer of the auditory nerve,
connecting the ear to the brain, was trebled.
The research, not yet published, was based on
use of analogue phones, but Professor Hardell
said yesterday that digital phones could be
worse, since they used pulsed microwaves
and could boost their power 500-fold while
dialling up.
He added: "It is too early to give advice on
GSM digital phones. We will have to wait until
about 2005 before we can see the effect of
digital phones. Until then we would use the
precautionary approach recommended by the
Stewart report."
Earlier, Sir William, told the science festival:
"Children's skulls are not fully developed. They
are not thickened and they will be using the
phones for longer."
He said the available evidence was that
radiation from phones did not represent a
direct risk to the public, but there were still
biological effects. "We do not have evidence
on what the long-term effects might be."
Alasdair Philips, of the campaign group
Powerwatch, told the science festival that a
survey they carried out showed that 85% of
children aged 10 to 15 had mobile phones,
and 10% used them for more than 45 minutes
a day.
The phones were at their most powerful when
they were dialling and searching for a base
station, and he recommended using a
hands-free kit or waiting until the number was
connected before putting the phone up to your
ear.
He said 80% of the output of a phone went into
the user's head, but this was reduced to three
per cent with a hands-free kit.
However, if a hands-free kit was used while
the phone was clipped to the user's belt this
only led to the emissions reaching the kidneys.
He said the next generation of phones would
require less powerful masts but more of them,
which he regarded as an improvement.
However, he said it was completely unethical
for phone companies to provide contracts
which would give children as much as 600 free
minutes a month, which they would be sure to
use up.
Full article at:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/5-9-19101-0-23-25.html
Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
