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By Robert Uhlig
Using a mobile telephone more than doubles
the risk of developing brain cancer on the side of the head
where the phone is held, the British Association festival
of science was told September 4.
A second warning was issued when Sir William
Stewart, who chaired last year's government-sponsored report
into mobile phone health risks, called for the cost of handsets
to be increased to restrict their use by children.
Sir William, the president of the British
Association, said he would not allow his grandchildren to
use a mobile phone and also castigated operators for targeting
advertisements at youngsters.
The study into a link with brain tumors
was carried out by Lennart Hardell, professor of oncology
at Orebro University in Sweden, who compared 1,617 patients
diagnosed with brain tumors between 1997 and last year with
the same number of healthy people.
He found that people who used cell phones
were two and a half times
more likely to have a temporal brain tumor on the side of
the head where they held their phone.
In the case of tumors of the auditory
nerve, which connects the ear to the brain, the risk increased
to more than three times for mobile phone users.
Because of the need to investigate patients
who had used cell phones for 10 years or more, the research
concentrated on analogue phones. But Prof Hardell said yesterday
that users of digital mobiles, which emit less radiation,
could face similar health
risks because the phones use pulsed microwaves
as opposed to the continuous signals of analogues.
Prof Hardell said: "We will have
to wait several more years, probably at least until 2005,
before we can see the health effects of digital phones."
Meanwhile users should exercise
precaution, as the Stewart report has urged.
The mobile phone industry has been plagued
by reports suggesting that mobile phones cause cancer. However,
there have also been reports of studies showing no health
risks to users.
With more than 800
million cell phones in use worldwide, of which
44.7 million are in Britain, even a small cancer risk could
have devastating effects.
Sir William said the investigation into
the potential dangers of using a mobile phone needed to be
broader. "Research into mobile phones has been led by
the physical sciences looking at radiation levels. But there
are subtle biological effects.
"They could be adverse or beneficial
- we simply do not know. There is increasing evidence that
the non-thermal effects of mobile phone radiation could affect
us. We should be doing more work on biological effects and
the Department of Health agrees with that."
Sir William added that it was "irresponsible"
for operators to suggest in advertisements that youngsters
needed a mobile phone to return to school.
Explaining why he would not allow his
grandchildren to use mobiles, he said: "Children's skulls
are not fully developed. Their bones are not as thick as adults
and they will be using mobile phones for longer over their
lifetimes than adults.
"It is worrying as there are effects
we will not know about for some time. I would support higher
pricing to reduce use of mobiles by children."
A report by the National Radiological
Protection Board has called for more research into the police
radio system, Tetra, because of suspicions that its similar
technology to digital phones - using pulses of around 17 cycles
a second - could affect brain tissue
www.News.telegraph.co.uk
September 5, 2001
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