While many experts say there is no link between mobile phone
use and cancer in adults there is still widespread uncertainty about the risks children face. Research into health and mobile phones has
been beset with difficulties.Mobiles have been in use for a relatively short
time and yet cancers can take decades
to develop. However most scientists seem to agree about one thing - that if
mobilesare hazardous, children may be more vulnerable than the rest of us to their
possible ill-effects. "If the penetration of the electromagnetic waves
goes for four centimetres into the brain, four centimetres into the adult
brain is just the temporal lobe," says Dr Annie Sasco of the Institute
of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development in Bordeaux. "There
are not too many important functions in the temporal lobe - but in a
child the more central brain structures are going to be exposed.
"In addition kids have a skull which is thinner, less
protective, they have a higher content of water in the brain, so there are
many reasons that they absorb more of
the same radiation," she adds.
European research just published in America's Journal of the
National Cancer Institute has concluded children who use mobile phones are at
no greater risk of developing brain cancer than those who don't. But critics
say the research is too short-term and the data it used is out of date.
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The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has
recently reclassified mobile phones. The UN agency has fallen short of saying
that mobile phones are definitely hazardous, instead they have re-classified mobile
phones as possibly carcinogenic.
The re-classification was the result of a meeting held at the
headquarters in Lyon of the world's leading scientists in the field. They
reviewed experimental data from animal research and also the longest running research
project into the use of mobile phones by brain cancer sufferers.
"The strongest evidence really comes from the studies of
cancer in humans
and there was some
evidence that there may be an association between the
use of mobile
cell-phones and certain types of brain cancer,"
says Dr Kurt Straif of the IARC.
The GSMA, the industry body representing the interests of the
mobile industry followed up the IARC's findings by saying: "The IARC
classification suggests that a hazard is possible but not likely."
And while the GSMA acknowledged that some mobile phone users
may be concerned it said that present safety standards remain valid, and that
there was need for further research.
Safety advice
Some scientists believe the IARC's classification of a
"possible" link between
Cancer and mobile phone use is not strong enough.
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"I think mobile phones are a risk for brain tumours and
we have already quite substantial epidemiological evidence showing that
people who use cell-phones for more than 10 years have about a doubling in
their risk of glioma, which is a brain tumour, quite often fatal," says
Dr Annie Sasco.
Certainly for parents, giving children mobiles helps to keep
tabs on them
when they are out and about in a world full of hazards. But if
the hazard is the phone itself, then we would be wise to take precautions.
"From the review of the exposure determinants we can
clearly say that it is
mostly the use of
cell-phones for voice calls, particularly when the phone is
close to the brain or
to the ear - so you could for example recommend a
hands-free kit for
voice calls," said Dr Straif.
"There is also some evidence that exposure in children
may be up to two-fold
higher because of the different biology and
other factors that influence
exposure, therefore it may be prudent to
restrict it further to kids and take
these pragmatic measures more
seriously," he added.
Text
rather than talk, hands-free sets, use a land-line when there is one to hand
- the sort of advice that some would like to see governments and health
authorities passing on to consumers in the light of the IARC's new classification
for mobile phones.
Elizabeth
Ruffinengo, from Women in Europe for a Common Future, believes that as mobile
phones represent a possible carcinogen there should be some safety
recommendations.
"We
have heard scientists saying that children are more at risk when it comes to
exposure to mobile phones, so what we want is recommendations following the
new IARC's classifications and so far we have not seen any.
We think
we face a new emerging health risk and that we shouldn't wait 30 to 40 years
to see the results."
So after
20 or so years with mobiles, many experts say there is nothing to worry
about, the UN says there might be a problem, and others believe there definitely is an issue.
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