At risk: A decade-long study has found a link between prolonged mobile phone use - more than 30 minutes a day - and the risk of brain cancer.
However, a landmark study by the World Health Organisation into the safety of mobiles is expected to stop short of concluding that they definitely cause cancer - because the evidence is not conclusive enough.
And, despite spending £15million investigating handsets over the past decade, the authors will admit there is a need for further research into their health effects before definitive advice can be given.
The WHO's report will not be released until later this week, but two national newspapers reported yesterday that it will quote evidence saying people who use mobile phones for at least 30 minutes a day for 10 years have a greater risk - perhaps as much as a third higher - of developing brain cancer.
The 'Interphone' research has been carried out over the past 10 years in 13 countries, and is the largest of its kind.
Although it is known that radiation emitted by mobiles is absorbed by the head when it is held to the ear, it has not been proved that frequent use damages health - mainly because mobile phones have not been widely used for very long.
Between 2000 and 2004, researchers interviewed almost 13,000 people - both tumor sufferers and those in good health - to see if their mobile phone use differed.
Some of these studies have been published individually and have shown an increased risk of glioma - the most common type of brain tumor - for those who talk on their mobile for 30 minutes a day for 10 years.
Many saw the tumor develop on the same side of the head as they use their phone.
A summary of these results concluded:
'Pooling of data from Nordic countries and part of the UK yielded a significantly increased risk of glioma related to use of mobile phones for a period of 10 years or more on the side of the head where the tumor developed.'But there are huge question marks over the reliability of the data. For example, its definition of 'mobile phone user' includes people who only made one call a week.
And there are also questions over how much can be gleaned from asking people years later how often they used their phone and what ear they held it to.
Another possible flaw is so-called 'recall bias', in which people who have a brain tumor retrospectively decide their cancer must have been caused by something - such as their handset.
There is also huge skepticism about another of the findings of the study: that short-term mobile phone use actually protects against cancer. Even the authors believe this is highly unlikely.
The report will call for more research, especially among the young.
The Interphone study is eagerly awaited by governments across the world and also by the mobile phone industry, which funded a quarter of the costs of the report.
The Department of Health has not updated its guidance for more than four years. It suggests children should be 'discouraged' from making 'non-essential' calls - while adults should 'keep calls short'.
Other countries go further: urging people to buy hands-free sets, sending texts rather than making calls, or banning the advertising of phones at children.
Comment: For a much more informative look at the SERIOUS risks of cell phones and wifi technology read the following articles:
The BioInitiative Report - The Dangerous Health Impacts of Microwave Radiation
Electromagnetic radiation and its effect on the brain: an insider speaks out
From the article ,
Barrie Trower, retired British military intelligence scientist in microwave and stealth warfare talks about the serious health effects of cellular and wifi technology and how the WHO has neglected to warn the public about health and environmental risks:
There are to my knowledge legal issues here where parliaments are questioning the decision making processes of the World Health Organisation, and this is an opinion that there may be industrial influences with the committee that helps run the World Health Organisation, and I do know there are legal questions headed that way, but, everybody including myself is bemused, because a few years ago, we looked at the World Health Organisation's database on electromagnetic radiation of the microwave communication frequencies, and eighty percent of all of their data showed either cancer increases, neurological disorders, what they call microwave syndrome, which is electro sensitivity. Eighty percent of their research showed this, but they were doing nothing about it.
...The Bio-Initiative Report, really flew in the face of the World Health Organisation's lack of support ...several scientists from around the world, leading scientists from around the world, spent many years studying the latest two thousand research papers. They cross checked them, they read them, they looked at them, they argued, the discussed, and the scientists who wrote the Bio-Initiative Report, they decided on a safe level that would include children, and they listed all of the illnesses and they came out with this safe level that they considered with today's knowledge, today's experts, a safe level for children and everybody else for a lifetime's exposure.
They published this safe level, and anybody can read it and anybody can use it. To my knowledge it's been picked up by six or eight governments so far, two were already on it, and I think another six have decided to ignore the international guidelines, ignore the World Health Organisation, and to go straight to the Bio-Initiative safety level.
I just read about this study in a newspaper today, the article was a rewrite of a TT. I said in the headline "Cellphones does not cause cancer", citing the Interphone study. Is there even one reason to read a paper anymore, apart from getting an update about the latest dis-info they want you to believe.
I don't think so.