Fw: Mobile phone users 'at greater risk of brain tumour'

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From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 1:41 AM

Subject: Mobile phone users 'at greater risk of brain tumour'

> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=92389

>

> Mobile phone users 'at greater risk of brain tumour'

>

> By Arthur Technology Editor

>

> 05 September 2001

>

> People who used mobile phones for two hours a day in the 1980s and early

> 1990s have a " significantly raised " risk of developing a brain tumour, a

> Swedish scientist has found.

>

> The study by Lennart Hardell, a cancer specialist at Orebro University in

> Sweden, is a landmark piece of research in the debate over whether the

> microwave radiation put out by mobile phone handsets can cause cancer. It

> is due to be published later this year. His research compared 1,600 people

> who survived brain tumours with 1,600 healthy people. He found that those

> who had used mobile phones for more than five years were 26 per cent more

> likely, and those who used them for more than a decade were 77 per cent

> more likely, to develop a brain tumour than those who did not. The tumours

> were 2.5 times more likely to be on the same side of the head as the phone

> was usually held.

>

> The findings will fuel the debate over the use of mobile phones by

children

> - which grew in intensity yesterday when speakers at the British

> Association science conference in Glasgow condemned companies for

> encouraging young people to use the phones.

>

> Professor Hardell said it was not possible to extend his results directly

> to modern phones, which emit about 10 times less power than the older

> analogue ones. But he did advise adopting a " precautionary " approach.

>

> Dr , of the National Radiological Protection Board, which set

> limits on radiation exposure, said: " A study like that has to be taken

> seriously ... But analogue phones were pretty much phased out around 1997.

> The new digital ones emit significantly less power. "

>

>