US study: no link between mobile phones and cancer

Research published Tuesday has found no evidence that mobile phone use causes cancer, but concluded that further long-term studies are required.

Workers at five US academic medical centres carried out the work, which tested the hypothesis that there is a link between using a handheld cellular telephone and developing brain cancer. A total of 469 people with brain cancer were questioned, as were 422 people without brain cancer. The study found no significant evidence that those with brain tumours had used a mobile phone for more time than the people in the control sample.

However, because some neural tumours have a long induction period, the scientists believe that studies over a longer time-span are needed. This research, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was carried out between 1994 and 1998.

Earlier this month, a team at a Spanish University announced that mobile phones have a greater effect on human brain cells than was previously thought. The scientists, based at Madrid's University Complutense, discovered that a cell's non-spherical shape increases the intensity of the electric field generated within it by a mobile phone.

And, writing in The Lancet in December, UK scientist Dr Gerard Hyland warned that children are at the greatest risk from mobile phone radiation -- specifically from low-intensity, pulsed radiation which could affect a number of brain functions.

The British government recently launched a £7m research program into the issue of mobile phone safely, but has withdrawn its earlier advice that hands-free mobile phone kits protect against radiation. A report issued by the Consumer Association in October claimed that hands-free kits actually increase the amount of radiation a user is exposed to.

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