Cell phone radiation testing begins

Sydney's St Vincent's hospital has begun to test the long-term effects of mobile phone use in what it claims to be the first trial of its kind worldwide. The hospital's Centre for Immunology will simulate mobile phone radiation and test its long-term, intermittent impact on human brain cells. "This hasn't been done before," said Dr Peter French, who is involved in the research project. French pointed out that previous research has only tested short-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation through mobile phones on animals or cells. The Centre is testing its hypothesis, published in June last year, that chronic long-term mobile phone use could lead to the activation of heat shock proteins and that the chronic stimulation of these proteins could cause cells to become cancerous. --Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia