study cellphone

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2006/12/study_cellphone.html



Using a mobile phone is not linked to an increased risk of brain cancer, researchers have said. The largest study of its kind found no association between mobile use and the most common type of brain tumours. But the research, published in the British Medical Journal, warned that mobile phones had only been in widespread use for about 10 years. Therefore the long-term effects are still unknown.
The latest study involved 966 people with glioma - the most common type of brain cancer - and 1,716 healthy volunteers who acted as a comparison. The two groups were interviewed about their use of mobile phones in the past. The researchers, from the Universities of Leeds, Nottingham and Manchester and the Institute of Cancer Research in London, found that those who regularly used mobile phones were not at a greater risk of developing glioma.
The researchers did find a significant increased risk between the side of the head where people said they held the phone and where their tumour occurred. However they believed those with cancer were making their own link between phone use and their tumour, making them exaggerate the number of calls on the affected side.
Professor Anthony Swerdlow, head of epidemiology at the Institute of Cancer, said the short time mobiles had been used made it impossible to predict long-term effects. It might take 30 years or more to show up any link.Although mobile phones have been available in the UK since 1985, they did not become widely used until the late 1990s.
More than 40 million people in the UK are thought to use mobile phones, including many children. Last year Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, called on parents to ban children under eight from using mobile phones.
Scientists believe youngsters are at greatest risk from the potentially damaging health effects of mobile phone emissions. A team from the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which advises the Government, said it was important to take a "precautionary approach" to using m