Does the latest report give mobiles a clean bill of health?
It does rule out short-term effects to brain function and links to electrical hypersensitivity and says further research is now not needed. But on the issue of cancer, it is more ambiguous. No evidence of a greater short-term risk was found — but researchers said the problem was that cancers do not generally emerge until 10 to 15 years after the event. There were very few people in the study who had been using mobiles for longer than 10 years, the researchers said. But they added those that had did show a “hint” of an excess risk, although this was only on the borderline of statistical significance. Base stations were not looked at in as much detail as mobile phones. But researchers said radio frequency exposure is much lower — although there are problems measuring this exactly as it depends on where they are sited — and there are no health risks. The programme did not look at mobile phone use in children. Researchers said at the time mobile phone use by children was less common tha
