IS YOUR CHILD’S MOBILE GIVING THEM CANCER?
Sunday April 22,2012
Is your child's mobile giving them cancer?
By Mark Piggott
IF you are a parent of the one in three under-10s who now owns a phone, you’ll be aware of the current Department of Health advice: “Children should only use mobile phones for essential purposes and keep all calls short.” If you have not read this advice, possibly because it is tucked away on an obscure website, you might now be wondering how long your child can safely use their phone before their brain turns to mushy peas.
The Government’s view is that parents should take responsibility for whether or not their children have phones in the first place.
Despite the warning about restricting child usage a Department of Health (DoH) spokesman says there is no evidence that mobiles cause tumours but then adds that the scientific evidence is always under review. So what is the scientific evidence?
Next week the charity Children With Cancer is holding a conference in London and one of the subjects it will debate is “brain tumours, mobile phones and childhood cancer”, chaired by Geoffrey Pilkington.
A professor of cellular and molecular neuro-oncology for four decades, he believes that parents should adopt precautions: “If there is any possibility that mobiles can cause tumours, it would suggest children are more vulnerable because their brain cells are still dividing. Anyone who has children wants them to be exposed to risk as little as possible. Therefore until we know more about all possible risks, not only from radiation, parents might want to think carefully about giving children a phone.”
If there is any possibility that mobiles can cause tumours, it would suggest children are more vulnerable because their brain cells are still dividing
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Geoffrey Pilkington
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Kevin O’Neill, consultant neurosurgeon at Charing Cross Hospital and chairman of the Brain Tumour Research Campaign, shares Mr Pilkington’s caution.
“There have been many studies looking at the risk of mobile phone use,” says Mr O’Neill. “Some have shown no increased risk and some have shown some increased risk. If the World Health Organisation classifies them as a possible link to the formation of brain tumours, then we need to be cautious about our exposure, particularly if there is a long lag phase between exposure and the production of their health effects.”
Other eminent scientists, such as Emeritus Professor Patricia McKinney at the University of Leeds, are less convinced of the risks. “There is currently little information available on any health risk linked to children’s use of mobiles so to recommend precautionary use can only be sensible,” she says. “My view is that despite some uncertainty, particularly relating to long-term heavy use, accumulating evidence argues against the hypothesis that mobile use causes brain tumours in adults.”
The “accumulating evidence” to which Prof. McKinney refers includes the Interphone study to which she contributed, initiated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2000. When it was published, in 2010, Interphone’s conclusion was that mobile phones do not appear to cause brain tumours in “normal” users but the risk is increased when people use them a lot.
The Interphone study was led by Research Professor Elisabeth Cardis, head of the Radiation Programme at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona. As she points out, with billions now using mobiles, even a small increase in tumours could have a dramatic impact.
Last year the campaign group Mobile Wise published a glossy report in which scientists expressed concern that mobiles have been declared safe when more than 200 peer-reviewed studies have suggested there are links between phone use and serious health damage. According to its report, studies indicate that damage occurs not only to the brain but is linked to tumour of the parotid (a salivary gland close to the ear), damage to sperm, impaired female fertility, damage to unborn foetuses and DNA disruption.
However it is the apparent danger to young people that is of most concern to these scientists. Their brain tissue is more conductive, their skulls thinner, “radiation penetration” greater relative to head size and, according to the report, “the risk of brain cancer after prolonged mobile phone use is significantly greater in younger users”.
According to the mobile phone industry the incidence of brain tumour rises from 10 per 100,000 to 14 per 100,000 in very heavy users of all ages; a rise so small it is statistically insignificant. John Cooke, of the Mobile Operators Association, believes the weight of scientific evidence has become increasingly reassuring over time: “Official advice from the DoH confirms that no adverse health effects have been established. However, if parents are still concerned about their children’s use of mobiles, they can encourage them to keep calls short or send texts.”
Mobile Wise says the industry should make warnings larger and easier to read, install functions that limit call times and stop aggressively targeting children. It also claims Britain lags behind other countries when it comes to tackling the issue.
Last year a Council of Europe committee advised that mobiles and Wifi should be banned from schools because of the risk posed to children’s health. In Russia and Israel it is much harder for children to buy phones and in France they are banned from primary schools. However, a spokesman from the Department for Education (DfE) says there are no plans to impose a ban here.
“It is down to individual headteachers to decide if and when mobile phones should be used by pupils in school. The Ministers’ view is that we should trust schools’ professional judgment and common sense in making this call,” says the spokesman.
In 2000 the auction of 3G licences generated £22.5billion for the government; following a series of delays the licensing of the spectrum for 4G takes place later this year, though the Government refuses to speculate about how much it stands to raise. What is certain is that enormous sums are at stake.
Another speaker at the Children With Cancer conference will be Professor Dariusz Leszcynski from the University of Helsinki. He believes not enough research has been done to determine whether phones are safe.
“Governments should support targeted research that would close existing gaps in the knowledge. We need human molecular level studies and we need them now. Governments should, as they do with UV or tobacco, repeatedly warn citizens of the possible health risks of cell phone radiation, especially in a time of uncertainty when we do not know what might happen.”
The further you delve into the issue, the more you understand that the common perception that some scientists see mobiles as good and some as bad is an oversimplification. What is clear is that the human brain is so extraordinarily complex it may take many decades to even begin to understand how it might react to the swirling clouds of digital data all around us, from Wifi, phone masts and digital transmitters.
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