Limit children's use of mobile phones - Scientists

Accra, Sept. 22, GNA - While research findings on the health impact of mobile phone usage are not yet conclusive, scientists say they have found some evidence that suggests there may be danger in the long-term, particularly for children.

They have, therefore, cautioned that children's usage of mobile phones be limited.

"Although many studies have been inconclusive, some newer studies are starting to turn up evidence that long-term use of mobile phones may be dangerous," a statement by Total Telecom, a media resource organisation on the telecom sector, copied to the GNA said. "While further studies are ongoing, it is important for mobile phone users to take all the necessary precautions and keep the phone away from the body, use wired instead of wireless blue tooth earpieces, use low radiation phones, make use of text messaging more than voice calls and limit children's cell phone usage since young brains may be more sensitive to radiation emitted by phones," the statement said. Quoting excerpts of a report presented to the US Senate by scientists from around the world commissioned by a sub-committee of the Senate to look into the health impact of mobile phone use on humans, it said while some scientists reported that there was some evidence of danger others insisted that measuring the harm was difficult.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), nearly two-thirds of the estimated six billion people on earth now use mobile telephones, but how safe those phones are, scientists are still not sure.

Mobile phones have tiny radio transmitters to communicate with the wired telephone network, and for years, scientists have been trying to determine whether those radio frequencies (RFs) might be harmful. There is a mixed verdict on the matter. While some studies say electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones could cause cancers and brain tumours, others suggest the environmental factors that cause cancers and tumours were numerous so there is no evidence that singles out radiation from mobile phones particularly.

Israeli researcher Siegal Sadetzki said cancers triggered by environmental factors, such as radiation, may take a decade or more to develop. "In the case of brain tumours it may reach even 30 to 40 years," he said. Sadetzki backed his claim by saying that after the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the first report demonstrating brain tumour among survivors was not published until 50 years later in 1994.

John Bucher, a senior official at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said "there have been some hints recently that there is an increase in brain cancers in people who have used these cellular communication devices for a number of years". Bucher's agency is funding a large scale animal test designed to stimulate in rodents the kind of exposure that humans get when using cell phones, but results of that would be ready in 2013. Contrary to suggestions by Sadetzki and Bucher, Linda Erdreich, a Consultant with US-based Exponent, reported that reviews of scientific evidence on potential health hazards of RF radiation showed no proven link.

"All of the agency's reports that assess the evidence using a comprehensive approach reach similar conclusions - that the current scientific evidence does not demonstrate that wireless phones cause cancer or other health effect," she said

The US Senate has therefore called for further studies on the subject based on recommendations by the scientists themselves. One of such scientists, Dariusz Leszczynki of Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, stresses the need for international, well-designed studies where human volunteers would be used instead of animals.

"These studies should be aimed at proving or disproving whether human bodies respond to mobile phone radiation...," he said. In Ghana, Professor Emmanuel Amamoo-Otchere of the Radiation Protection Institute (RPI) has said over and again that there is no hard evidence to support the claim that mobile phone use causes cancers and brain tumour.

He noted that the health hazard attributed to mobile phones was related to heat, saying that the human body had a thermo-regulator that could dissipate the heat from mobile phones and render it harmless to the body.

Professor Amamoo-Otchere also pointed out that RF emission from mobile phones is 10,000 times less than what could be harmful to the human body, saying "until scientifically proven otherwise, there is no cause for alarm". 22 Sept. 09