- Mobile phones are at the centre of new safety fears after
scientists found the first evidence of a link with brain cancer.
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- Users who spend more than an hour a day talking on a
cell phone are almost a third more at risk of developing a rare form of
brain tumour, a study has found.
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- The cancers were found most frequently on the side of
the head to which the phone was held.
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- Scientists found the cancer link with digital mobiles,
old- style analogue mobiles and digitalenhanced cordless phones.
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- The findings, published in the International Journal
of Oncology, will renew health concerns among Britain's 47million mobile
users.
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- One expert said yesterday that another large-scale study
would be needed to confirm the apparent link.
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- Radiation from mobile phones has been shown to alter
the workings of brain cells and affect memory.
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- But the biggest British study three years ago, led by
the Government's former chief scientific adviser Sir William Stewart, found
that there was no evidence of a risk to human health.
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- A report by the American National Cancer Institute in
2001 also failed to find a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer.
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- The latest findings are the first to show a link between
the instruments and disease in humans.
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- In the study, lead researcher Professor Kjell Mild examined
the medical records of 1,600 tumour victims who had been using mobile phones
for up to ten years before diagnosis.
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- Professor Mild, a biophysicist at Orebro University in
Sweden, said the evidence was clear: 'The more you use phones and the greater
number of years you have them, the greater the risk of brain tumours.'
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- Scientists compared tumour sufferers with a control group
who led similar lives but did not use mobile phones.
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- They also compared sufferers with tumour victims who
did not use mobile phones.
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- The study found that spending more than an hour a day
on the phone increased the risk of a type of tumour known as acoustic neuroma
by 30 per cent.
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- Such tumours occur in one of the nerves in the brain
and can lead to deafness in one ear.
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- They are usually curable by surgery.
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- Although the cancer is rare, say numbers have increased
from one tumour per 100,000 people in 1980 to about one per 80,000 today.
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- Dr Richard Sullivan, head of clinical programmes at Cancer
Research UK, said: 'These latest findings appear to show a link and that
warrants further investigation.
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- 'We would need to see a large-scale study replicating
these results before we could say whether they are significant.
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- 'Certainly the study appears to be robust.'
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- The National Radiological Protection Board said in a
statement that it considers mobile phones safe in relation to cancer.
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- 'Radio waves do not have sufficient energy to damage
genetic material in cells directly and therefore cannot cause cancer.'
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- http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/3852657?source=Evening%20Standard
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