Should I Worry About Mobile Phones?

Should I Worry About Mobile Phones?

We have all seen the headline about mobile phones. If you believed what you read, you’d throw your mobile away for fear of everything from cancer to infertility.

And that's before we even start to think about mobile phone base stations. Forty percent of people surveyed believed that masts can cause health problems.

So what's the truth? Should we worry about our mobile phones?

Can mobile phones cause cancer?

Some past studies had suggested an increased risk of acoustic neuroma - a tumour of the nerve connecting the ear and the brain - but others did not.

A vast amount of research has been done into mobile phone handsets. A few studies have claimed that some phones can cause higher rates of brain tumours. But don't throw your phone in the bin just yet.

Results which suggest that mobiles might damage health are actually rare. Those that do tend to have been done with old style analogue phones, which use a much stronger signal than modern phones. The general scientific opinion at the moment is that the benefits of mobile phones seem to outweigh any known dangers.

What about base stations?

So, the jury is still out on mobile phone handsets. But what about mobile phone base stations? Is there any clearer evidence that they cause health problems?

Again there is conflicting information. According to the Stewart report, there is no evidence that there are any adverse health effects. However, many people up and down the country disagree.

Richard visited a 'sick-mast village', which has one of the highest concentration of masts in the country. The residents - with tin-foil sheilding in their houses - are living in fear. They are convinced that the masts are causing a host of symptoms. Are their problems caused by the masts, or could they be caused by worry?

The Should I Worry About team decided to carry out a test. We put ten students in a house for ten days and erected a mobile mast in the garden. We weren't entirely honest with them though; we told the students the mast was on at the start of the experiment and off at the end. In fact it was off at the start and on at the end. What's interesting is that the only time any of the students felt ill was when the mast was OFF but they thought it was ON.

Our small experiment suggests that people's fear of phone masts can be a factor in making them feel unwell. There are some people though who might be affected by phone masts and a large study is just beginning at Essex University to try to spot these hypersensitive people.

One thing we do know is that it helps if operators involve the public when erecting masts. In practice this doesn't always happen. However, operators have a duty to keep local communities informed, so if you see a mast appear suddenly in your area - make a fuss.

Should we all chuck our phones in the bin?

Senior investigator Professor Anthony Swedlow said: "Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology."

Dr Michael Clark from the Health Protection Agency said: "This is good news but we still need to be a bit cautious."

Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "This study provides further evidence that using mobile phones does not increase the risk of brain tumours.

"However, it is important that researchers continue to monitor phone users over the coming years as mobiles are still a relatively new invention."

The research is part of a bigger study that will be published next year.

A Swedish study identified an increased risk of acoustic neuromas among people who had used mobile phones for 10 years or more.

People have been concerned that the radiofrequency from phones might cause cancers, despite the absence of a known biological mechanism for this.

Probably not. The benefits do seem to outweigh any possible dangers, and there are things you can do to protect yourself from any possible health effects. So if you are worried, use a hands- free kit. When your signal is very low, switch your phone off because it's working extra hard at those times. And if you're under 16, stick to texting whenever you can