- SWEDEN (Reuters) - Long-term
users of some first generation cellphones face up to 80 per cent greater
risk of developing brain tumors than those who did not use the phones,
a new Swedish study shows.
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- The study, published in the European Journal of Cancer
Prevention, looked at 1,617 Swedish patients diagnosed with brain tumors
between 1997 and 2000, comparing them with a similar control group without
brain tumors.
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- Researchers found that those who had used Nordic Mobile
Telephone handsets had a 30 per cent higher risk of developing brain tumors
than people who had not used that type of phone, particularly on the side
of the brain used during calls. For people using the phones for more than
10 years, the risk was 80 per cent greater.
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- "Our present study showed an increased risk for
brain tumors among users of analogue cellular telephones. For digital cellular
phones and cordless phones the results showed no increased risk overall
within a five-year latency period," the study said.
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- Two major mobile phone manufacturers disputed the findings
of an increased risk of cancer.
-
- The world's biggest mobile producer, Finland's Nokia
Oyj, which still produces two models of phones working in the Nordic Mobile
Telephone standard, said scores of other studies conducted on the health
effects of cellphones showed no evidence of health hazards for users.
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- "There have been close to 200 studies done on different
areas of mobile phones and in the light of those and the way the scientific
evidence is, there is no health risk in using mobile phones," Marianne
Holmlund, communications manager at Nokia Phones, said Thursday.
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- Mikael Westmark, a spokesman for Sweden's Telefon AB
LM Ericsson, which used to make Nordic Mobile Telephone handsets, said:
"The study and the conclusions it reaches differs from at least three
other studies in the past in several highly regarded scientific journals.
None of these studies found a connection between mobile phones and cancer."
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- The Nordic Mobile Telephone network was initially developed
to serve the Nordic countries, starting operations in the early 1980s,
but then became popular in Russia and the Baltic countries.
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- It is still used in more than 40 countries, but has
been overtaken in several countries by the Global System for Mobile Communications,
which is due to be gradually replaced by rapid third-generation mobile
networks.
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- Analog Nordic Mobile Telephone phones have been in operation
for 20 years, making it possible to study the longer-term impact of microwave
exposure to their users, but researcher Kjell Hansson Mild said it was
too early to draw conclusions on the currently widely used digital Global
System for Mobile Communications phones.
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- "Nothing can be said about GSM at this stage,"
said Hansson Mild, professor at the National Institute for Working Life
and co-leader of the study.
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- "These are tumors that develop very slowly, and
GSM does not have users who have been using it for 10 years," he said.
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