Mobile phone cancer risk played down

People who use their mobile phones on a regular or semi-regular basis are not at a higher risk of succumbing to cancer, a new study claims.

Previous research had indicated that the electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile phone antennas could penetrate into people’s brains and cause tumours in both the head and neck.

But following a study of almost half a million mobile phone users over nearly 25 years, a Danish report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says that this is a false perception.

The Copenhagen-based Institute of Cancer Epidemiology studied 420,095 mobile phone users between 1982 and 1995, testing the subjects for signs of cancer up until 2002.

Researchers at the institute could not find any association between either long or short-term mobile phone use and the presence of brain tumours, salivary gland tumours, eye tumours or leukaemia.

The authors of the report conclude: “The methods used suggest that the use of cellular telephones does not pose a substantial risk of brain tumours among short-term or long-term users.”