CHILDREN should avoid using mobile phones for all but essential calls because
of possible health effects on young brains. This is one of the expected
conclusions of an official government report to be published this week. The
report is expected to call for the mobile phone industry to refrain from
promoting phone use by children, and to start labelling phones with data on the
amount of radiation they emit.
The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, chaired by former government
chief scientist William Stewart, has spent eight months reviewing existing
scientific evidence on all aspects of the health effects of using mobile phones.
Its report, published on 11 May, is believed to conclude that because we don’t
fully understand the non-thermal effects of radiation on human tissue, the
government should adopt a precautionary approach, particularly in relation to
children.
There is currently no evidence that mobile phones harm users or people living
near transmitter masts. But some studies show that cellphones operating at
radiation levels within current safety limits do have some sort of biological
effect on the brain.
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John Tattersall, a researcher on the health effects of radiation at the
Defence Evaluation and Research Agency’s site at Porton Down, agrees that it
might be wise to limit phone use by children. “If you have a developing nervous
system, it’s known to be more susceptible to environmental insults,” he says.
“So if phones did prove to be hazardous—which they haven’t yet—it
would be sensible.”
In 1998, Tattersall showed that radiation levels similar to those emitted by
mobile phones could alter signals from brain cells in slices of rat brain (
New Scientist, 10 April 1999, p 20). “What we’ve found is an effect, but we
don’t know if it’s hazardous,” he says.
Alan Preece of the University of Bristol, who found last year that microwaves
increase reaction times in test subjects, agreed that children’s exposure would
be greater. “There’s a lot less tissue in the way, and the skull is thinner, so
children’s heads are considerably closer,” he says.
Stewart’s report is likely to recommend that the current British safety
standards on energy emissions from cellphones should be cut to the level
recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Protection, which is one-fifth of the current British limit. “The extra safety
factor of five is somewhat arbitrary,” says Michael Clark of the National
Radiological Protection Board. “But we accept that it’s difficult for the UK to
have different standards from an international body.”
Other controversial recommendations expected include discouraging the use of mobiles
while driving, with or without a hands-free kit. Such proposals would be welcomed by the Royal
Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which has been campaigning for a
ban.
“We have 12 deaths where courts have been satisfied that mobile phones were
to blame for distracting drivers, and they’re only the ones that have come to
our attention,” says Dave Rogers, RoSPA’s road safety adviser. An international
survey by the society showed that drivers using mobile phones are four times as
likely to have an accident, and that the effect lasts as long as 5 minutes after
a call has finished.