Children should not be permitted to use mobile phones if their health is to be safeguarded, two speakers - one from the US, the other from Austria - told a conference in Dublin yesterday. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
Dr George Carlo, a medical researcher, said he believed children under 12 years should not be allowed use mobiles.
"Children under 16 should not use cell phones without protection . . . children under 12 should not use cell phones at all. The reason is because their cells are differentiating more than they are growing," he said.
Addressing the annual meeting of the Irish Doctors Environmental Association in Dublin, Dr Carlo said special devices are available which can be attached to mobiles to reduce their ill effects and all adults should ensure they have these devices.
Dr Carlo, who is also a lawyer and the author of a number of books on the hazards of wireless technology, said there were seven class action lawsuits pending in the US against the mobile phone industry. Those pursuing them included people with tumours who claimed their health had been damaged from mobile phone use.
He said a register had been set up in the US where the public can lodge details of headaches or other ill effects they feel they have suffered after exposure to electromagnetic radiation, not just from mobiles but also from laptop computers and so on. Since 2002 it had received about 30,000 reports, he said.
He said the technology triggered a particular type of biological response in some people that led to ill effects.
Dr Gerd Oberfeld, from Salzburg's public health department in Austria, told the meeting he believed children under 16 years should not use mobile phones and that adults should use them sparingly.
This was also the advice of the Austrian Medical Association, he said.