One of the biggest investigations into the health effects of mobile-phone use has found no link between radiation from mobile phones and the development of cancer in mice.
The three-year Australian study contradicts previous research which suggested that radiation from mobile phones may cause mutations in the body and lead to cancerous tumours in humans.
The latest research was carried out by a team of scientists led by Dr Tim Kuchel at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide. Their findings run counter to a famous study carried out in Adelaide in 1997 which suggested mice were twice as likely to develop cancer when they were exposed to mobile-phone radiation.
The 1997 study raised widespread public concern and prompted a series of other studies into the risks of radiation from mobile phones.
Dr Kuchel said yesterday he believed the 1997 study had a few problems but that his new study had all the possible safeguards needed to ensure the results were reliable. This included carefully monitoring the dose of radiation each mouse received and using a number of different radiation levels representing those experienced by an infrequent mobile-phone user and those of a frequent user.
The new research, published in the International Journal of Radiation Research, used 1,600 mice, some of which were genetically modified to be particularly susceptible to cancer-causing agents, such as radiation. The results showed no link between cancer rates and the radiation to which the mice were exposed. "That gives you confidence that if you don't find an effect in these animals you are probably not going to find an effect in normal animals, humans being normal animals," Dr Kuchel said.
Recent research in Sweden, however, concluded that long-term users of first-generation mobile phones had an 80 per cent higher risk of developing brain tumours than people who did not use the phones, though a Danish study of 400,000 mobile users showed no increased risk of cancer
This week at the Earth summit in South Africa, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, said she remained cautious about mobile-phone use. She saw "no reason to use them more than absolutely necessary".
(Additional reporting: Reuters)