OXFORD, United Kingdom—Despite evidence that cell-phone users are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer from a temporal brain tumor, medical researchers in Sweden claim that several more years of fact finding are required before they can accurately establish the health effects of mobile phones.
The study, being conducted at Orebro University in Sweden, has looked at links between cell-phone usage and brain tumors and compared more than 1,600 patients diagnosed with brain tumors between 1997 and last year with the same number of healthy people. Early findings indicate that cell-phone users were more than twice as likely to have a temporal brain tumor on the side of the head where they held their phone. In the case of tumors of the auditory nerve, which connects the ear to the brain, the risk increased to more than three times for mobile-phone users.
However, the researchers admit that they need to investigate patients who had used cell phones for 10 or more years, and confirmed the research concentrated on analog phones which emit higher levels of radiation than existing digital handsets. Separately, the U.K.-based National Radiological Protection Board has called for more research into TETRA-based handsets because of suspicions that this standard, which uses transmission pulses of around 17 Hertz, could affect brain tissue. U.K. emergency services are currently installing a nationwide Tetra network.
