In 2001 a large study (comparing 1,617 Swedes with brain tumours to 1,600 healthy controls across ten years) confirmed a link between mobile phone usage and brain tumours. It also found similar damage in people who used cordless telephones for most of their working day (up to eight hours) across five and ten years.

Compared to the control group, Professor Lennart Hardell from Orebro University (Sweden) found 50% more tumours in people who had used mobiles an average two hours a day for five years, and 100% more for two hours average daily use for ten years. Focusing particularly on temporal tumours (tumours on the side of the head) the increases were much higher - 90% and 160% more respectively. The rise in benign meningioma tumours was 45%, the rise in acoustic neurinomas (benign tumours in nerve fibre sheaths in the ear canal) 35%.

Acoustic neurinomas are considered benign but can lead to facial paralysis and even death if they exert too much pressure inside the skull. The tumours were significantly more likely to be on the side of the head the mobile phone was used: 25% more likely for temporal tumours and 37% more likely for acoustic neurinoma tumours.

Professor Hardell advised caution. These results related to analogue mobile phones, which were phased out in 1997, and cannot be directly applied to the new ‘GSM’ phones. ‘GSM’ phones emit up to ten times less radiation, but it is pulsed radiation, which many scientists consider more biologically dangerous. He stated that it would not be until at least 2005 that we could determine the true extent of damage caused by the new, digital mobiles.

The move to ‘wireless’ offices, with mobile or cordless phones and wireless computers, means that more and more people are exposed long term to microwaves.

Ed.- In Britain there are now 44 million mobile phone users, and approaching a billion users worldwide (Daily Telegraph 19.9.01).