The director of a leading US cancer research institute has sent a memo to thousands of staff warning of possible higher risks from mobile phone use.
Ronald Herberman, of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said users should not wait for definitive studies on the risk and should take action now.
He said children should use mobiles in emergencies only and adults should try to keep the phone away from the head.
No major academic study has confirmed a link to higher brain-tumour risks.
Electromagnetic fields
Dr Herberman said his warning was based on early findings from unpublished data.
“We shouldn’t wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later,” he says.
“I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use,” the memo says.
Dr Herberman’s warning to 3,000 staff says children should be protected as their brains are still developing.
He lists tips including switching sides regularly while talking on mobiles.
A major six-year research study in the UK said last year that there were no short-term adverse effects to brain and cell function from mobile phone use.
However, the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme said there was a “hint” of a higher cancer risk in the long term and that its research would look into the effects over a 10-year period.
Programme chairman Professor Lawrie Challis said: “We can’t rule out the possibility at this stage that cancer could appear in a few years’ time.”
An earlier UK report said in 2005 that mobile phone use by children should be limited as a precaution – and that under-eights should not use them at all.
Mobile phones emit radio signals and electromagnetic fields that can penetrate the human brain, and some campaigners fear that this could seriously damage human health.