Mobiles in Britain to come with health warning

November 27, 2000
Web posted at: 1:23 p.m. EST (1823 GMT)

Half of Britain's population owns a mobile phone

LONDON, England -- Mobile phones in Britain will be sold with a health warning under new government guidelines to be rushed out ahead of Christmas, the UK Department of Health says.

The Department of Health is finalising the wording on a leaflet which will distributed to shops selling mobile phones in two weeks' time, a spokeswoman said.

The leaflets are expected specifically to warn that children should not spend too long on their mobile phones, despite continuing debate among medical experts over the existence of any possible health risks to users.

The move is part of the government's response to the report of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones and Health (IEGMP).

That report recommended "the widespread use of mobile phones by children for non-essential calls should be discouraged."

This is because if there are any harmful effects from mobile phones which have still to be discovered then children may be "more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head and a longer lifetime of exposure."

More than 27 million people, nearly half Britain's population, own a mobile phone. A quarter of users are aged under 18 and that number is expected to rise further after Christmas.

Scientists are split on whether there is irrefutable medical evidence that mobile phones cause brain tumours or other health problems.

Scientists are split on the medical evidence

Last week the Lancet medical journal published two articles with opposing views on the safety of the phones.

Physicist Dr Gerard Hyland from England's University of Warwick said mobile phone users under 18 were vulnerable to headaches, memory loss and sleeping disorders.

He said there was too much uncertainty about the potential dangers of mobile phones for them to be classified as safe.

But Massachusetts scientist Dr Kenneth Rothman said his research indicated the main public health concern was motor vehicle collisions rather than any possible link to brain cancer.

Heavy mobile users were involved in twice as many fatal road accidents than light users.

The articles came as the British government launched a new task force to study the possible risks of mobile phones.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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National Radiological Protection Board
International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Independent Expert group on Mobile Phones

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