Head of Cancer Centre Urges Staff to Limit Mobile Phone Use

The head of a leading cancer research institute based in Pittsburgh has reignited the controversy over the health risks of using mobile phones by sending a warning to the institute's staff that they should limit the use of the devices because of the risk of cancer.

Dr Ronald Herberman's alert to 3,000 faculty and staff of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is believed to be the first of its kind from the director of a major research centre. His call for action stands in contrast to the existing advice from many health authorities that have pointed out that evidence of the dangers of mobile phone use is inconclusive.

In a memo posted to the staff, Herberman admits that the evidence was still controversial and no hard conclusions can be reached, but he goes on to say that he has become convinced that there was sufficient information "to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use." He has also had his memo peer reviewed by an international panel of more than 20 experts drawn from America, Canada, France, Italy and elsewhere.

He is likely to arouse considerable interest in his warning by adding that he bases it partly on "early unpublished data" from on-going research projects. It is thought that may refer to new findings from a massive on-going monitoring project across 13 countries known as Interphone.

Herberman advises a 10-point program to reduce the risks of using the devices, which he calls "precautionary".

Top of his list of advised precautions is that children should only use mobiles for emergencies in recognition of the fact that the growing brain tissue of children is likely to be more sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by them. That is in tune with advice already given by several European countries and Canada.The list goes much further than most existing advice by advocating steps that include:

? Avoid using cell phones in public places such as buses as you might passively expose your neighbors to radiation;? Do not keep phones near your body at night, such as under the pillow;? Restrict calls to just a few minutes to avoid accumulation of exposure;? Try not to use it where the signal is weak or when moving at speed say in a car or train, as this raises the power of the device as it seeks to find a connection;? Use hands-free devices and if forced to hold phones to the head switch sides while talking to avoid concentration on one part of the brain.

Herberman's decision to go beyond current medical orthodoxy and advocate immediate measures to reduce risk prompted a skeptical reaction from some colleagues. A British expert on optoelectronics, Professor Will Stewart of Southampton University, said: "One cannot refute the 'early findings from unpublished data' since we have not seen them. But there is enough published data to make the advice sound alarmist."

The Wireless Association, representing the cell phone industry in the US, said "published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk".

The largest study published so far tracked 420,000 phone users in Denmark, thousands of whom had used the devices for more than 10 years. It found no increased risk of cancer.

Herberman insists that he is not motivated by any animus towards mobile phones, praising them as a remarkable invention that is here to stay. But he said that conclusive results may not emerge for a very long time until individuals had been continually using the gadgets for 15 or 35 years, as was the case with smoking and lung cancer.

He also pointed to the example of asbestos mines where had more precautions been taken on the early tentative advice of scientists, lives could have been saved.