I know we are supposed to bring cheer at this time of the year, and it is not that I am being morose, but frankly this is the only topic I found with substance that intrigued me.

“Confused about mobile phone and base station risks to our health? I am not surprised”, was the opening line of my 23 July column (then in The Sunday Times) in 2000.

Would you believe that, a decade later, the health risks of cellular phone use are in the news again and we are still getting mixed messages?

Not that many are taking any notice. People rarely heed advice about risks to their health. We all want to live forever, but ignore all the risks that might bring an early and painful demise.

For example, despite all the health warnings about smoking, people are still puffing away and cigarettes, unlike phones, are of absolutely no use at all.

As I walked along The Ferries yesterday, there were more cigarette butts than soil on the surface surrounding all the trees along the promenade. And many people walking in front of me left smoke wafting behind them.

Anyway, unlike cigarettes, no one is suggesting you give up your mobile phones, but you should be careful about frequent and prolonged use of the set next to the ear, especially by children.

What baffled me is that we are still being told that additional research is needed to establish whether the risk is real or not.

I would have expected some progress in 10 years of research.

The Environmental Working Group, (EWG – a research and advocacy organisation) website says: “The fact that scientists have observed increased tumour risk in so many studies of cell phone users is even more powerful given that people have used cell phones widely for only about a decade, while cancer typically requires 15-20 years to develop. It seems likely that studies conducted in future years may find more consistent and higher cancer risks.”

Going back to 2000, I had spent the best part of the week before finalising that column, ploughing through statements, letters and other relevant material on the subject, and the messages that were coming through were contradictory and overrun by personal interest and professional pique.

Things have not changed. As EWG pointed out, “Strikingly, the field of research on the health effects of cell phone use has exhibited the signature pattern of a so-called ‘funding effect’.

“The latter is a biased outcome due to source of funding, observed in studies funded by tobacco companies.”

In 2001, the US Government Accountability Office voiced a strong concern about the reliability of results from industry-funded studies conducted without government oversight.

“A recent systematic review of the source of funding and results of studies of health effects of cell phone use indicated that studies funded by the cell phone industry were 10 times more likely to report no adverse effects compared to studies funded by public agencies or charities (Huss 2007; Huss 2008)”, says EWG.

In Malta in 2000, the medical inquiry that concluded the use of mobile phones – even by children – was perfectly safe, as were antennas, was headed by a then GO mobile director.

That doctor also had an article published in The Times about the issue entitled “Safe as Houses”.

That had shocked me as, although a warning was announced in the much publicised Stewart report that children under 16 should be discouraged from using mobile phones, the local mobile telephony companies had issued statements in the local press stating that mobile phones were safe for everyone to use, including children.

Yet, CBS News reported that, last year, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, sent a memo to about 3,000 faculty and staff members warning of risks based on early, unpublished data.

He said that children should use the phones only for emergencies because their brains were still developing and that adults should keep the phone away from the head and use a speakerphone or a wireless headset.

This is exactly what the report of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, chaired by Sir William Stewart, had concluded 10 years earlier and been dismissed by interested parties.

Health authorities had said more research was needed because of conflicting opinions and preferred not to give much weight to the independent advice.

Surprise, surprise – some are still dithering and saying that studies on the health risks are not conclusive.

No wonder we are still confused. We read that, in a recent survey, researchers in Denmark said that, based on statistical analysis of nearly 60,000 brain tumour sufferers between 1974 and 2003, no cell-phone causation was found.

But then, a joint study by researchers in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom found that people who had used cell phones for more than 10 years had a significantly increased risk of developing glioma, a usually malignant brain tumour, on the side of the head they had favoured for cell phone conversations (International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) 2008; Lahkola 2007).

A researcher from the University of Albany told a US congressional committee last September that, based on evidence available, humanity soon faces “an epidemic of brain cancer and cancers in the future as a result of the uncontrolled use of cell phones”.

A report last August, by retired electronics engineer L. Lloyd Morgan, highlights a study that found a significantly increased risk of brain tumours from 10 or more years of cell phone or cordless phone use.

These findings where endorsed by Dr Herberman, who says scientific conclusions often take too long.

“The short-term studies generally did not find risk. The long-term studies did,” said Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist with the EWG,

In France, the Senate is considering legislation that would restrict the promotion and sale of cell phones for use by children and would require companies to offer headsets for each phone sold.

The European Parliament has recommended actions to help consumers reduce exposures to cell phone radiation, especially for young children.

And health agencies in Switzerland, Germany, Israel, United Kingdom and Finland have recommended reducing children’s exposures to cell phone radiation.

In the US, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to propose an ordinance that would require retailers to display radiation levels, wrote Maria L. La Ganga in the Los Angeles Times.

As the first city in the US to ban plastic bags and prohibit a class of chemicals called phthalates from use in children’s products, San Francisco has a long tradition of environmental activism.

The city’s Commission on the Environment has been drafting a series of recommendations, which include a call for the federal government to re-evaluate its limits on cell phone radiation and require warning labels on cell phone packaging.

In Maine, legislator Andrea Boland, a Democrat, said enough studies have indicated risks to convince her state’s legislative leaders to allow her to propose a bill calling for “a warning label that advises people that the device emits electromagnetic radiation and exposure could cause brain cancer”, at the upcoming 2010 session in January, usually reserved for emergency and governors’ bills.

The proposed bill includes that “users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep cell phones away from the head and body”.

“There’s no consensus among scientists whether mobile phones actually slow-cook human brains, but one US legislator is hoping her state will be the first frightened enough to assume they do,” reported Austin Modine, The Register – Biting the hand that feeds IT.

The EWG’s online guide to radiation by cell phone models lists the Samsung Impression as the lowest emission model, with 0.35 watts per kilogramme when held up to the ear.

The Motorola VU204, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Kyocera Jax S1300 top the organisation’s list of phones with the highest radiation, emitting 1.55 watts per kilogramme when held to the ear.

Now some people, as was the case with the smoking ban in public places, see legislation as increasing nannification by government.

However, the proposed legislation in France will protect children and the legislation being proposed in the US is not to ban the phones but to make the consumer aware of the risks involved.

It will also make manufacturers more responsible.

Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce a cartoon, published in 2000, as it had been faxed to me and has now almost faded completely.

The image showed a manager at his desk at a mobile telephone sales office, with a chart in the background showing ever-increasing sales.

He is berating an employee, whose ear had almost completely disintegrated: “Any more moaning about using your cell phone and you will be out on what’s left of your ear”.

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