Study rules out short-term mobile health risk

Mobile phones are not linked to health problems when used for 10 years or less but further research is needed into their longer-term impact and their effect on children, a report out today said.

A six-year research program found no association between mobile phone use and brain cancer nor evidence of brain function being affected by mobile phone signals.

But the impact of mobile phone use after more than a decade is less clear, according to the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Program (MTHR).

Cancer symptoms are rarely detectable until 10 to 15 years after the cancer-producing event so it is too early to "say for certain" whether mobile phones could lead to cancer or other diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the report said.