The New South Wales Cancer Council has been allocated just over one million dollars to investigate links between cancer and mobile phone use in the two major capitals.
Researchers admit they still know very little about the dangers, if any.
Controversy surrounding the health hazards of mobile phone use continues, fuelled by public concern and a growing number of defunded research projects worldwide.
Amidst the uncertainty, the NSW Cancer Council has been allocated funding of AU$1.2 million to research the possibility that mobile phone use causes cancer in humans.
The money will be used to fund a five-year research project anticipated to kick off in February. It will be headed by the NSW Cancer Council's Professor Bruce Armstrong.
"Clearly this has been an issue of interest for some time," Professor Armstrong told ZDNet.
"The research is in recognition of the need to resolve some important public issues," Armstrong said. "To find out the truth, or lay to rest" public anxiety that mobile phone use can cause cancer in humans.
The research, restricted to Sydney and Melbourne, will investigate tumors of the brain, tumors in the nerve leading from the ear to the brain and those in the parotib gland - tissue just in front of the ear said to absorb some of the energy when mobile phones are used.
The Cancer Council will compare the history of mobile phone use in people who have developed these specific cancers with the history of mobile phone users who haven't developed cancers of this kind.
The information accumulated by the Cancer Council will contribute to an international study involving 14 countries. It will be overseen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
"At this stage we really know very little about what the health hazards [of mobile phone use] actually are and it's hard to speculate about what the potential might be," Armstrong said.
The National Health Medical Research Council funding follows a AU$97,600 grant to the Cancer Council to finance a pilot and feasibility study as a precursor to the five-year research program.
