Germany's top radiation official claims that people, especially children, should minimise their use of mobile phones as a health precaution.
"In general, mobile phone calls should be kept as short as possible," Wolfram Koenig, head of the Radiation Protection Agency, told the Berliner Zeitung.
In June, an Australian research group came up with one of the first hypotheses for how mobile phones cause cancer.
Earlier this year, the US cellular telephone industry came under renewed legal attack in a series of class-action lawsuits claiming that cell phones pose a series of health risks ranging from infections to brain damage. Most similar previous cases have been dismissed.
Studies published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Medical Association have found no evidence that the phones cause brain tumors in the people who use them. Koenig said there was no scientific evidence of health risks through mobile phones, but he warned of possible hidden risks through thermal and biological effects.
As a layperson with a normal background of scientific knowledge,gleened over the last 20 or so years from scientific articles,documenteries,and news stories from a cross section fo media,it would appear to me that at the very least we are at some risk through the microwaves that carry the signals used in mobile phones.So convenient a way of communicating,with such vast sums of money involved,no doubt it will be many years before the "experts" agree on just how detrimental these radio waves are,if at all.However as a parent,I can only advise my offspring to use them sparingly,advice I myself follow.