Health risk of long-term mobile phone use to be studied by scientists

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 8 June 2008

Scientists have started work on a massive official study to discover whether the long-term use of mobile phones causes brain cancer, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

The study – whose launch vindicates an Independent on Sunday campaign to draw attention to potential risks of using handsets for over a decade – will initially involve 200,000 people in Britain, Denmark and Sweden, and hopes to increase its range to other European countries. The British part of it alone will cost £3.1m, provided jointly by the Government and by the mobile-phone industry.

The research – which is being led in Britain by a team from Imperial College, London, under the auspices of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme – will follow 90,000 mobile-phone users in this country over the years, to see what happens to them. the rest image