Summer 2010
Potential health risks for kids investigated
Mobile phones - just how did we ever live without them? But as their usage increases in children, there have been niggling concerns about their safety. Ni4kids investigates the potential health risks for kids.
A study by the World Health Organisation into the link between mobile use and brain cancer was released last month and found that heavy users significantly increase their risk of developing fatal brain tumours.
The Interphone results raise worrying questions for our children, as they often use mobile, as much or even more than, adults.
Other studies have shown that children absorb more radiation into their brains. Having started using mobiles so much earlier, they also face a far higher exposure over their lifetime than adults.
In Northern Ireland 62% of children aged five to 15 own a mobile phone. This was one of the highest statistics in the whole of the UK according to the communications regulator OFCOM.
What’s more, in the same survey, our kids said if all media activity was taken away from them - choices included watching TV, using the internet or reading magazines - not having a mobile phone for 18% of those polled, would be what they would miss the most, again the highest response again UK-wide.
It seems children here just can’t live without their mobile phone, but if you had a better picture to what a mobile is doing to your child’s health, would you still be happy for them to use one?
“The results of the Interphone study raise serious concerns about likely effects on children – their biological vulnerability and lifetime use mean they are very exposed,” said Dr Grahame Blackwell, a spokesperson for wireless health information charity WiredChild.
Children were not included in the Interphone study, despite widespread concern among scientists and doctors at the time that they would be more vulnerable.
But shortly after Interphone was launched, an official inquiry prompted the Government to issue a caution on mobile use for under-16s according to the charity.
The UK’s chief medical officer has advised that children and teenagers under the age of 16 should not use mobiles except for short essential calls.
In their advice it stated that: “The current balance of evidence does not show health problems caused by using mobile phones. However the research does show that using mobile phones affects brain activity. There are also significant gaps in our scientific knowledge.
“Because the head and nervous system are still developing into the teenage years, the expert group considered that if there are any unrecognised health risks from mobile phone use, then children and young people might be more vulnerable than adults.”
The expert group therefore recommended that in line with a precautionary approach, the widespread use of mobile phones by children (under the age of 16) should be discouraged for non-essential calls.
Independent studies have backed up the concerns says Wireless Child. A recent study at the University of Orebro in Sweden showed that children and teenagers using a mobile run four times the risk of a brain tumour.
Since Interphone was launched, children’s use has grown exponentially, while brain cancer among children has also been increasing.
“Why should it come as a surprise that pressing mobile phones to people’s ears increases the risk of brain tumours? These findings are completely as expected from other evidence. Children are known to be more vulnerable and we need to take action to protect them,” said Professor Denis Henshaw, head of the Human Radiation Effects Group at Bristol University.
“The challenge now is how we respond. Burying our heads in the sand is asking for trouble.”
WiredChild believes that the Government should act now to protect children. Spokesperson Dr Blackwell said: “It’s time for the Government to stop saying, like the mobile industry, ‘we need more research’, to put appropriate warnings on mobile phone packaging, and to issue public cautions over children similar to those appearing in other countries.”
Recently the French parliament confirmed a ban on mobile phones in primary and middle schools and is requiring phone manufacturers to put health warnings on phones.
“Parents just don’t realise the dangers – which go beyond brain tumours - and the government needs to inform them, because the manufacturers certainly won’t,” Dr Blackwell added.
A representative from WiredChild added: “If these products were medicines or even cosmetics they would have had to be extensively tested before going on the market, but this new technology isn’t. Some children are already reporting symptoms like headaches, nausea, rashes, and sleep and concentration problems.”
According to the charity, as well as the evidence emerging about mobile phone risks, scientists are also worried about children being exposed to cordless phones, digital baby monitors, Wi-Fi and wireless computer games, which emit the same type of radiation. Some scientists and governments think it might be very damaging especially if children are using these gadgets regularly, sleeping with them nearby or are exposed all day at school. Many governments are giving health warnings and the French government is introducing a raft of measures, including health warnings and a ban on mobiles in schools and on advertising mobile phones to children.
What should I do to protect my child?
WiredChild advises that parents often feel that mobile phones are essential for a modern teenager, especially for travelling to and from school alone. While there are obviously practical benefits, the safety benefits are sometimes over-played. There is evidence that carrying a mobile phone increases a child’s risk of being mugged and of being involved in a road accident. Some parents are now making an active choice not to give their child a mobile phone; others are choosing to give one but to limit use to emergencies.
Across the rest of Europe, measures vary country to country to limit exposure to high frequency mobile radiation. For example, the Frankfurt city government and the Bavarian parliament have recommended against the installation of Wi-Fi in schools.
The French government has already announced that it is introducing legislation to ban advertising of mobile phones to children under the age of 14. The French senate is also looking to ban the use of mobile phones in primary and middle schools and the city of Lyon actually ran a campaign to dissuade parent from buying mobile phones for their children with the statement: “Let’s keep them healthy and away from mobile phones.”
In Russia, the equivalent of their health promotion agency believed that the risk of mobile phones to children was similar to that of tobacco and alcohol. The risk was explained by a number of points including that the absorption of electro-magnetic energy in a child’s head was considerably higher than that in an adult, children are more sensitive to electro-magnetic fields than adults and children’s brains have a higher sensitivity to the accumulation to the adverse effects of exposure to electro-magnetic fields.
The Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority advised that children’s mobile phone usage should be restricted.
“With children, we have reason to be especially careful, because there is not enough research on children's mobile phone use. Unfortunately, it will not be easy to obtain this information in the future, either, because of ethical considerations, the use of children as research subjects must always be heavily justified”, according to STUK research director Sisko Salomaa.
BOX
The simple you can take to protect your child.
Don't encourage your child to use a mobile or cordless phone unless absolutely essential.
Don’t let your child sleep near a cordless phone or Wi-Fi or mobile phone switched on.
Don't use your mobile phone in the car with children unless you have an external aerial.
Don’t keep your mobile phone close to your baby or child – never in the back of the pushchair.
Don't let your child carry a mobile phone switched on in a pocket.
Encourage short calls and texting rather than calling.
Ensure your child's mobile phone is turned off at night and as much as possible when not in use.
Keep cordless phone calls short.
Replace your cordless phone with a wired phone or a low radiation phone.
Replace your wireless computer router with a non-wireless router (most standard routers are wireless).
Replace your digital baby monitor with a wired or analogue baby monitor or a low radiation digital monitor.
Turn off your mobile phone when children are nearby, especially in the car and at night.
Tips reproduced with permission from www.wiredchild.org