Britain to Study Long-Term Cell Phone Use

A British expert on cell phone radiation plans a long-term study to determine if use contributes to brain cancer.

Lawrie Chiles told The Times of London that 200,000 volunteers would be tracked for at least five years. He is negotiating with the national Department of Health for funding for the study.

Chiles said short-term use of cell phones appears to pose little health risk. But one European study found that long-term users who spend a lot of time with their phones glued to their ears are more likely to develop tumors near the ear where they hold the phone.

The findings could be simply chance, he said. But the small number could also be because cell phones are relatively new and few people have used them for a long time.

You find absolutely nothing for 10 years and then after that it starts to grow dramatically, Chiles said. It goes up 10 times. You look at what happened after the atomic bombs at Nagasaki, Hiroshima. You find again a long delay, nothing for 10 years. The same for asbestos.

Chiles, who heads the government’s mobile technology health research program, expects the study to cost 3 million pounds (almost $6 million).