Cell phone danger! People should avoid long-term use of mobile telephones a Hong Kong neurosurgeon
has warned, a media report said on Sunday. Dawson Fong To-sang, chief of neurosurgery at Tuen Mun Hospital, said that further research is needed to study the
effects of phone use on the brain, the South China Morning Post reported.
Fong wanted more investigation to be done on the effects of phone use in the temporal region of the brain, which is slightly in front of and above the ear. That area is most likely to be covered by the mobile phone and exposed to the highest frequencies, the doctor said.
He was commenting following the most recent study, carried out by Britain’s Institute of
Cancer Research, which found no links to the incidence of acoustic neuroma-type brain tumours which occur directly underneath the ear. The results of study, which surveyed 678 people who have used mobile phones for 10 years, were published last week.
Fong said people should limit mobile phone use to emergencies and avoid buying them for children under 14 years old. He said that it’s a very good invention, but its abuse might cause trouble in later years.
The research on the dangers of cell phone use is inconclusive at this point. There have been a number of studies examining the possible side effects of cell phone use. The most recent was published this past February in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study focused on 420,000 cell phone users in Denmark. It concluded callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer from cancer. It further concluded there was no increased risk for brain or nervous systems cancers, leukemia or salivary gland tumors. There was one flaw in the report. A slow-growing brain tumor can take 10 years to develop. The majority of participants in the study only used their phones for an average of three years.