news

Mobile phone risk not yet quashed

By Marika Azzopardi

It isn’t long since Christmas retail figures showed no signs of a drop in Malta’s mobile phone craze, but researchers in the UK are still unsure as to whether what has become an essential gadget in modern-day life is safe or not.

In Malta, mobile telephony ownership is thought to be somewhere near saturation point, with approximately 230,000 lines now in operation.

Vodafone’s managing director Joe Grioli admitted recently that more youngsters – 14-year-olds and below - are using mobile phones. An indication, surely, that the Maltese population does not seem to be taking seriously the health risks some scientists are associating with the use of mobile phones, especially among children.

Following widespread doubts as to the possible dangers to mobile phone users, 15 research projects have been funded by the UK government and the mobile phone industry. After an inquiry by Sir William Stewart in 2000 found no proof that the phones caused harm to humans, Stewart himself declared that he did not allow his grandchildren to use the gadgets. The main reason for this is that children’s developing tissues may be affected by mobile phone radio frequency emissions.

In fact the new study will focus on the impact of mobile phone emissions on tissue properties, although the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme stressed that no experiments would be carried out on children. Such studies will reach greater urgency once the new third generation (3G) mobile phones arrive on the market.

Locally mobile phones have not lost the impetus of their popularity. Although doubts as to their safety have been repeatedly voiced over the media, these do not seem to have deterred either parents from allowing their children the free use of mobile phones, or children from personally possessing one themselves.

Meanwhile, base stations on local rooftops have been eliciting a multitude of enquiries by people concerned as to their potential hazards to health. In order to ensure safe and correct operation of such stations, the Malta Communications Authority announced that it has commissioned the Malta National Laboratory to carry out a detailed survey of EMF emissions by mobile base station antennas. This comes as a surprise following repeated reassurances made to the general public regarding the safety of such stations. The MCA has declared that whilst previous reassurances are, as a rule, justified, it is a question of documenting scientific proof which is properly gathered and made publicly available.

It is planned that the survey, which is to span over a three-year period, be reviewed on a yearly basis, in line with local and international findings. Employees working on the project will not be entirely connected with MNL, although they will be answerable to the laboratory itself and bound by confidentiality and impartiality.

Physical verification will involve 150 out of the total 250 base stations in existence. This exercise is to become a regular feature even after the survey is completed.

Should emissions from any of the tested base stations prove to be in excess of ICNIRP recommendations, which are internationally referenced standards issued by the World Health Organisation, steps will be taken to ensure that these are reduced to conform with the set standards and to remain stable thereafter.