Australië: Overheidsinstantie ARPANSA waarschuwt voor gebruik mobiele telefonie door kinderen.

Bron: ARPANSA via EMF-Facts 27 juni 2010

De Australisch overheidsinstantie ARPANSA (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (te vergelijken met de Nederlandse Commissie voor Elektromagnetische Velden van de Gezondheidsraad) heeft n.a.v. het onlangs gepubliceerde Interphone onderzoek (Kennisplatform: ''Niets aan de hand'') het onderstaande officiële advies uitgevaardigd dat ouders aanbeveelt om het gebruik van mobiele telefoons door hun kinderen te beperken,

Dit is een belangrijke koerswijziging als men beziet dat ARPANSA lange tijd op een lijn zat met het standpunt van de telecom industrie dat er geen gevaren verbonden waren aan het gebruik van de mobiele telefoon. Des te erger dat ARPANSA dit voorzorgsadvies niet geeft voor alle gebruikers en voor het gebruik van DECT telefoons.

De uitgever van EMF-Facts, Don Maisch, waarschuwde al 7 jaar geleden in een advies voor het gebruik van de mobiele telefoon door kinderen in een artikel dat verscheen in het Journal of Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine - Vol. 22 No. 2; August 2003, met de titel ''Children and Mobile Phones ... Is There a Health Risk? The case for extra precautions'', zie: www.emfacts.com/papers/children_mobiles.pdf .
Zie in dit verband ook een eerder artikel van Don Maisch getiteld ''Mobile phone use: It's time to take precautions. An overview of the Mobile Phone health issue in The Journal of the Australasian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine JACNEM Vol. 20 No. 1 April 2001: www.emfacts.com/papers/mobile_use.pdf .


***********************************************************************************

*ARPANSA Media release*

Date: 17 May 2010

MEDIA ENQURIES: Ms Kay McNiece - (02) 6289 7400

Statement from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety
Agency (ARPANSA) on Release of World Health Organisation Report on
INTERPHONE Study

ARPANSA welcomes the publication of the first complete results from
the multinational INTERPHONE study into whether there are links
between certain brain tumours and mobile phone use.

On the basis of current understanding of the relationship between
brain cancer and use of mobile phones, including the recently
published data from the INTERPHONE study, ARPANSA:

* concludes that currently available data do not warrant any general
recommendation to limit use of mobile phones in the adult
population,
* continues to inform those concerned about potential health effects
that they may limit their exposure by reducing call time, by making
calls where reception is good, by using hands-free devices or
speaker options, or by texting; and
* recommends that, due to the lack of any data relating to children
and long term use of mobile phones, parents encourage their children
to limit their exposure by reducing call time, by making calls where
reception is good, by using hands-free devices or speaker options,
or by texting.

Background

ARPANSA notes that the results of the INTERPHONE study do not
establish an increased risk of brain cancer related to mobile phone
use.

There are suggestions of an association between use of mobile phone
and brain cancer (most pronounced for glioma) in the group
representing individuals with the highest cumulative call time.
Limitations of the methodology prevent conclusions of causality being
drawn from these observations.

However, in relation to the observations in the group with the highest
cumulative call time, ARPANSA notes that the use of mobile phones has
increased among young people and children. This means that the
cumulative call time in this group is likely to become greater than in
large parts of the adult population covered by the study published
today. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones
require monitoring and further study.

In the absence of conclusive data, especially related to children,
ARPANSA suggests the precautionary measures indicated above. ARPANSA
acknowledges that children may need to have mobile phones and use them
in many situations. The precautionary measures relate to the use of
the mobile phones against the head.

The current ARPANSA Standard includes a requirement to minimize
unnecessary exposure of the public to radiofrequency electromagnetic
radiation. ARPANSA, with the help of Australian scientists, will
carefully examine the results of the INTERPHONE study. Together with
the large amount of scientific research published in the last 10
years, the results published today of the INTERPHONE study will help
ARPANSA decide whether a review of its current exposure standard for
radiofrequency radiation is warranted.

Voor het originele bericht zie:
www.emfacts.com/weblog/?p=1319 .

**********************************************************************************

Een persreactie in de Sunday Telegraph van 27 juni 2010:

Mobiles 'too dangerous' for children

Auteur: MIAWLING LAM

CHILDREN have been warned to text, rather than talk, on their mobile
phones by the federal Government's radiation safety watchdog.

The official caution was issued last week by the Australian Radiation
Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, following a decade-long study
into the health effects of using mobile phones.

The agency said children needed to take precautions to protect
themselves from exposure to radiation because health risks from their
long-term mobile phone use were still unknown.

''Children should be encouraged to limit exposure from mobile phones to
their heads by reducing call time, by making calls where reception is
good, by using hands-free devices or speaker options, or by texting,''
it said.

The agency - the Commonwealth's main advisory body on radiation
protection - reviews Australian and international research and is
completing an assessment to develop new recommendations and
guidelines.

Its warning comes only weeks after a 10-year international study
linked extended mobile phone use to increased risk of brain tumours.

The Interphone project, the world's biggest study into the health
effects of mobiles, found no increased risk of cancer overall, but
those who talk at least 30 minutes a day are up to 40 per cent more
likely to develop glioma, the most common type of brain cancer.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, of Sydney University's School of Public
Health, said mobile phone radiation was more harmful to children
because their bodies were less developed.

''The skull is thinner and so more of the radiation produced will be
absorbed into the brain in a child, who has a mobile phone to their
ear, than in an adult who has the same conversation,''

he said. ''It's not a huge amount, but it is material.''

Professor Armstrong, who led the Australian part of the Interphone
study, said he supported the radiation agency's advice, but stopped
short of calling for it to be extended to all users.

An Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association spokesman said:
''There is no known basis for singling out children for concern.''

Greens senator Bob Brown said a health warning should be issued to all
mobile users.

''There is no proof mobile phone use is safe,'' he said.



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