There is no evidence to suggest that mobile phones cause cancer, a US scientist has said.
"We can fairly safely say that there is in fact, at the moment, no evidence of hazards whatsoever," said Dr John E. Moulder, professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Speaking at an international radiation research conference at UCD yesterday, Dr Moulder said he believed that the regulation on mobile phone masts in the State was safe.
"As long as you keep the antennae on top of the masts, away from people, the radio frequency radiation levels from these are fantastically low."
Asked about the potential risks to people living near masts, he said: "I don't think they need to worry about their health."
On the possible link between cell phone use and cancer, Dr Moulder said there was no way to prove definitively that mobile telephones do not cause cancer. Scientists could only state definitively that something was carcinogenic.
Studies conducted to date had concluded that "a cell phone radio frequency radiation-cancer connection is physically implausible. "The existing evidence for a causal relationship between radio frequency radiation from cell phones and cancer is weak to non-existent."
Referring to a recent investigation by the BBC Panorama programme which quoted research conducted in Sweden as suggesting a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer, Dr Moulder said that the final result of the research showed that "there's no difference in brain cancer between people who use cell phones and people who don't."
Dr Moulder said that he was "very concerned" that the Pan- orama programme had been referred to more than the actual study on which it was based. The greatest risk associated with mobile phones was of traffic accidents caused by motorists who used their phones while driving, said Dr Moulder.
He said that his research was funded by his university and the National Cancer Institute in the US, both of which are independent bodies.
