The Israeli Health Ministry is considering recommending limiting the use of mobile phones by children under 14 following a suggestion by a United Nations researcher that the phones are "possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
The ministry will hold an emergency discussion following publication of a report on the subject by an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO). He did not categorically state that the use of mobile phones causes cancer, but the suggestion places their use in the same category as exhaust from vehicles.
Previous studies have reached conflicting conclusions on the effects of the nearly 5 billion mobile phones in use throughout the world. Israel is known to be one of the highest users per capita of mobile phones, largely because of security, and grade school children frequently carry the device with them.
A 2008 study by one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons, Vini Khurana of Australia, concluded that mobile phone radiation affects the human body and poses a risk of brain cancer.
A similar warning came from University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute director Dr. Ronald Herberman. He stated, “The most recent studies, which include subjects with a history of cell phone usage during the last ten years, show a possible association between certain benign tumors and some brain cancers on the side the device is used.”
Following another waning from a French researcher, an official of a trade group representing the wireless industry, emphasized there is no proof of a link between cancer and the use of mobile phones.