Tumour risk for mobile phone users ‘an assumption’

By Andrew Adamides

MOBILE phone users need not worry that they may be at greater risk of developing brain tumours, a Nicosia cancer specialist said yesterday.

Dr P.A. Kitsios told the Cyprus Mail there were “no studies or statistics to suggest mobile phone users were more at risk than others”.

Any connection was, he added, no more than “an assumption”.

Kitsios was commenting after a report on the possible link in the Greek language daily Phileleftheros. The report quoted Australian Cypriot cancer researcher Vasso Apostolopoulou, who yesterday met President Glafcos Clerides, as saying she “believed” mobile phones could cause brain cancer, even though there was no concrete evidence.

Kitsios added that as Apostolopoulou was not a doctor, but a researcher and her specialist field was breast cancer, she would not have the necessary knowledge to answer questions about brain tumours.

The speculation came two days after the World Health Organisation announced it will begin a study of eight countries to see how the incidence of tumours in mobile phone users compares with that in non-users.

The study has been announced as a result of concern in Australia, where the frequency of brain tumours has risen sharply over the past 10 years amid suggestions of a link to increasing use of mobile phones.

However, the project has been cooly received by doctors worldwide. Dr David Secher, of the British Cancer Research Campaign told the Daily Telegraph yesterday that although there had been a slight increase in brain tumours in the UK, this was primarily in the 70- to 80-year-old age group, people who were unlikely to use mobile phones.

He suggested that the higher incidence was primarily due to improved methods of tumour-detection.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.