Cell Phone Standards ‘Fail To Reflect Risk’
The Courier-Mail
Journalist: Sean Parnell
June 21, 2000
The Australian Senate has been told that mobile telephone standards in the country do not adequately reflect health risks.
On 20 June 2000, principal scientific officer at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital, Peter French, called for tougher restrictions on the building of cell phone towers in heavily populated areas and recommended that telecommunications companies be excluded from researching potential health risks. He also says that manufacturers should be forced to publish the radiation levels of handsets to allow consumers to make informed decisions.
French says that with an estimated one billion phone users worldwide by the year 2005, the potential health effects should not be taken lightly. Meanwhile, former CSIRO Division of Telecommunications and Industrial Physics scientist Les Dalton was critical of the involvement of companies in research projects. He says Telstra Corporation delayed publication of an Adelaide study that found increased cancer rates in mice exposed to cell phone radiation.