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Study into mobile phone health risks

25 February 2009

Monash medical researcher Professor Malcolm Sim is part of a major new international study into mobile phone use and brain cancer risk in young people.

Professor Sim, based at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, said the study would assess any potential brain cancer risks associated with the use of mobile phones by children and teenagers.

The five-year study will involve young people aged 10 to 24 who have had a brain cancer as well as people of a similar age who have not and will recruit participants from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Israel and Canada.

Professor Sim said the study would be one of the first in the world that looked at any association between brain tumours and mobile phone use in this age group.

He said previous studies in older adults had returned both positive and negative results relating to a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer.

An occupational physician and epidemiologist, Professor Sim leads a team of 15 research staff, in the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health.

The research will be funded by the European Union and the National Health and Medical Research Council.