Hospital Warns Staff: Avoid Mobile Phones
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday March 15, 2000
In a landmark health policy directive, Royal North Shore Hospital has advised its staff to avoid using mobile phones to minimise any potential risk from microwaves.
The hospital's executive director, Professor Norbert Berends, said the policy was a precaution to help staff concerned about their exposure to adopt simple procedures.
The advice, issued to staff this month, says landline phones or pagers should be used ``to the fullest possible extent in preference to mobile phones".
Staff given a mobile phone as part of their job were to be given hands-free ear and microphone sets ``to avoid possible concentration of radiation near vital or sensitive organs".
As well, those using mobiles occasionally were advised to hold them away from their head, ``as it is the distance of 3-4 centimetres that presents the greatest risk potential".
Questions about whether the electromagnetic energy emitted by mobile phones causes cell changes that could lead to cancer have been raised by several studies.
But no government body at present recognises any risk to health from using the phones.
Neither NSW Health nor the Federal Department of Health and Aged Care have a public policy on the possible health effects of mobile phones.
A Telstra spokeswoman said there was no policy advising its staff not to use mobiles ``in regard to health risks". The company's health and safety policy had no ``specific reference to handsets in regard to EME [electromagnetic emissions]".
Dr Berends said: ``The hospital acknowledges that there is no clear evidence in the existing scientific literature that the use of mobile phones poses a long-term public health hazard. However, the possibility of a small risk cannot be ruled out."
Few human studies have been done on the effects of mobile phones, which have been available for less than 15 years.
However, research by the Royal Adelaide Hospital on mice with a gene making them more susceptible to lymphoma found that those subjected to a single dose of electromagnetic energy equivalent to that emitted by a mobile phone had a 40 per cent higher incidence of the disease.
The executive director of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, Mr Peter Russell, said the advice of the World Health Organisation was that ``based on the scientific evidence available today, there are no adverse health effects for people using mobile phones today".
All the phones sold in Australia had to comply with safety standards ``that are already 50 times higher than they need to be".
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
