Doctors want school ban on mobiles

DOCTORS have appealed to parents and schools to discourage children under the age of 16 from using mobile phones.

They have also appealed to Education Minister Noel Dempsey to ban mobile phone use, by anyone, in primary schools and pre-school facilities.

The Irish Doctors’ Environmental Association (IDEA) said the use of mobile phones carried certain health risks for young people such as mood changes and cancer.

The group has written to the minister advising him to follow a lead taken by Britain’s Department of Education in issuing a circular to schools about the risk of cellular phones for young people.

The IDEA’s press officer, Dr Philip Michael, said the Stewart Report, commissioned by the British Government in May 2002, expressed fears about the use of mobile phones by children, recognised as a particularly vulnerable group.

As a result, he said, the education authorities in Britain advised that children under the age of 16 should be dissuaded from using mobile phones.

In a letter to the minister, the IDEA said: “International research in the last 40 years or so, and particularly in the past 10 years, has shown that all living matter displays an exquisite electromagnetic balance relative to all structures down to molecular level.

“This has permitted the development of important and widely use diagnostic technology such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

“Imbalance within this system can cause adverse health effects, varying from mood changes to cancer.”

The IDEA letter also noted that mobile phones and their base stations, by virtue of their transmission frequencies, their use close to the head and their ubiquity had long been recognised as potentially hazardous.

Dr Michael, a GP in Bandon, Co Cork, said the IDEA was urging the minister to follow in the footsteps of his British counterpart and issue similar advice based on current research and the precautionary principle.

“Further we would urge total prohibition of the use of mobile phones in primary schools and by anyone in pre-schools in proximity to children,” he added.