Mobile phones do not pose short-term health risks, but it remains too soon to say whether they can cause brain cancer or whether children face greater risks than adults, British scientists, quoted by a Reuters report, said.
The Reuters report quoted UK scientists as saying that the six-year program found no evidence that short-term mobile phone use affected brain function or could cause brain cancer.
The Reuters report also quoted Professor Lawrie Challis, chairman of the 8.8 million pound ($17.90 million) Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme, as saying that studies so far had included few participants who had used cell phones for 10 years or longer.
Challis also noted that the UK studies that made up the report had not yet examined children.
British scientists had shied away from exposing children to radio-frequency fields, which are generated by devices such as mobile phones and phone masts, for ethical reasons, he said.
However, he noted that it was possible for children to be more sensitive to RF radiation than adults and said a second MTHR programme was underway, involving 200,000 people in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Britain, the Reuters report said.