There’s been much coverage of the new Swedish study linking tumour growth to mobile phone usage. OK, they’re benign tumours, but given the choice, most people would prefer not to have tumours at all.
In case you missed it, here’s what Yahoo News said:
According to the work conducted by the Stockholm-based Karolinska Institutet, long-term cell phone users are twice as likely to be diagnosed with acoustic neuroma, a relatively rare (1 in 100,000) benign tumor that grows on auditory nerve. The risk was restricted the side of the head where the phone was usually held.
Because only analog mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years, the Institutet’s researchers said they were unable to confirm that tumors would also develop more frequently in users of digital (GSM) handsets.
In other words, there is an increased risk, but we don’t know much about this yet.
This unknown factor is one of the reasons why I wrote a few weeks back about why it’s sensible to discourage mobile phone ownership and usage among kids, as per UK Government guidelines.
CITA’s response is interesting:
The CTIA, which represents U.S. wireless operators, said that the study shouldn’t be dismissed, nor should it be considered absolute proof of dangers.
“The wireless industry agrees that more research is needed in this area to provide definitive answers to any questions that might still exist,” the organization said in a statement. “Numerous independent scientific bodies have conducted research on possible health effects from using wireless phones and it is widely accepted that no conclusive link can be made.”
I’m undecided if this is a sensible, pragmatic response or a Big Tobacco-type “in denial” one. It was only very recently that Big Tobacco stopped its “no conclusive link” stance, despite killing thousands of people every year.
We’ll get better information over time and we’ll see how the mobile industry reacts if there’s any more bad news.
Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m a fan of mobile phones and I’m going to continue using them. I do tend to use mine less and less for voice and more and more for other things (SMS, games and WAP, increasingly). But that’s nothing to do with health concerns and everything to do with Skype, which only affects phone companies’ health 
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