WASHINGTON-A pair of newly published studies link mobile-phone use to biological changes in the brain, but the research does not conclude low-level radio frequency radiation from wireless handsets is necessarily harmful to consumers.
Italian researchers wrote in the Annals of Neurology that GSM mobile phones excite brain activity. Meantime, Finnish scientists found mobile phones caused a decrease in regional blood flow in one part of the brain and an increase in another part of the brain in humans. The Finnish results are recorded in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism.
Government health officials here and abroad insist there is not solid evidence that mobile phones pose a health threat to the 2.5 billion cell-phone subscribers around the world, but caution more research is needed in light of studies showing adverse consequences.
The U.S. cellular industry, currently facing a handful of health lawsuits, has yet to lose a case challenging the safety of mobile phones.
