Mobile phones can trigger eye damage, fear scientists By Peter Zimonjic
(Filed: 07/08/2005)

Prolonged use of mobile phones can lead to permanent eye damage including
cataracts, scientists believe.

Medical researchers have found that microwave radiation of the type
emitted by mobile phones causes eye tissue to "bubble" - a precursor to
the formation of cataracts - and can also interfere with the ability to
focus. An eye test The risk of permanent eye damage from mobile phone use
has been revealed by radiation tests on calves' eyes

Professor Levi Schächter, who led the Israeli team which conducted the
study, warned: "Our results show that microwaves can cause irreparable
damage. Our advice to people with mobile phones is not to use them if they
have the option of using a land line until we can conduct more research."

The new findings will reignite the debate into the safety of mobile
phones, after warnings from a Government minister earlier this year that
parents should be "very careful" about how much time children spend
talking on their handsets. More than 50 million mobiles are in use in
Britain.

The new study, conducted by the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the
Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, found clear risk to eyesight.

Scientists exposed lenses taken from male calves - whose eyes, until they
are two years old, have close similarities to humans' - to mild heat,
comparable to the raised temperature caused by extended mobile phone use,
and to microwave radiation no greater than emissions from mobile phones.
After two weeks the lenses, kept in a culture medium, were compared with
others which had not been similarly exposed, to identify biological
changes.

Prof Schächter's team found that the exposed lenses were less able to
focus clearly on a beam of light, which would cause an eye to record a
blurred image - but found that over time, when exposure stopped, the
damage healed. However the exposure also caused bubbles to form within the
tissue of the lens, which did not disappear over time - an indication of
development of cataracts, or permanent eye damage.

Prof Schächter said: "There has been much research to determine whether
mobile phones cause cancer or brain damage, but until now very little on
their effects on vision."

Shortly after the study was published in the Journal of
Bioelectromagnetics the authors were invited to present their findings to
the Israeli parliamentary health committee. The country's health advisory
body subsequently urged the Israeli government to fund more such studies.

Last year a major review by the International Commission for Non-Ionising
Radiation of all published research concluded that there was "no
consistent or convincing evidence of a causal relation" between mobile
phone use and any adverse health effects.

However, the new findings have provoked consternation in Britain. Dr
Michael Clark, a spokesman for the Health Protection Agency, said British
researchers should broaden the range of possible dangers being
investigated.

"This is a good piece of work that is properly published and we are
looking at it carefully," he said. "If future research delivers the same
or similar results then public health practices may need to be
re-examined."