Government advice for mobile users

The advice will cover child mobile phone use

Ministers are to issue their formal response to a wide-ranging review of mobile phone safety on Friday morning.

Their response to the Stewart Inquiry, which looked at claims that mobile phones could be bad for your health, will include advice leaflets to be distributed to mobile phone retailers.

The inquiry found that while there was no firm evidence of a risk to health from using mobiles, precautions should be taken in some circumstances.

This approach is likely to be reflected in the government advice.

In particular, the report suggested that parents should stop their children using mobiles for all but emergency calls.

This is because any emerging health effects in the future could be more pronounced in the developing brains of young people.

Their thinner skulls might also afford less protection against the radiowave radiation emitted by the phones, should that prove to be a hazard.

Statistics suggest that there are 25m mobile phones in use in the UK - a quarter of these belong to the under-18s.

Car crashes

The main health effect noticed by researchers is the fact that drivers are at more risk of crashes while talking into the handsets.

Mobile phone safety remains highly controversial among scientists.

Some claim that symptoms such as headache, memory loss and sleeping disorders could be caused by excessive mobile phone use.

Other scientists believe that the phones may even cause brain tumours in a tiny number of cases.

Even hands-free kits, which claim to reduce exposure to the radiowave radiation by moving the handset further from the ear, have been criticised.

Australian scientists claimed that the wire leading to the earpiece could actually intensify the radiation received by the brain rather than reduce it.

However, these findings have been heavily criticised by other researchers.

The electronics industry maintains that the government is issuing simple advice, rather than a health warning, as there is still no evidence to suggest a health risk.