DAILY MAIL 04/04/00

Earpiece for mobiles can triple radiation risk, warn experts

Hands-free kits for mobile phones can actually increase radiation exposure, it emerged yesterday.

Consumer watchdogs found the wires act like an aerial, directing as much as three times the microwave radiation into the brain as a phone held next to the ear.

Now experts are advising users to throw away the devices, which have been sold in their millions across Britain and around the world.

The new research, by the Consumers' Association, also cast doubt on the effectiveness of radiation shields.

Medical studies in Britain and overseas have suggested that mobile phone radiation is linked to brain tumours, genetic damage and a range of illnesses including heart and kidney problems, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's. Some experts have likened making a ten-minute call to putting your head in a microwave.

The industry denies there is any proof of danger, but many companies hand individual users bought hands-free kits specifically to cut exposure to radiation.

Now tests for the CA's Which? magazine have found that two kits - one for a Philips Savvy phone and another for an Ericsson - tripled the radiation level going into the head. While the watchdog did not have time to test other kits, it believes the results would be similar.