DAILY MAIL 06/11/99

Mobile phones were at the centre of yet more health fears last night.

Neurologists claim users could be at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease because of radiation emissions from the phone handsets.

A study found that only two minutes of exposure can disable a safety barrier in the body which is meant to protect the brain from harmful substances in the blood. Once they invade, there is a higher chance of developing diseases of the brain and nervous system.

In a separate study, scientists claim they have proved mobile phones also cause long-term memory loss.

The findings will heighten alarm over the safety of the phones, used by more than 13million people in Britain. Already there have been reports linking them to brain tumours, confusion and headaches.

The latest evidence, from a Swedish study, explains how mobile phone radiation can set off what could be a disastrous chain reaction in the body.

Researchers at Lund University carried out experiments on rats using microwave fields which mimicked mobile phone emissions.

After two minutes' exposure, the rats' blood-brain safety barrier opened up, allowing proteins and toxins to enter the brain.

Worryingly, even when the microwaves were not strong enough to heat up the rats' heads, the scientists detected poisonous activity deep in the centre of their brains.

This suggest that current World Health Organisation guidelines on mobile phones use, based on minimum radiation heating levels, may not be enough to protect users.

Professor Leif Salford, the neurologist who carried out the research, said: 'We saw opening of the bloodbrain barrier even after a short exposure to radiation at the same level as mobile phones.

'We are not sure yet whether this is a harmful effect, but it seems that molecules such as proteins and toxins can pass out of the blood while the phone is switched on and cross into the brain.'

'We need to bear in mind diseases such as MS and Alzheimer's which are linked to proteins being found in the brain.'

Professor Salford said his team came up with the same findings when they repeated the experiment. 'So we think we are on to something very significant,' he said. Proteins are a normal part of blood, but can cause nerve damage or set off diseases of the nervous system if they manage to get into the brain.

Last night the Cambridge-based consumer group Powerwatch said the findings provided the first biological explanation for health complaints about mobile phones.

'This is very exciting but also very worrying research,' said spokesman Jean Philips.

'We have long suspected that poisons must somehow be getting into the brain to produce some of the effects that people are complaining of from using their mobile phones.'

In a separate study, due to be published in the U.S. science journal Bioelectromagnetics, mobile phone radiation was linked to longterm memory loss in rats.

Dr Henry Lai, of the University of Washington in Seattle, carried out the experiment in which 100 rats were placed in a large tank of cloudy water and taught to swim to a platform.

Half the group were then exposed to radiation and all forgot the way to the platform, while the unexposed rats remembered.

A second test involved removing the platform from the tank.

While the normal rats swam around in bewilderment at its removal, the radiation-exposed group showed no memory of it ever being there.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said a Government appointed committee, due to report on mobile phone safety next year, would examine the latest research.