Mobiles 'too dangerous' for children

CHILDREN have been warned to text, rather than talk, on their mobile phones by the federal Government's radiation safety watchdog.
The official caution was issued last week by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, following a decade-long study into the health effects of using mobile phones.
The agency said children needed to take precautions to protect themselves from exposure to radiation because health risks from their long-term mobile phone use were still unknown.
"Children should be encouraged to limit exposure from mobile phones to their heads by reducing call time, by making calls where reception is good, by using hands-free devices or speaker options, or by texting," it said.
The agency - the Commonwealth's main advisory body on radiation protection - reviews Australian and international research and is completing an assessment to develop new recommendations and guidelines.

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Its warning comes only weeks after a 10-year international study linked extended mobile phone use to increased risk of brain tumours.
The Interphone project, the world's biggest study into the health effects of mobiles, found no increased risk of cancer overall, but those who talk at least 30 minutes a day are up to 40 per cent more likely to develop glioma, the most common type of brain cancer.
Professor Bruce Armstrong, of Sydney University's School of Public Health, said mobile phone radiation was more harmful to children because their bodies were less developed.
"The skull is thinner and so more of the radiation produced will be absorbed into the brain in a child, who has a mobile phone to their ear, than in an adult who has the same conversation," he said.
"It's not a huge amount, but it is material."
Professor Armstrong, who led the Australian part of the Interphone study, said he supported the radiation agency's advice, but stopped short of calling for it to be extended to all users.
An Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association spokesman said: "There is no known basis for singling out children for concern."
Greens senator Bob Brown said a health warning should be issued to all mobile users.
"There is no proof mobile phone use is safe," he said.