Two of Australia’s leading health experts have this week taken to task media reports claiming that the long-awaited Interphone study has found a definite link between mobile phone use over the longer-term and health effects.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, Head of Public Health at the University of Sydney and the lead researcher for Australia’s participation in the 13-nation Interphone study, rejected newspaper claims that Interphone had found a link between mobile phone use of more than 10 years and brain tumours.

He was responding after the Herald Sun newspaper ran a report on Monday with the headline: “Cancer link to mobiles”. The report said the Interphone study had found a link between long-term mobile phone use and brain tumours.

Prof Armstrong said on ABC Radio in Melbourne about the newspaper reports: “There is, as far as I can see, absolutely no information circulating at the moment that is accurate and correct with respect to the results of that study, and I am expecting there will be no such information until it’s actually published so that everybody can read it, I hope, later this year.”

He said “things are moving along well” with Interphone and he hoped it would be published before the end of the year.

Dr Colin Roy of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) said he expected the Interphone data on longer-term mobile use of more than 10 years to be “wishy-washy”.

He said many of the individual studies of the 13-nation Interphone project had already been published and for exposure of up to 10 years there was little evidence of any link with health effects.

Dr Roy said: “And where this speculation is coming from is just a very small number of studies – small number of cases where people have actually used it (mobiles) for 10 years a lot or more.

“…what comes out in the final Interphone will be suggestive of something, and we will end up saying, ‘Well, if people take this and are concerned, there’s a number of things they could do. Other people will call for more research,” he said on ABC Radio, Melbourne.

When asked if mobile phone safety was yet another issue to worry about in people’s complex modern lives, Dr Roy said:

“Well, I just think maybe there’s other things that we should be worrying about more. But that is not to diminish this.”

AMTA Chief Executive Officer, Chris Althaus, said told the ABC that Interphone had not been published and the newspaper reports were speculative.

“Interphone was a study designed for 10 years and the results of Interphone, as we expect them to be published, will say that there is no link to any adverse health outcome in that period,” he said.

“Now what the Interphone study does – is expected to put forward is some suggestion of where further research should be taken forward.

“Interphone’s results need to be properly analysed and there is a process in place for the World Health Organization to consider the findings and update its health assessment.

“No single study can be expected to provide an answer to a scientific question. Interphone and other studies should be viewed as part of the total research effort and the World Health Organization’s health risk assessment process will take account of the whole body of science.”

Mr Althaus said there were more than 2500 research publications, including more than 600 studies specifically on mobile phones and base stations conducted worldwide. All continue to find no substantiated evidence of health effects.