Mobile phones are designed to comply with strict scientifically-based safety standards. However, add-on products, such as shields, are being marketed, which claim to make phones “safer”.

AMTA and the GSM Association advise that there is no scientific proof that such products reduce exposure and they are likely to reduce or interfere with coverage.

A new patch device advertised in some media this week from Brussels "is simply a gimick" said AMTA CEO Chris Althaus. These devices do not work and people should be very cautious of such claims.

“Mobile phone handsets and base stations are designed, built and tested to comply with strict science-based safety standards, which are recognized by national and international health agencies, including the WHO, as providing protection for all members of the community,” he said.

“The standards include significant in-built safety margins and provide protection for all users, including the elderly, children and others regardless of the frequency of use. Scientific information does not indicate the need for any special precautions for use of mobile phones.

“People can be confident that there is no biological, medical, or statistical basis to assert a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer.

“The WHO has said there has been more research into radio frequency than for most chemicals.”

Mr Althaus said mobile phone users can be reassured that there is already a substantial body of scientific evidence on the long-term use of mobile phones through whole-of-life animal studies, which have found no link between long-term exposure to EME and health impacts.

Another large-scale study found that long-term use of mobile phones does not raise the risk of cancer. The Danish population study followed 420,000 mobile phone users for up to 21 years and found that long-term phone users did not have a higher risk of brain or central nervous system cancers, salivary gland tumours, eye tumours or leukaemia.

Radio frequency exposure limits for mobile phones and wireless devices are well established, and are based on decades of research into possible health effects. The World Health Organization monitors scientific research on mobile phone safety and concludes, "The overall evidence available to date does not suggest that the use of mobile phones has any detrimental effect on human health"

Further information is available at the EMF Explained Information site www.emfexplained.info or GSMA Association http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/health/reports/200605_PhoneShieldsPatents.pdf