Trade Union News from Finland

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ISSN 1458-4433

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The news service is sponsored by SAK, the largest central trade union in Finland, and ten of its 23 affiliated unions.

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Results in two years:
International project studies
cellular telephone cancer risks

Helsinki (10.06.2002 - Juhani Artto) People in Finland are keenly interested in any news about the possible cancer risks arising from the use of cellular telephones. The country’s high mobile phone density is not the only important factor explaining this interest. Nokia, the mobile phone world leader, has about 25,000 employees and its headquarters in Finland. This enterprise plays a major positive role in the Finnish economy and in the lives of thousands of families and several municipalities.

This means that the Finns get alarmed whenever news breaks of a possible link between cellular phones and cancer or other illnesses. At the end April a group of Finnish researchers published a new study on this issue. No connection was found between mobile phone use and brain tumours or salivary gland cancers. Three previous studies conducted in other countries reached the same conclusion. However, a fourth foreign study had slightly different findings, leaving the door open for other ideas.

In none of the Finnish or foreign studies, however, had the duration of use of GSM or NMT equipment been so long and the samples so large that final conclusions could be drawn in any direction. The recently published Finnish study was handicapped in relying only on data records without collecting individual information from mobile phone users through interviews or other methods.

More reliable results will be available in two years’ time when Interphone, a major international study, is completed. This sample will cover about 5,000 brain tumour patients, 600 to 700 of them living in Finland.

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