FED: Pregnant Women Warned To Be Wary Of Using Mobile Phones
AAP General News
May 1, 1999

Pregnant women have been warned to be wary of using mobile phones after it was found radiation produced by the devices caused
defects in chicken embryos, it is reported in tomorrow's The Sunday Telegraph.          

US scientists tested mobile phone-style radiation on more than 10,000 chicken embryos and as a result some researchers are urging pregnant women not to use the phones until the risks can be properly assessed.

"We found that if we turned this on as a chick was developing, we doubled the number of chick abnormalities," Catholic University of America researcher Dr Theodore Litovitz said.

Chicken and human embryos are considered similar enough for the studies to raise alarm.

The US study backs French research last year into the effect of mobile phones on chicks.

British mobile phone specialist Roger Coghill said the findings were "enormously worrying".

The mobile phone industry insists there is still no evidence of a health hazard.