Mobile phones 'appear safe' - expert

Mobile phones appear to be "very safe", says an expert who also points to initial community-wide suspicions about the rollout of mains power and microwaves.

Professor Rodney Croft, executive director of The Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research (ACRBR), said concerns over the location of mobile phone base stations should similarly dissipate over time.

"There really isn't a great deal of difference between your basic FM radio antennae and your base station's antennas," Prof Croft told AAP.

"... radio transmissions have been around for a long, long time and people don't seem to mind being exposed to that."

Prof Croft, who is Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Wollongong, said humans had "a tendency to be suspicious of all new things".

"When microwave ovens first came out there was a great deal of suspicion about them, when mains power came out there was a great deal of suspicion about it," he said.

"People do move on ... providing, of course, no science comes our showing it is more dangerous.

"And certainly the centre's view is that's not likely to happen."

Prof Croft's comments comes ahead of the imminent release of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Interphone study, a decade-long investigation into the health implications of mobile phone use.

The report could be released before the year's end, and there is speculation that it will draw a definitive link between long-term mobile phone use and an increased risk of brain tumours.

Prof Croft rejects this. He said WHO was expected to discount some of the research which had highlighted cancer links as methodologically flawed and "clearly not correct".

"But it will still leave open the possibility that long-term effects have not been looked at adequately, and may turn out to be a problem," Prof Croft said the WHO's anticipated findings.

"It all seems to be pointing to the same thing ... that there is not a problem (with mobile phone use)".

"Our perspective is that we don't see any science indicating a health effect ... It really looks very safe."

His comments also follow those of prominent Sydney-based brain surgeon Dr Charlie Teo, who last month said people should "err on the side of safety" and take simple steps to reduce their exposure.

Dr Teo said mobile phones should be used on loud speaker while other electronic devices, like a clock radio, should be placed at the base instead of the head of the bed.

A broader discussion of mobile phones and health will take place at a free public symposium on Tuesday, November 17, in Melbourne.

Speakers will include Dr Bernard Veyret from the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, an arm of WHO.

The ACRBR-backed event - Science and Wireless 2009 - will be held at Swinburne University's Hawthorn Campus from 6pm AEDT.

- AAP