The ONE MILLION five-year-olds with mobiles: Campaigners warn of health ‘timebombs’
From Murray May
Published on Mail online.com
The ONE MILLION five-year-olds with mobiles: Campaigners warn of health ‘timebombs’ as parents ‘use handsets as babysitters devices’
* Families see them as an important safeguard to check where children are
* Others appear to use them to keep children entertained
* Department of Health says children should be discouraged from using mobiles
By Sean Poulter
PUBLISHED: 23:03 GMT, 22 August 2013 | UPDATED: 02:52 GMT, 23 August 2013
Health campaigners have warned of a “˜ticking time-bomb”™ after it was claimed that a million children have been given mobile phones at around the age of five. Parents appear to be using the handsets as babysitting devices to keep children entertained at home or on long journeys. Many families apparently also see them as an important safeguard to check where children are playing.
The Department of Health says children should be discouraged from using mobiles, particularly if they are held next to the head, while the country”™s chief medical officers say children and young people under 16 should be encouraged to use mobiles for essential purposes only, and to keep calls short.
Campaigners insist there is strong evidence to link brain tumours to mobile phone radiation and that to allow children to use them is exposing them to risk.
Graham Lamburn, of the Powerwatch health campaign group, said: “˜The very idea of letting children have mobile phones at the age of five is very irresponsible.
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