Phone masts cleared of cancer link

Researchers from Imperial College London looked at almost 7,000 children and found those who developed cancer aged four or younger were no more likely to have a birth address close to a mast than their peers.

The study included 1,397 British children aged up to four who were registered with leukaemia or a tumour in the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001.

The proximity of their birth address to a mast was compared to that of four healthy children of the same gender who were born on the same day, chosen randomly to act as controls.

The study, published on the website of the BMJ medical journal, is the largest of its kind and was funded by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme.