Pagers emit radiation 100 times more powerful than mobile phones and their possible health risks are being investigated, a radiation specialist said yesterday.
Dr Michael Repacholi, a scientist with the World Health Organisation in Geneva, told a University of Hong Kong seminar that pager stations also emitted radiation waves up to 1,000 times stronger than the equivalent base stations for mobile phones.
Research worldwide including a five-year US$30 million (HK$232 million) programme to be announced this year by the European Union aimed to better determine the health risks from pager and portable phone use - risks the scientific community is uncertain about.
'There's a lot of misinformation about mobile phones,' said Dr Repacholi. 'There's insufficient evidence to suggest that [phone radiation] fields do cause brain tumours.
'If you have a mobile phone there's no need to reduce the length of time you talk on it,' he said.
A 1993 World Health Organisation study concluded 'available evidence does not confirm' cancer risks, but also stressed there was inadequate research to conclusively back the statement.