The Italian Court of cassation has recognized as occupational illness a brain tumor linked to the intensive use of a mobile phone. The Court had seized by a senior officer, victim of a brain tumor.
This ruling follows a decision of the Court of appeal of Brescia. The judges of the Court of cassation considered that presented at the first trial of the scientific references were valid. Conversely, the results of scientific studies funded by companies were excluded, due to conflicts of interest. The Italian justice has estimated that their findings minimized the impact of mobile phones on health.
This recognition of an occupational disease linked to waves of mobile telephony is not the first: ‘ a class action (lawsuit) to the United States tried to recognize end of 2001 negligence and responsibility for the industry of mobile phone for cases of tumors in the brain, in employees of Motorola», explains the parliamentarian Michele Rivasi (EELV), founder of the Centre for research and information independent on electromagnetic radiation (CRIIREM). “It took wait 2006 so that the American judicial system establishes that the tumor in the brain of an employee – Shareza Price – was a direct result of the use of the mobile phone”.
In France, a legislative proposal on the reduction of the exposure to electromagnetic fields, written by the MP Laurence Abeille (EELV), should be discussed in the coming weeks. From 2011, the waves emitted by mobile phones are considered to be “possibly carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization (see the who release).
See judgment of the Court of cassation (in Italian).
Image courtesy of Ambernectar 13