A PONTYPOOL scientist claims a decision that all new mobile phones should carry warnings about how much radiation they give out fails to explain their true danger.

New models on sale after Monday will be forced by law to display radiation levels (known as the standard absorption rate - the rate at which radio energy is absorbed by the brain) in the manual that comes with the product.

Roger Coghill, 61, (pictured) from Pontypool, recently lost a court case to have warnings put on mobiles.

And he believes the new ruling does not go far enough: "We have come a long way since then, but this move still does not fully solve the problem because it doesn't get the message right and users are being misled about low radiation values meaning safer phones."

Mr Coghill, an electro-biologist, added: "We need the right measures to be implemented because this does not advise on the adverse effects of long- duration calls.

"There has been a threefold increase recently in the number of children getting leukaemia and brain tumours, and this comes from making long mobile calls.

"I use a mobile phone but I use it sensibly, which is only a few, two- to three- minute calls, but many schoolchildren are making calls of up to 45 minutes, which is very dangerous.

"A mobile phone is 20 times more powerful than a microwave oven, so you can imagine the damage it can do when you compare what happens to an egg when you put it in the microwave for ten seconds - not very much - but put it in for a minute and it will explode." A multi-million-pound research programme is being carried out to discover the long-term effects of mobiles after a government inquiry found that little was understood about their effects on health.