Is your iPhone causing YOU harm? Experts weigh in as Apple's iPhone 12 is ... trends now

Apple has been ordered to stop selling its iPhone 12 in France after tests showed the model produced radiation levels above the EU safety threshold.

The tech giant was also told to fix existing smartphones via an update or recall every iPhone 12 ever sold in the country.

Jean-Noël Barrot, France's digital minister, played down fears that the radiation levels detected were a cancer risk, but the announcement has once again reignited the debate about the safety of mobile phone use.

The World Health Organization has previously sought to quell fears about radiation emitted by mobiles, stressing that there is no evidence to suggest it is harmful to humans. 

However, scientists have cautioned that very little is known about safety risks beyond 20 years, because most people did not use mobile phones until the late 1990s.

So might your iPhone be causing you harm? 

'Currently there is no strong evidence that exposure to electromagnetic fields during mobile phone use is associated with adverse health effects,' Maria Feychting, a professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told MailOnline.

'However, there are still some uncertainties and further research is needed, especially regarding the higher frequencies that will be used by 5G.'

She added: 'The guidelines are set with considerable safety margins, and health effects are unlikely to occur even if guidelines are somewhat exceeded. 

'However, the safety margins of the guidelines are applied to consider the uncertainty in the scientific knowledge.'

It is worth pointing out that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is an offshoot of the WHO, has previously claimed that certain radio frequencies at extreme levels are 'possibly carcinogenic to humans'.

However, this is thought to be unlikely.

There have also been studies suggesting mobile phone use can increase the risk of cancer and impact fertility.

In 2014, researchers at the University of Exeter suggested a possible link between mobile phone exposure and poorer sperm quality.

They said the number of sperm and their movement could be affected by keeping phones in a pocket, but admitted that more research was needed because the evidence was sketchy.

A separate study in 2020 also claimed that using a mobile phone for as little as 17 minutes per day over 10 years increases the risk of developing cancerous tumours by up to 60 per cent.

The controversial research involved statistical analysis of 46 different studies into mobile phone use and health around the world, by experts from UC Berkeley. 

One of the researchers involved in the study, Joel Moskowitz, said: 'Our main takeaway is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60 per cent increase in brain cancer.'

However, the charity Cancer Research UK is adamant this is not the case.

'Using mobile phones does not increase the risk of cancer,' its website states.

'There aren't any good explanations for how mobile phones could cause cancer.

'The radiation that mobile phones or phone masts transmit and receive is very weak. It does not have enough energy to damage DNA so is highly unlikely to be able to cause cancer.' 

On top of this, 10 years ago the UK's now defunct Health Protection Agency said a major safety review had revealed no evidence that mobile phones harm human health. 

Scientists looked at hundreds of studies and found no conclusive links that exposure caused brain tumours, other types of cancer, or harm to

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