PTI FEATURE
VOL NO XXVIII (50) 2012 December 15, 2012
Science/ PF -199/2012
Health effects of cell tower radiation
By Dr K S Parthasarathy
For the past few months, a section
of the media has been highlighting scary stories on the health effects of cell
tower radiation. These stories seem to grow legs as some "telecom
experts" joined to spread
scientifically unsubstantiated information on the adverse impacts of radiation
The health disorders listed are "sleep disturbances, headaches, fatigue,
joint pains, memory loss, increased heart rate.", among others. Some
dispatches claimed that according to "experts" prolonged exposure to
cell tower radiation increases the risk of neurological disorders and cancer.
Surprisingly-similar wording of the gruesome impacts as narrated in power
point presentations at some seminars, the YouTube and websites indicate that there are some other agencies
at work.
The presentations contained vivid
sketches of brain cancer that may be
induced in the skull of children. Never mind, there was no scientific evidence.
The purpose was to shock the viewers and to condition their minds to distorted and skewed perceptions. . One can
easily locate the agents creating the phobia by a few minutes of surfing the
internet.
In their presentations, one may not
see any support to the recommendations published by the the International Commission on Non-Ionizing
Radiation Protection (ICNRIP) or World Health Organization (WHO) or national
agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) or the Health
Protection Agency of the UK.
Initially, the lack of guidelines in
India exacerbated the issues. The demand for cell phones was unbridled. Cell
towers sprang up everywhere allegedly without the needed approvals.
In 2008,
Government of India adopted the Guidelines developed by the International
Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) for Electromagnetic
radiation from mobile towers. The values chosen for the permissible Power
Density are 4.5 W/Sqm for 900 MHz and 9 W/Sqm. for 1800 MHz.
Based
on media reports and public concerns, the Government set up an
Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) of specialists on August 24, 2010. The
Committee examined the environmental and health related concerns and indicated
that most of the laboratory studies were unable to find a direct link between
exposure to radio frequency radiation and health; and the scientific studies as
yet have not been able to confirm a cause and effect relationship between radio
frequency radiation and health. The effect of emission from cell phone towers
is not known yet with certainty.
However,
the IMC recommended lowering the mobile towers’ EMF exposure limits to 1/10th
of the existing prescribed limit as a matter of abundant caution. The
Government accepted the recommendation and issued directions making the new
norms applicable from September 1, 2012. DOT guidelines which is one
tenth of ICNRIP guidelines are very safe.
One
of the inputs received by the Department of Telecommunication was a document titled
"Report on Cell Tower Radiation", a classic
example of a biased and unscientific study The report cherry picked many references to
support its preposterous claims. The report which masquerades as scientific
contains 17 or so YouTube presentations!
The report
listed symptoms and diseases allegedly caused by electromagnetic radiation. The
only items not included in it were jealousy and baldness! The author mined part
of the scary data from "papers" of Arthur Firstenberg, a symbol of
the collective schizophrenia against RF radiation. He is the founder director
of the "Cellular phone task force" which is “dedicated to halting the
expansion of wireless technology because it cannot be made safe".
On health
effects of cell tower radiation, this writer would like to accept the views
of agencies such as the World Health
Organization rather than those who seem to have a separate agenda.
After a
comprehensive review of relevant
literature, the World Health Organization stated thus:
"Considering the very low exposure levels and research
results collected to date, there is no convincing scientific evidence that the
weak RF signals from base stations and wireless networks cause adverse health
effects"
"Some members of the public have attributed a diffuse
collection of symptoms to low levels of exposure to electromagnetic fields at
home. Reported symptoms include headaches, anxiety, suicide and depression, nausea, fatigue and loss of libido. To date, scientific
evidence does not support a link between these symptoms and exposure to
electromagnetic fields"
On
Electromagnetic fields and cancer, the WHO stated thus:
"Despite many studies, the evidence for any effect
remains highly controversial. However, it is clear that if electromagnetic
fields do have an effect on cancer, then any increase in risk will be extremely
small. The results to date contain many inconsistencies, but no large increases
in risk have been found for any cancer in children or adults."
The
American Cancer Society (ACS) stated that "At this time,
there is very little evidence to support this idea that cellular phone towers
do cause cancer."
ACS
listed important points that would argue
against cellular phone towers being able to cause cancer.
ACS noted that very
few human studies have focused specifically on cellular phone towers and cancer
risk. In the largest study published to date, British researchers compared a
group of more than 1,000 families of young children with cancer against a
similar group of families of children without cancer.
"They found no link between a mother's exposure to
the towers during pregnancy (based on the distance from the home to the nearest
tower and on the amount of energy given off by nearby towers) and the risk of
early childhood cancer.", the ACS added.
Recently.
the Government of India made arrangements to measure radiation levels at different
sites in Mumbai city. This writer requested Shri Milind Deora, Minister of
State for Communication and IT to publish the levels measured at different
sites and compare them with the DOT guidelines. This will go a long way to
allay the genuine fears of the public. I
received some feedback from senior DOT officials that there are some other issues to be
settled before the suggestion can be implemented. Transparency is the best way
to counteract scare mongering.
[ Dr K S Parthasarathy
is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board]
