No reason to fear mobile towers: Experts

NEW DELHI:  Leading doctors and telecom experts today explained scientific facts pertaining to electromagnetic radio frequency (EMF), rejecting any relation between mobile tower radiation and cancer or other health hazards.

Categorically denying any link between EMF emissions and human health, a leading panel of experts that included Dr. Chinnababu Sunkavalli, Founder, Grace Cancer Foundation, S.S. Sirohi, Ex-Officio Secretary and Former Member (Technology), Telecom Commission, Government of India, and T.V. Ramachandran, noted telecom expert and President, Broadband India Forum, all said health concerns from mobile tower radiation were not founded on scientific facts.

Seeking to clarify the truth behind such misplaced concerns, Dr. Sunkavalli of the Grace Cancer Foundation said, “So far there is no scientific data to indicate the existence of cancer risk from mobile tower emissions. Studies done by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and other reputed organisations have found no scientific evidence to establish a link between ailments like cancer and infertility and radio frequency (RF) radiation.”

As Founder of the Grace Cancer Foundation — an organisation that provides education on early detection of the disease, treatment support and help for the needy — Dr. Sunkavalli has been leading the fight against cancer, researching the issue of mobile tower radiation and its purported impact on human health.

At a time when the government is trying to bolster network infrastructure in the country to make ambitious schemes like Make in India and Digital India successful, unfounded fears of radiation from mobile towers are not only creating panic among the unsuspecting public, but could also jeopardize the existing communication network, a must-have for an upcoming city like Guwahati.

Speaking at the session Sirohi, said, “India follows one of the strictest norms in permissible levels of EMF emissions, which are ten times more stringent than the international standards prescribed by the WHO-recommended International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and followed by 90% of the countries in the world. Moreover, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has a country-wide network of 34 specialist enforcement and monitoring units called TERM cells to make rigid checks and enforce severe penalty in cases of non-compliance.”

Some people have been able to push these fears despite numerous studies by organizations of international repute like WHO, HPA, SRSA, AGNIR and NIPH saying that there is no evidence, which links EMF radiation with health effects in adults or children.

Noted telecom expert  Ramachandran also sought to banish fears of emissions from mobile towers, saying, “Spectrum Physics shows that radio frequency radiation from mobile towers and phones is extremely weak, thousands and lakhs of times less than that from even normal sunlight and the threshold between ionising and non-ionising radiation. There is absolutely no need to have any concern whatsoever as regards the radio-frequency ‘radiation’ from mobile towers.”

Ramachandran also highlighted the fact that, as advised by the WHO, radiation from mobile towers are a thousand times weaker than even that from the handsets we use. He added: “We are all comfortable using handsets, where radiation is well within permissible limits, and in fact cannot dream of an existence without mobile phones. In such a situation, it is therefore completely unjustified and incorrect to have any worries as regards mobile towers.”

The WHO in its report released in September 2013 has also sought to clear all such misconceptions, saying that studies up to date provide no indication that environmental exposure to RF fields, such as from base stations, increases the risk of cancer or any other disease.