Cell Tower/Cell Phone Radiation – surrogate cigarettes of the 21st century
“Radiation is worse than smoking. We cannot see it or smell it, but we are affected by it much more.” - Prof Girish Kumar, IIT-Bombay
By Special Correspondent
Professor Girish Kumar of IIT-B has been working single-handedly on requesting top policy-makers of the country to enforce stricter radiation norms that will protect people and the environment.
Currently India implements the 1998 guidelines of ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection). The guidelines consider only short term effects of radiation and not the long term ones. They have given the following disclosure.
“ICNIRP is only intended to protect the public against short term gross heating effects and ‘not’ against ‘biological’ effects such as cancer and genetic damage from low term low level microwave exposure from mobile phones, masts and other wireless devices.”
Clearly these so called exposure safety standards adopted in India are not adequate and so, there is an urgent need to adopt better radiation norms in the country.
He said, “Our bodies can absorb radiation only to a certain limit. Operators must reduce the transmitted power from current 20W/carrier to a maximum one or two W/carrier especially in a dense urban area. For successful communication, 0.00000000001 W/m2 is enough.”
The disadvantage of doing this is that power range will reduce and people living at larger distance may have signal problem initially. To combat this problem, he suggested that operators should first install more number of towers, which will cost them more money.
Second, radiation measurements have to be done at residences, offices, schools, hospitals. If the power density level detected is high (i.e., more than 100 microwatts/m2 after reduction of the transmitted power), then either towers have to be relocated or height of the towers has to be increased or direction of the antenna has to be changed. Again, any of these steps will require additional investment.
Currently we have 5 lakh cell towers in the country and each tower may transmit 100’s of Watts of power. Each additional tower today would cost approximately Rs 15 Lakh. If number of towers increase by 5 lakh, then additional cost will be Rs 75,000 crore. To save money, he said, “Operators are opposing adoption of stricter guidelines.”
The guidelines also are valid only for six minutes. Sadly however, some of the people especially older people, house wives, and small children living near the towers are exposed to radiation of an unsafe level 24 hours a day, according to Kumar.
Talking about the health effects of radiation, he said rather sharply, “How many people in the world are willing to put themselves, their family members, and their unborn children in an open microwave oven for 19 minutes/day?”
Heating any part of the body leads to drying up of fluids. This leads to eye damage, hearing loss, joint problems, skin diseases etc. Some of the other most common complaints, he mentioned are concentration problems, memory loss, sleep disorder, headache, depression, irritability. More severe reactions include seizures, paralysis, miscarriage, irreversible infertility, barrier to free flow of blood to the brain, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and cancer. Children and pregnant ladies are more vulnerable.
Among animals, cows show a decreased level of milk production, spontaneous abortion, reproductive and developmental problems, and general decline in overall health. Sheep, dogs, cats and rabbits living near base stations are also affected. Among birds and bees, radiation interferes with their reproduction and navigation. They cannot find their way back home.
Professor Kumar’s health deteriorated too because of radiation. This led him to take up the study of radiation in order to get an insight into the scientific underpinnings behind this hazard.
He has been creating a general awareness on radiation hazards from cell phones and cell towers at IIT for some time now. His research consists of radiation measurements done at various locations in Mumbai, various floors of a building with cell towers and cases of patients exposed to radiation. He and his students have also created a device to measure radiation. His first workshop was organised in Nov 2011. Consecutive workshops in the neighbourhood have been organised since then. The next one will be held in December 2012. For more info, please contact him at gkumar@ee.iitb.ac.in
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