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Explanation:
Mobile phone usage is rising in India. At present, there are 250 million cellphone users. By the end of 2010, this figure is estimated to rise to 500 million.
India's fast growth in mobile phone use has increased the magnitude of potential health risks. The health ministry's decision to commission the country's first large-scale study on the effects of radio frequency radiations (RFD) from mobile phones is therefore a welcome step.
The fact that the ministry has woken up to the potential hazards of cellphone usage is good news. Cellphones have been in use in India for more than 10 years, and a study of this nature was long overdue.
The world over, there have been similar studies exploring the issue of neurological disorders or cancers caused by cellphone use.
People have been advised suitably on the possible ill-effects of mobile phones and recommended duration of their usage. India has been lagging in this area.
This new study which will be conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research and JNU's School of Environmental Studies, is likely to throw new light on the impact of mobile phones in the Indian context and help the government regulate the usage of mobile phones.
The study will be a specific and useful one as it will calculate the absorption rate — how much RFD is absorbed by our body when we speak on the mobile.
This will help mobile phone users be more informed and restrict their usage time, if necessary. It will also help industry in incorporating those norms at the stage of manufacturing.
Look at what happened in case of smoking. Not many people knew of its harmful effects till scientific studies proved it. Often, new technologies are adopted without prior discussion with the scientific community about their possible consequences on health.
All said and done, though a little late in the day, this study is a must if we don't want to risk our health. The ministry would do well to hasten the process.is unnecessary to do research on the harmful side of mobiles
We all know mobile phones can be irritants, but do they cause cancer? That's what the Union health ministry has decided to find out.
The ministry has commissioned research to study the effects of radio frequency radiation on the human body — a first of its kind research in India.
The study will be spearheaded by the Indian Council of Medical Research and conducted by Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of Environmental Studies and three departments of AIIMS.
The decision to research the effects of mobile phones on human physiology comes from a pilot study done at JNU, where rats subjected to radiation from mobile phones were found to have damaged DNA and low sperm count, leading to infertility and reduction in testes size.
The question is how far a set of results derived from testing on rats can be extra-polated to the human body. We are all exposed to small amounts of radiation in our everyday lives from a variety of sources, such as microwaves, watches, glass etc.
Even the food we eat and the air we breathe contain radioactive substances. Exposure to radiation from natural sources is an inescapable feature of everyday life.
It would be a gross exaggeration to assume that exposure to tiny amounts of radiation can cause cancer.
There has been enough research conducted over the last few years in other countries that have failed to establish conclusively any link between mobile phone usage and increased risk of cancer, ranging from a Danish study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2006 that was conducted over 10 years ago and found "no association between tumour risk and cellular telephone use among either short-term or long-term users" to a recent Japanese study published in the British Journal of Cancer, whose findings were similar.
So, rather than wasting money and resources on conducting research being carried out in other parts of the world anyway, the ministry should attempt to address the health problems that already exist and are preventable.
A little mobile radiation will not destroy life as we know it.