mobile tower radiation health and hazards -gobar times -magzine

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64 April 1-15, 2013 Down To Earth supplement, Gobar Times

TUGOFTOWERWARS

The battle lines are drawn – cell phonetowers: cancer causing or crucial forcommunication! On one side, weighingin on the matter since 1990s are fieldexperts, medical professionals and scientists, andon the challenging side, making mobile networkspossible are cellular network operators and skepticalconsumers. Whose side are you on?

Are you thinking ‘Oh, this is old news! I know cell phone

towers give off radiation that causes cancer.’ You believe

this story has been done to death? Convinced that the

issue has not moved an inch and the time of mobile towers and

radiation being the talk of the town has passed? Well... Pick

up the phone! The issue has jumped metres! Rajasthan High

Court is looking to have cell phone towers banned from

residential areas and from atop schools and hospitals. Have you

thought of what would become of your mobile network

coverage if these towers are removed? Did you know that TV

station and radio station antennas emit radiation at a stronger

rate than cell phone towers and they have been doing it for a

lot longer too? Plus, the latest dirt is that this has become a turf

war between the researchers and medical professionals

publishing study after study denouncing mobile towers, while

mobile services corporations would have you believe otherwise.

The Department of Telecomm (DoT) calls them “lifeline

installations”. Physicians and scientists of Harvard and Boston

University Schools of Public Health call them “radiation

hazards”. Some people who live with them on their buildings

call them “eyesore”. If you have not guessed it yet, we aretalking about cell phone towers and attached Base Transmitter

Stations (BTS, those round dish-antennas attached to the

towers). It is these dishes that help you call, text or surf the

Internet using your mobile phones, using radiofrequency (RF)

electromagnetic fields (EMF)* to send

and receive information.

Mobile telephony moves upAccording to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), there

are approximately 500,000 cell towers and 750,000 BTS in India

split between the various mobile services providers – Airtel,

Vodafone, Idea, Aircel etc. The World Health Organisation (WHO)

estimates that there are over 1.4 million BTS in the world. The

United Nations’ specialised organisation for telecommunications,

International Telecommunications Union recently released a

report called The World in 2013: ICT Facts and Figures . They

predict that the number of mobile subscriptions in this world will

soon equal the number of people in this world. In fact, by 2014,

they say that this number will cross the 7 billion mark. Asia is

leading in terms of market growth. By end-2013, mobile phones

will have reached 96 per cent of the world market, 128 per cent

of the developed world, and 89 per cent of the market in

developing countries, the report predicts.

If the number of mobile subscribers increase, the number of

mobile towers will have to increase to keep up. Easiercommunication makes our world smaller and trade, travel,

governance and leisure simpler, right? So then why did upmarket

colonies in New Delhi such as Amrita Shergill Marg (incidentally,

Airtel boss Sunil Bharti Mittal lives here), Jorbagh, Aurangzeb

Towering Worries

MOBILE



April 1-15, 2013 Down To Earth supplement, Gobar Times 65

C O V E R S T O R Y

MEGHA KUCHU, journalist

City: Mumbai

Living here since: January 2005

Q. Have you ever experienced headaches, dizziness,

anxiety or any unexplained ailments during the time

that you lived here?

Hair fall.

Q. How much do you spend on your medical bills in a

month?

Roughly Rs 1,500.

Q. Have you come across the DoT’s advertisement(January 2013), published in national and regional

newspapers, regarding mobile safety guidelines and

EMF norms?

Nope, not that I remember.

Q. Which cell phone operator do you subscribe to? Since

when?

Reliance GSM, since a year now.

Q. How much do you spend on mobile phone bills in a

month?

Rs 1,000 maximum.

Q. Do you endorse the proposed ban on placing cellphone towers atop residential buildings, schools,

hospitals etc?

Yes, very much.

Q. Would you be worried if imposing this ban would

mean a drop in mobile network coverage and

communication services?

If we can safeguard people, especially children and the

patients in hospitals, I would happily take the network

issues.

Q. Do you have any ideas about how we can have our

network coverage and be healthy too?I've heard of equipment which cuts radiation. I don't

know the material it is made of, but apparently you can

wrap these tapes around the towers and also wear

bracelets and pendants that 'ward off' or reduce the

effects of harmful radiation.

TALK TIME: GT went looking for answers from the people

we can always rely on — our readers! All of whom live or

have lived under cell towers. Here’s what they had to say...

Road and Khan Market call for shutting down and dismantling

cell phone towers in their area in February. Taking a cue from

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh High Courts (HC), Bihar HC has

directed Bihar Pollution Control Board to take necessary action

to remove such mobile towers in two months. And just last

month, a petitioner filed a case with the Delhi HC, saying that

Reliance Telecommunications had installed a tower near a school

and hospital in Pitampura, knowing full-well the health effects of

radiation. The HC has sought answers from Reliance telecom, the

telecom ministry and the Delhi government by April 5.

Why all this hue and cry?

In Sickness and in Health

“Environmental exposures to artificial EMFs can interact with

fundamental biological processes in the human body,” says

Bioinitiative Report 2012. It is an independent report by 29

authors from 10 countries with medical degrees, PhDs, and

other advanced degrees. Since 2007, the Bioinitiative report

has been talking about the cancer-causing powers of such

radiations. The latest Bioinitiative Report 2012 gives 1,800

references of links between EMF/RF radiations and cancer, slow

DNA damage, impacts on male fertility and adverse effects onchildren and pregnant women.

While WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer

(IARC) came out swinging against mobile phone handsets in

2011, claiming they are possible carcinogens, they were silent

80%were worried about effects of cell

towers on homes, schools and hospitals

INFILTRATION 2013

Source: ITU World

Telecommunication/ICT

Indicators Database




ARTIKA RAJ, student

City: New Delhi

Living here since: June 2012

Q. Have you ever experienced headaches, dizziness, anxiety or

any unexplained ailments during the time that you lived here?

As much as the next person, with or without the tower above

my head I would say! And apart from the beginning of each

month where I sort out the monthly budget with the two others

I share my flat with, I’d say there is little cause for headaches.

Q. How much do you spend on your medical bills in a month?

Not too much, the occasional sore throat and sniffles, dealt with

off-the-counter medicines.

Q. Have you come across the DoT’s advertisement (January

2013), published in national and regional papers, regarding

mobile safety guidelines and EMF norms?No. But I’ve read about plenty of discussions on the same.

Q. Which cell phone operator do you subscribe to? Since when?

Airtel, since 2006.

Q. How much do you spend on mobile phone bills in a month?

I have a prepaid connection, and it comes to about Rs 350 a

month.

Q. Do you endorse the proposed ban on placing cell phone

towers atop residential buildings, schools, hospitals etc?

Amidst such conflicting reports on whether these towers are

harmful are not, offered by credible parties on either side of

the fence, it is hard to swing this way or that. But I’d say medicalreasons apart, just in terms of how ugly these towers are, I’d

be more than happy to not be subjected to them in my

surroundings.

Q. Would you be worried if imposing this ban would mean a

drop in mobile network coverage and communication services?

Yes, I would. Given our dependence on cell phones, a

connectivity problem could prove to be a major irritant.

Q. Do you have any ideas about how we can have our network

coverage and be healthy too?

I think government action in terms of making telecom

companies adhere strictly to safety guidelines, would go a long

way in achieving both the goals. And of course we need an

independent regulation board to make sure that the guidelines

are being strictly followed. We haven’t yet recovered from the

2G scam, and I’d hate to read about a MobileGate next!

about mobile towers. The WHO, in a 2006 factsheet, said

“the body absorbs up to five times more of the signal

from FM radio and television than from base stations.”

Further, the UN body says that radiation in low

frequencies, within the limits of the InternationalCommission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection’s**

EMF guidelines (1998), do not cause any adverse health

effects. Ufff! Can one person speak clearly and slowly and

tell us exactly what is going on?

It takes two to tower“These cell towers transmit radiation 24x7, so people

living within meters from the tower will receive 10,000

to 10,000,000 times stronger signal than required for

mobile communication. In India, crores of people reside

within these high radiation zones,” says Professor Girish

Kumar from the Electrical Engineering Department, Indian

Institute of Technology, Mumbai. He has been studying

the health effects of electromagnetic radiation since 2001

and specifically from mobile towers since 2007. In

December 2010, he submitted a paper on the topic to the

DoT. “The human body absorbs radiation because it is 70

per cent liquid. Microwave absorption effect is more

significant in body parts which contain more fluid, like the

brain which consists of about 90 per cent water. Effect is

more pronounced where the movement of the fluid is less,

for example, eyes, brain, joints, heart, abdomen, etc. Also,

human height is much greater than the wavelength of the

cell tower transmitting frequencies, so there will be

multiple resonances in the body, which creates localised

heating inside the body. This results in boils, drying up of

the fluids around eyes, brain, joints, heart, abdomen, etc,”

warns Professor Kumar.

Rajan S Mathews, Director General of tCOAI, is

not convinced. COAI is a non-governmental association

of mobile services corporations such as Airtel, Vodafone,

Aircel, Idea Cellular and more. “Bioinitiative Report has

been trashed by every self-respecting scientist in the

world,” says Mr Mathews, “Even Milind Deora (Union

Minister of State, Communications and Information

Technology) has said, in Parliament, that the Bioinitiative

report cannot be trusted.”

Smoke signalsHmmmmmm... in that case, could there be smoke without

a fire? Owing to growing public pressure, the WHO

established the International EMF Project in

1996 to assess the scientific evidence of

possible health effects of EMF. With a promise

to conduct a comprehensive risk assessmentof all recorded health outcomes of RF

radiation by 2012, the EMF Project claims

that there exist gaps in knowledge that

require a three pronged approach – review

were worried about

drop in network

coverage from

removing cell

towers

60%

Towering Worries



April 1-15, 2013 Down To Earth supplement, Gobar Times 67

past research, monitor current research and promote future research. What

is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt is that we need valid, reliable research.

Maybe, DoT can do independent research employing oncologists,

researchers working on radiation effects from the top institutions of the

country. Or join the WHO’s EMF Project, which is open to all member

countries...

Norms on a normal dayIn 2008, DoT adopted the International EMF norms prescribed by ICNIRP** and licenses

provided to telecomm service providers were amended accordingly. In 2011, seeing

mounting public pressure, DoT issued stricter norms that they claim are “10 times more

stringent than 90 per cent of the countries in the world.” In October 2012, a grievance

redress cell was set up in Mumbai for residents to call in and lodge a complaint against

offending EMF radiation from cell phone towers.

Call drop“From September 1, 2012, India has adopted 1/10th of ICNIRP guidelines, which is still

very high,” says Professor Kumar, “It should be reduced to lower levels, as adopted in

Austria... Another solution could be to have more numbers of cell towers with lesser

transmitted power.”

The implications of stricter norms and lesser towers are lower connectivity, says Mr

Mathews. “If cell towers are removed from an area, there will be no service there. Calls

will not connect, SMSs cannot be sent,” he says, “The place would be a total black spot.The ones that continue to exist will face congestion. If towers were to be removed from

residential areas, schools, hospitals, jails and monuments, about 60 per cent mobile

telephone coverage in the state would be lost. This would mean a drop in revenue for

wireless services sector from Rs 864 billion to approximately Rs 350 billion.”

Renuka Shridhar, social worker

working on educational programmes

for children

City: Dombivli

Living here since: 1988

Q. Have you ever experienced

headaches, dizziness, anxiety or any

unexplained ailments during the

time that you lived here?

Not yet!

Q. How much do you spend on your

medical bills in a month?

Around Rs 400.

Q. Have you come across the DoT’s

advertisement (January 2013),

published in national and regional

papers, regarding mobile safetyguidelines and EMF norms?

No.

Q. Which cell phone operator do you subscribe to?

Reliance.

Q. Do you endorse the proposed ban on placing cell

phone towers atop residential buildings, schools,

hospitals etc?

A BIG NO to cell phone towers on residential buildings,

schools, hospitals etc

Q. Would you be worried if imposing this ban would

mean a drop in mobile network coverage and

communication services?

Yes, I would be worried.

Q. Do you have any ideas for how we can have ournetwork coverage and be healthy too?

Not sure about how healthy it is, but something like SAR

value which Nokia follows.

have seen DoT

safety

guidelines and

norms

advertisement

in the

newspapers

C O V E R S T O R Y

0%




Towering WorriesParting shotsConfused? Feel like you are being pulled in two different directions. Like most things

in life, finding a middle ground would take collective effort and considerable

research. Till then, to make matters better (or worse), we leave you with parting

shots from representatives of the two sides of the tower war.“Cell phone industry is becoming another cigarette industry, which kept

claiming that smoking is not harmful and now there are millions of people around

the world who have suffered from smoking. In fact, cell tower radiation is worse

than smoking as one cannot see it or smell it, and its effect on health is noted after

a long period of exposure,” says Professor Kumar, while Mr Mathews counters with,

“The bulk of evidence says that the risks are small and we can live with it.”

Cellular conclusionThe threat is invisible and therefore, more harmful. The advantages are tangible and

hence, divert attention. One thing to keep in mind is that experts like Professor Kumar

have little to gain from bemoaning cell towers, while cellular services corporations

have huge gains attached to cell phone towers. Who knows, how movie screenings

open with a ‘Tobacco is injurious to health’ warning today, tomorrow they could be

followed by ‘Warning: Cell towers are radiation hazards’...

Brinda Kishore, practicing companysecretaryCity: ChennaiLiving here since: 1991

Q. Have you ever experienced

headaches, dizziness, anxiety orany unexplained ailments duringthe time that you lived here?

Not really.

Q. How much do you spend onyour medical bills in a month?

Not much, maybe Rs 500.

Q. Have you come across the DoT’sadvertisement (January 2013),published in national and regionalpapers, regarding mobile safetyguidelines and EMF norms?

No. But I have read a lot abouthow the radiation from thesetowers are dangerous.

Q. Which cell phone operator doyou subscribe to? Since when?

Airtel, since 10 years.

Q. Do you endorse the proposedban on placing cell phone towersatop residential buildings, schools,hospitals etc?

I have not personally experiencedor heard of any one I know havingexperienced this. No, I would not

endorse the ban.Q. Would you be worried ifimposing this ban would mean adrop in mobile network coverageand communication services?

Yes, I would be worried.

Q. Do you have any ideas for howwe can have our network coverageand be healthy too?

Too many towers is definitely aproblem, which could be solved byproper maintenance. Maybe, RWAscould help with this.

MVS Vijay Kumar, Managing DirectorModali Velanad Foods LLCCity: I lived in Hyderabad for 5 yearswhere BTS was placed on the terraceof our rented villa.

Q. Have you ever experiencedheadaches, dizziness, anxiety or anyunexplained ailments during the time

that you lived there?I had the problem of anxiety for thefirst time while living here, more likepalpitations while climbing the stairs.

Q. How much do you spend on yourmedical bills in a month?

Not much, except on an occasionalfever or cold.

Q. Have you come across the DoT’sadvertisement (January 2013),published in national and regionalpapers, regarding mobile safetyguidelines and EMF norms?

No

Q. Which cell phone operator do yousubscribe to?Airtel

Q. Do you endorse the proposed banon placing cell phone towers atophomes, schools, hospitals etc?Yes

Q. Would you be worried if this banwould mean a drop in mobilenetwork coverage andcommunication services?No

Q. Do you have any ideas for how wecan have our network coverage andbe healthy too?

Since the house belonged to a HighCourt lawyer, the operators hadinstalled necessary security measures.If proper precautionary measures aretaken cell towers are hardly harmful.

endorse the ban

on cell towers for

public health and

safety

**What is ICNIRP?

International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) is aWHO-recognised, non-governmental organisation of independent scientificexperts working on uncovering the possible health effects of non-ionisingradiation.

*What is EM radiation?Electromagnetic radiations are invisible to the human eye and exist everywherein nature. Light is an example of naturally occurring EM radiation. Electric andmagnetic fields, radiofrequency and infrared radiation are all part of the spectrumof electromagnetic radiation. All electrical appliances produce extremely lowfrequency (ELF) fields while all communication and transmission devices produceradiofrequency (RF) fields.

What is power density?Power density or volume power density is the amount of power or energytransferred per unit volume of the transmitting medium.

Share the skyTotal no. of cell sites in India – 5,00,000 (approx.)

Approximate share of: Bharti Airtel – 20-22%

Idea – 18-20%

Vodafone – 20-22%

Aircel – 8-10%

Source: COAI

80%

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