Mobile tower radiation harmless: Experts

Kochi: Electromagnetic force emitted by mobile phones and towers is not harmful to health, according to the experts of the Environment and Child Health Group of Indian Academy of Paediatrics.

At a press meet ahead of their annual conference in Kochi on Sunday, IAP experts dismissed the fear of ill-effects of continuous mobile phone use and increasing number of mobile towers in the neighbourhood.

“There have been serious concerns over mobile phones and towers in the past few years. We conducted a study on the same and found that the power emitted from the phones and the towers was  non-ionising which is harmless. The power emitted from a mobile phone is 2W, from a tower approximately 10-20W, while the same from FM and AM radio towers is around 10,000W. The only concern about using a mobile phone is the thermal impact as continued use usually heats up the phones,” said P. Ramakrishna, IAP expert who led the research.

The doctors also stressed that there was no increased risk of cancer or tumours from the mobile towers in a neighbourhood. “The mobile phones get heated up when there are less number of towers as they have to work extra to catch the signals. Hence, having more mobile towers in your neighbourhood is actually good for the mobile-users,” Ramakrishna added.

Dr. R. Ramesh Kumar, national secretary of IAP Environment Chapter, said the WHO had also dismissed such fears.

“WHO says an increased risk of brain tumours from the use of mobile phones has not been established. However, it has promoted further research on the subject due to the lack of data for mobile phone use for over 15 years,” he said.