In July 2011, an arm of the UN?s World Health Organization made a claim that cellular phones could ?possibly? cause brain cancer ? a claim not substantiated by any clinical research or experimental trials to establish the causal link requires to make such a claim. Instead, the WHO based their claims based on reports public by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing radiation protection on the effects of exposure to EM radiation upto 300GHz. This report has been repeatedly quoted by many governments that have ignored the caveats in the ICNIRP?s paper that ?There is insufficient information on the biological and health effects of EMF exposure of human populations and experimental animals to provide a rigourous basis for establishing safety factors over the whole frequency range and for all frequency modulations?.
A later report from 2004 by a commission in the UK also states that causal links to EM radiation and cancer are tenuous at best and not conclusively proven. Item 68 in the report (Page 16) indicate that the worst-case side effects in all cases of exposure to cellular phone related EM radiation is heating of human tissue ? something that happens to everyone on a daily basis when exposed to sunshine. In a tropical country, heating effects of such EM radiation is likely to go unnoticed given the high average daily temperatures ? there are no claims in the ICNIRP?s paper or the NRPB?s study that EM radiation is a factor in causing brain cancer.
It should be noted that electro magnetic radiation that is known to cause cancer in humans correspond to frequency ranges that are in the range of X-rays and Gamma rays, as outlined in this link. The frequency of X-rays and Gamma rays are in the order of 10^16-10^19 Hz, compared to cell phone radiation which is in the Radio frequency range which is less the 10^9 Hz. The energy of an EM wave is directly proportional to the frequency of the wave, but the reason why X-Rays and Gamma rays are dangerous, and potentially able to cause genetic mutations that may result in cancer is that EM wavelengths are comparable to the spaces between atoms. Larger radio wavelength radiation can only heat up tissue because they are orders of magnitude (more than a billion times) larger than the space between atoms that comprise a human being ? thus even high-intensity radio wave EM radiation can only cause heating of human tissue at worst. In fact, microwave radiation at the same intensity is more likely to cause tissue damage from heating effects than radio waves.
In the absence of proper scientific evidence to establish a causal relationship betweem cellular phone EM radiation, the Indian government?s policy of reducing the strength of transmission signals effectively amounts to shortchanging Cell phone customers by creating more pockets where signal transmission is weak resulting in ?dead spots? where cell phones are not usable. Given the lack of wired communication connectivity in India, such a policy that provides poorer quality Cell phone service based on unscientific claims by the UN?s WHO seems a terrible idea that shortchanges the already poor populace which continues to pay the same price for poorer cell phone service. Unfortunately, consumer advocate groups in India have failed to hold the Indian government accountable to explain their reasoning for weakening transmission signal strengths based on very weak and unscientific claims that are not based on hard scientific or experimental evidence. While the governments of Sweden, Norway, and other developed countries have conducted studies that concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish a link between brain cancer and cellular phone EM radiation, less competent governments in developing countries such as India, China, and Russia have fully accepted the WHO?s outlandish claims and changed policy to reduce the strength of transmission of cellphone towers. Coincidentally, these same governments have been very vocal in demanding intrusive interception/surveillance powers on social media networks where the main device of connectivity is the Cell Phone.
This lack of hard evidence to support the WHO?s claims have been written about extensively elsewhere, such as Bad Science Blogs by Ben Goldacre that and an extensive report published by CNET essentially point out to the same lack of evidence to establish a causal link between cell phone radiation and brain cancer. The key problem with the WHO?s claims linking brain cancer to cell phone radiation is the same reason it has been hard to establish a causal link between any agent and its long term cancer causing effects. This difficulty arises from multiple sources of potential cancer causing agents that a person may be exposed to over an extended period, most of the time the person being exposed to such an agent may well be unaware of the dangers at the time of exposure ? this essentially negates any chances of establishing a direct causal link between any particular cancer causing agent and the cancer itself given the lead time between exposure and detection of cancer.
In the absence of controlled studies over an extended period of time over a sufficiently large sample population where the main variable is cell phone radiation with all other sources of cancer ruled out, any such claims such as those made by the WHO must essentially be treated as pseudo-scientific claims not to be taken seriously while creating telecommunications policy. Politically, the cost of believing the WHO?s claims is the most expedient one, since it allows for the government to shortchange the paying cellphone customer by making dubious claims of looking out for the good health of the cellphone customer. However, other than making it easier for the government to disrupt cellphone transmission ? weaker transmission signals are easier to disrupt than stronger transmission signals ? the UPA regime?s policy to weaken transmission signals without adequate discussion and research seems to be of dubious motivation. Indian Consumer Advocacy groups need to hold the government?s feet to the fire and demand restoration of transmission signal strength to previous levels, and also demand higher standards of proof for claims of links between cellular EM radiation and brain cancer than they have provided so far. The WHO?s claims are entirely inadequate in establishing the required causal links to justify weakening cell phone transmission signal strength.
The Indian government has not only dictated norms on signal strength based on very weak science, it has taken a further regressive step of penalizing phone companies for not following the governments dubious norms on cell phone installation and transmission strength. As with all else, such government regulations intends to make life harder for customers and vendors with little or no benefits to anyone, not even the government which would clearly benefit from a better quality cell phone network as much as the average Indian Cell Phone user.
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