Sick of your cell phone? You may not be the only one, if a new report from a Central government committee in Mumbai is to be believed. The report appears to be a confirmation of what many critics have been saying for years, that cell phones, used cell phones or new ones, could be hazardous to our health.
“For years we have been saying that mobiles have a way of affecting your health,” says endocrinologist Dr Shashank Joshi. “Be it your endocrine system that generates hormones or heart rhythms, mobile radiation have a way of interfering.”
The report also states that radiation from cell phones may also be responsible for the dwindling in the number of bees, sparrows and insects, as well as causing headaches and buzzing in the ears in human beings. “It is distressing to see people under eighteen hanging on to mobile phones,” Joshi says. “It affects their system much more than adults.”
Members of the Mobile Tower Grievance Forum believe the report provides an official sanctioning of their own beliefs. “The report has said exactly what we have been saying for long,” says forum member Milland Bembalkar. “Cell phones and their towers are harmful to health.”
Joshi is advising people to “Reduce your talk time” or at least “Use either SMS or your smart phone to send an email” as “digital phones emit less radiation than analogue ones”. The cell phone industry says that worldwide studies have drawn no conclusive links between mobiles and health problems, let alone problems in the animal kingdom.