Wednesday, August 07, 2013

The health impact of cell towers

There has been a lot of hue and cry in the media about the adverse impact of cell ( mobile) towers and how the radiation they emit can cause cancers. Sadly, none of these alleged adverse effects have ever been scientifically documented . A lot of these reports are based on anecdotal case studies of people staying in one building who have developed cancer , and who are happy to blame the cell tower radiation for this.

The bureaucratic response has been the expected knee-jerk one - prevent cell towers construction in residential area.

My biggest worry is that by clamping down on cell towers, the service which mobile phone providers will take a beating. As it is, there is a major issue with signal quality in India; and many people have experienced dropped calls or unavailability of network coverage already. This problem will become even worse, if towers are banned !

The indirect health effect of this will be that doctors will no longer be easily contactable - or that patients will not have access to the mobile network during medical emergencies. This can prove to be a major disaster; but will be another  silent tragedy, to which we are all mute spectators.

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