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The Cellular Operators Association of India has rubbished a new report linking electromagnetic radiation emanating from mobile phones to health risks.
The COAI said the recently released BioInitiative Report 2012 is just an update on their 2007 report which had been heavily criticised as being biased, without balance and for not being an objective comprehensive review.
A new report by the BioInitiative Working Group 2012 says evidence for risks to health has substantially increased since 2007 from electromagnetic fields and wireless technologies (radiofrequency radiation). The report reviews over 1,800 new scientific studies. Cell phone users, parents-to-be, young children and pregnant women are at particular risk.
“There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumor) and acoustic neuroma with use of mobile and cordless phones,” says Lennart Hardell, MD at Orebro University, Sweden. “Epidemiological evidence shows that radiofrequency should be classified as a human carcinogen. The existing public safety limits and reference levels are not adequate to protect public health.”
The COAI, however, said several credible health organisations across the world had disowned the 2007 version of the report as having clear scientific weaknesses, including selection bias in several research areas, lack of multidisciplinary weight-of evidence method which leads to a scientifically sound judgment, lack of updated info, no consideration of the scientific quality of the cited reports.
“The 2012 BioInitiative Report, like its predecessor, is an informal interpretation of a limited selection of the available scientific information on electromagnetic fields (EMF). The report is largely critical of the internationally accepted and most widely adopted EMF exposure standards developed by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), which have been endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,” COAI said.
The report does not include any new scientific data, but reflects the interpretations of individual authors who do not have consensus among themselves.
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