With the number of mobile phone subscribers coming close to 200 million and intrusive cellular towers becoming commonplace, the Union Health Ministry is worried about their long term health consequences.

In one of its first tasks, the newly formed department of health research – known as the Indian Council of Medical Research since 1945 has been asked by the Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss to research on the health impacts of mobile phones and towers, both of which emits electromagnetic radiation.

Negative impact
“Every month, one million new mobile phone subscriptions are added to the existing pool. Young kids are using mobiles indiscriminately. We don’t know if there is any negative impact though there are complaints of headache,” Dr Ramadoss said, after launching the new department.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there are 184.92 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of June 2007 and both GSM and CDMA sectors are witnessing more than 10 per cent growth every year.

The minister admitted that it might take five to ten years for the new department to come out with any conclusive report. Currently,  there is hardly any Indian study on the health impacts of continuous mobile phone use.

Last month, UK’s investigation into the possible health risks from mobile telephone technology has not been able to find out a link between mobile phone usage and adverse biological or health effects. The six-year research programme has found no association between mobile phone use and brain cancer, though there are other mouse-model studies suggesting such an association.

Research programme
The research programme also included possibly the largest and most robust studies of electrical hyper-sensitivity undertaken anywhere in the world. These studies have found no evidence that the unpleasant symptoms experienced by sufferers is the result of exposure to signals from mobile phones or base stations.

The health minister is also worried about the BPO sector, where the workers have to face odd job hours and high mental stress level.