16 institutions to study impact of mobile phones

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is planning to conduct a study on the impact of mobile phones and towers on humans, particularly by clusters of towers.

The Department has selected 16 national institutions for the study, including National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, AIIMS New Delhi and Uttarakhand, IITs Kharagpur, New Delhi and Madras and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences Andhra Pradesh.

Commissioning of the study in India comes as a direct challenge to the position of the World Health Organisation (WHO) that has specifically said in 2014 that the studies of mobile phones on human beings over two decades have failed to reveal any significant danger.
“To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use,” the WHO observed in 2014.

The study will specifically focus on electromagnetic effects, investigating the absorption of radiation by human body, impact on brain, bio-chemical aspects, effects on reproductive patterns, animal and human models, plant system and remedial measures.
This is perhaps the first major study by government institutions and the first ever research action taken by government agencies as opposed to private institutions.

The development comes as a surprise to the mobile industry, which acknowledges that such a large scale study on the effects of mobile phone usage was not undertaken before.

The study is not expected to affect a current investigation on the topic undertaken by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.
Both the studies will be compared later to see what their findings say.