Indian research on effects of cellphone more extensive: Minister on WHO study

NEW DELHI: Indian scientists are doing more extensive and wide-ranged research on the effects of use of mobile phones, while the study by WHO is still in research stage, Minister of State for Family Health and Welfare Dinesh Trivedi said.

Commenting on World Health Organistion's research that heavy use of cellphone could cause cancer, Trivedi said, "(It is) The same WHO had previously mentioned that there is no relation between brain cancer and use of cell phones."

"Our Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are doing research (on the same issue) since last year," he said.

WHO had said heavy use of mobile phones and other wireless communication devices could possibly cause cancer.

The electromagnetic fields generated by such devices are "possibly carcinogenic to humans," the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced at the end of an eight-day meeting yesterday in Lyon, France.

The IARC, which is part of the WHO, cautioned that current scientific evidence showed only a possible link, not a proven one, between wireless devices and cancers.

The experts pointed to an increased incidence of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, IARC said in a statement.

Trivedi said Indian researchers are not only doing study on the use of cell phones and tower related to cancer, "it is also doing (research) on effects on reproductive system and neuro-disorders. So it's absolutely wide ranged." He said WHO findings were still in research stage.