MW (Microwaves)and EMR(Electromagnatic radiations) and effects on Young Children (in India)

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1 MW (Microwaves)and EMR(Electromagnatic radiations) and effects on Young Children (in India) Anurag Misra 1,Dinesh Saxena 2,D.C.Gupta 3 Reader,Dept of Physics,DBS College,Kanpur,India, Anuraaghm@yahoo.com Reader,Dept of physics DBS college Kanpur,India Lecturer Dept of physics,dbs college,kanpur,india INTRODUCTION The atmosphere has variety of radiations but broadly divided into natural and artificial radiations enhanced by human activity.the natural radiations are taken care of naturally and show little or no variation with time.the present work focuses on microwave radiations that has risen many folds for past 30 years.one of the basic reason for this increase is the use of modern communication technology.the most common of them,the cell phone, has led to increase in exposure to microwave radiation in the society.before going further let us understand briefly Microwave radiations.the term microwave frequency is generally used for those wavelengths measured in 30 cm to 1mm and 1 to 300 GHz.The cell phone operates in the frequency range of 900 to 1800 MHz.The radiations emitted are electromagnetic in nature and are non ionizing.it is not only the user of the mobile phone who may be effected but also the society around the transmitting towers may be effected by the radiation hazard due to 24 hrs emission of radiations from the towers which power billions of mobile phones world wide. Unsafe Reality The basic fact that cells use oscillating electromagnetic fields for many vital function has been overlooked. The electromagnetic pollution has gone up around 100 times in last 30 years (Hope Fauna.,Dec 2006).Microwave exposure can be associated with leakage of albumin through the blood-brain-barrier as the exposure may change the permeability of the barrier(williams,1984; Rajendra,et al.,2004;johansen,2002).the change in permeability can result in serious damage to CNS (Salford,et al,2003 ). The most common mechanism by which electromagnetic fields interact with biological systems is by inducing motion in polar molecules. Water and other polar molecules experience a torque when an electric field is applied Technical Background Mobile communication according to the GSM standards operates in the 900MHz to 1800 MHz band,in this Time Division Multiple Access technology is employed with the signal being divided into 217 frames,fig1.1(information periods) per second and each frame is subdivided into eight periods i.e. time slots,.these pulse may not be suitable for young brains since child brain is developing and continues till the age of 16. The still developing nervous system and associated brain-wave activity in a child (and particularly one that is epileptic) are more vulnerable to aggression by the pulses of microwaves used in GSM (Misra,et.al, 2007).In neonates the head accounts for about quarter of physical height as compared with adults which accounts for only 10%, the multi-frame repetition frequency of 8.34Hz and the 2Hz pulsing that characterizes the signal from a phone equipped with discontinuous transmission (DTX), lie in the range of the alpha and delta brain wave activities, respectively. The fact that these two particular

2 electrical activities are constantly changing in a child until the age of about 12 years when the delta-waves disappear and the alpha rhythm is finally stabilized (Microwave news,2001) means that they must both be anticipated to be particularly vulnerable to interference from the GSM pulsing. The thickness of the skull is also an important factor for penetration of waves inside the brain.skull is thinner in children as compared to an adult increasing the risk of exposure. The risk of exposure and SAR (Cleveland,et.al,1989)is thus increased in children. Fig1.1 The Issue Very young children and teenagers are becoming regular to heavy users of cell phones while their brains and bodies are in a much more vulnerable state than elderly people(maisch,2001). With cancer and neuro degenerative disease latencies of decades, the possible adverse effects will take some time to become evident. By which time it will be too late for thousands of people. At first, this subject may not seem relevant to children's lives until it is realized that today the fastest growing group of mobile phone users are children and young people. This growth is actively encouraged by professional advertising campaigns from the mobile phone industry, extolling how indispensable the phones are to their life styles (Vincent,2004). MATERIAL AND METHOD Two cities New Delhi and Kanpur with population of 35,00,000 were selected and few key spots were marked having multiple transmitting towers the table 1.1 below shows the observation. The places observed had floating as well as resident population.the recordings were made at different interval of time and repeated for six days. High frequency detector with a range of 100 MHz 8GHz and high end broad band EMC antenna 380 MHz to 18 GHz were used for the purpose both the units could be connected to computer and HF spectrum analyzer software was used to record the observations The average power out put was calculated.it is observed that most of the places recorded power output much higher than the safe exposure limit.the observed places had multiple transmitting towers mounted not only on high rise building but even on ground level.along with this scientific observation a survey was conducted in four north and central Indian cities on children belonging to middle class families which constitute majority of urban population.the level of radiation was found alarming in surveyed cities.

3 Biophysical principle Radiant energy is absorbed into human bodies according to three main processes. The first is the Aerial Effect where bodies and body parts receive and absorb the RF/MW signal with resonant absorption that is a function of the size of the body parts and the wavelength of the RF/MW signal. For an adult male about 1.8 m tall the optimal absorption frequency is close to 70 MHz (Schwan,1985). The body acts like a half-wave dipole interacting strongly with a half wavelength close to the body size. A monkey interacts with a wavelength of 1m and a half wavelength of 0.5m. This is similar to the absorbency of a human child.the Aerial effect also relates to body parts such as arms and heads. A typical adult head has a width of 15 cm. This is a half wavelength for a 1 GHz microwave signal, close to that used by most cell phones. Cell phone-type radiation is in the 0.9 to 1.8 GHz range, i.e. 0.9 x 109 to 1.8 x 109 Hz.A person with a height h (m), acting as an aerial in an RF electric field E (V/m) at a carrier frequency f (MHz), has a current induced in them which flows to earth through their feet(gandhi, et al,1996), Cell phone aerials from digital phones typically occupy the length of the body of the phone and extend a few centimeters out of the top of the phone body. Cell phone radiation for the phone's aerial is quite close to the user's head and can be intense enough to cause a warming sensation. The second mechanism involves the coupling of the signal to the tissue as the signal penetrates the tissue and interacts with the cells and layers of tissue. This process is related to the dielectric constant and conductivity of the tissue types, which vary significantly with the carrier frequency shown in fig 1.3 ( Schwan,1985 ).

4 Fig 1.3 The dielectric constant and conductivity of typical biological tissue as a function of frequency The third biophysical absorption process involves resonant absorption by biological systems in the brain and cells(cherry,n,2001). Resonant absorption occurs when a system with a natural frequency is stimulated by an imposed signal of a similar frequency or harmonic frequency. Radio and TV receivers use both the aerial principle and the resonant absorption principle. The aerial resonantly absorbs the carrier frequency and carries it as an induced current to the receiver. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION The observation of power output is alarming in Indian cities. The study of Radiation Levels in the city of Delhi and Kanpur undoubtedly proves that this NIEMR is polluting and adversely affecting the child health (Bohler,2004). There is a primary need to control these pollutions and also to draw guidelines for the Maximum Permissible Exposure Levels in India. The guidelines by agencies like FCC, ICNIRP,EPA and others were based on the fact that RF Energy causes only heating effect to the human tissues.once studies of pioneering scientists like Dr. Neil Cherry based on the actual medical studies came into existence, standards were redefined first time by Dr. Cherry et al. The Non Ionizing Electromagnetic Radiations be considered as a potent polluting agent and, therefore, be dealt by the Ministry dealing with Pollution Control in a way they are dealing with air, water, and noise pollutions.the health hazard has been totally overshadowed by the billion dollar and still growing corporate world of mobile. The outcome of non ionizing radiations as in mobile phone may not be known for many years, until today's young mobile phone users are well into their adulthood and if by then the warnings of health hazards prove to be true, irreversible damage to the health of many of these individuals will have been done.the density of population and users in India make the equation more complex.there is role for both individual and government to play for the safety of the future generation.the towers emitting 24 hrs should be of lower power output at the moment there are no strict norms on the location of the towers mounted. During the survey it was observed that Mobile Telephone Companies have installed Towers almost within the area of 100 Sq.Mtr.The additive effect of the effective power illumination is evident from table1.1 in almost all localities ignoring schools and hospitals nearby. Presumably, this happened due to use of same planning case tool or due to the fact that the company which has come up later has taken previous company s planning as base. Clustering of towers has given rise to additive effect of the effective power illumination on

5 human body. Fig 1.3 clearly shows with increase in frequency conductivity increases and dielectric constant decreases.the transmitting towers should not be installed near schools and hospitals. Mobile industry should not use children as models for product promotion as banned in case of baby food in India.We would be very happy to see warning message on mobile pack stating possible hazards.government can definitely ban sale of mobile phone to the children under the age 16 as done in Bangladesh few years back( Using headset and using certain radiation protection devices available in the market can surely reduce the risk.cut short the duration of talk this could reduce exposure While the political and scientific discussion will continue, it is clear that parents are deciding for themselves whether their children should use a mobile phone or not. REFERENCES Bangladesh to ban mobile phones for children, Ananova- Orange mobile news service ( June 3, Bohler, E, Shuz, J, Cellular telephone use among primary school children in Germany, European Journal of Epidemiology 2004; 19; Cherry,N, Environment Management and Design Division, Lincon University,New Zealand,April 2001 Cleveland, R.F., Jr., et al,, Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) in Models of the Human Head Exposed to Hand-Held UHF Portable Radios, Bioelectromagnetics, Volume 10(2), 1989 Gandhi O.P, et al, - Electromagnetic Absorption in the Human Head and Neck from Mobile Phones at Megahertz, IEEE Transactions, MTT 1996; 44; Hope Fauna.,Santa Rosa Community Market newsletter,dec 2006 Johansen,.C.,Exposure to electromagnetic fields and risk of central nervous system disease in utility workers,epidemiology,11(5): Maisch, D. Mobile phone Use: its time to take precautions ACNEM Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp 4, April 2001 Microwave News,German Academy of Pediatrics: Keep Kids Away from Mobiles,, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp 5, Jan/Feb 2001 Misra Anurag,High frequency radiation pollution due to cell phone and tower in India, 9 th Asian symposium on visualization,hong Kong 2007 Rajendra, P.,Sujtha, H N.,Devendranath, D.,Gunasekaran, B.,Sashidhar, R. B., Biological Effects of Power Frequency Magnetic Fields :Neurochemical and Toxicological Changes, Biomagnetic Research and Technology,Uppal Hydrabad,India, 2004 Vincent, J, mobile: Examining mobile phone and ICT use amongst children aged 11 to 16, Digital World Research Centre, University of Surrey (UK), 2004 Williams,B et al, Effect of 2450 MHz microwave energy on the blood-brain-barrier to hydrophilic molecules, temperature and blood-brain-barrier permeability to hydrophilic tracers Res Rev 7: , 1984

Harmful Effects of Mobile Phone Tower Radiations on Muscle and Bone Tissues of Human Body at Frequencies 800, 900, 1800 and 2450 MHz

Harmful Effects of Mobile Phone Tower Radiations on Muscle and Bone Tissues of Human Body at Frequencies 800, 900, 1800 and 2450 MHz American Journal of Physics and Applications 2015; 3(6): 226-237 Published online January 8, 2016 (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajpa) doi: 10.11648/j.ajpa.20150306.17 ISSN: 2330-4286 (Print);