Radiation from mobile phones is harmful to children

One can see that the lifestyle change has resulted in usage of mobile phones by almost everybody (2 out of 4) and the children are fascinated by the mobiles. Parents give the mobiles in small children’s hand as a toy and to school going children as a status symbol.

In spite of repeated news appearing in World Wide Web and in newspapers, little attention is paid to the harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the mobile phones. No body wants to even know about it, neither the users nor the manufacturers.

A landmark research study carried out in US and Denmark into the use of handsets which may have major public health implications, showed health effects in the children whose mothers have used mobile phones when they were pregnant. The researchers surveyed 13,000 children and found that even less frequent usage was sufficient to increase the health risk to the children. These children developed hyperactivity, and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships. The health risk in children, below 7 years, using the mobile phone is much greater. Some children are more sensitive than others to the radiation emitted by mobile phones.

There is a need for strict regulation to ensure that the manufacturers of the mobile phones maintain the radiation emission levels of the mobiles much lower than the standards. Base stations near schools and crowded areas should be avoided. There should be a dedicated regulatory body for strict regulation of the mobile phone usage. The regulators should also look into the safety of erecting antenna on the residential building tops. The RF radiation levels should periodically monitored and the readings should be displayed for public knowledge and for checking compliance with the set limits by regulators.

Goiania’s radiation accident – down the memory lane

In 1987, a scrap yard in Goiânia suffered one of the worst accident involving a radioactive source. Two families live and work at the scrap yard in the Brazilian city. Plastic and metal scrap collected off the streets is sorted out for recycling. Scrap merchants sold a metal canister left at an abandoned medical clinic. It looked harmless but valuable. They had no idea that it contained a powerful radioactive source used to treat cancer. The equipment was opened and the glittering radioactive Caesium chloride powder was shown to the friends and relatives of the junk-yard owner. Small fractions of the powder were gifted as souvenirs.

Thus, unknowingly, the contamination became wide spread over two weeks period. 250 people were contaminated. Four died in the first month. The management of the accident generated 3000 cubic meters of radioactive waste, which was disposed off in near surface repositories on the outskirts of the city.

The incident brought global changes in radiation safety. Lessons drawn from the accident are still helping to shape actions on radiation safety and security decades later. Before the accident, the regulations were weak when it came to controlling radiation used in medicine and industry worldwide. There was no awareness that radioactive sources must be controlled from ´cradle to grave´, and to prevent the public accessing them. Since the accident, the gradual replacement of sealed sources containing the soluble, powdery form of cesium chloride has been considered. The task is not easy. The IAEA has been developing rigorous safety standards for dealing with orphaned sources of this kind in the metal recycling industry. .

Fly-ash waste from thermal power plants

Coal-based thermal power plants burn train-loads of coal in a day and the percentage of ash generated is of the order of 35-40%. This waste needs disposal, and the target buyers are cement manufacturers and brick makers. The bricks made out of this fly-ash are cheaper as compared to the conventional bricks. The fly ash contains the naturally occurring radionuclides coming from uranium and thorium series of elements and Potassium-40. These radionuclides are present in the coal in parts per million (ppm) levels and get concentrated in the fly ash. A few hundreds of Becquerel (unit to express the quantity of radioactivity) of the radioactivity per kg of the material are likely to be present in the fly-ash.

One of the daughter products in uranium and thorium series is the gaseous radon isotopes. Being gaseous, the radionuclides diffuse out of the bricks/walls made out of the fly ash. These are emitting alpha radiation, and give dose to the lungs when goes inside the lungs as an air contaminant via inhalation route.

From radiation protection considerations, it is suggested that before fly-ash is used for commercial exploitation, an assessment of the materials is made for their radioactive content and the probable dose it is likely to give. If necessary, the material should be processed to remove the radioactivity content as much as possible. Clearance from the appropriate national authorities such as Atomic Energy Regulatory Board in India, may be required before large scale use of the “waste” fly-ash materials in cement or bricks used for construction of residential buildings.