Mobile phone radiations & health effects

There have been many posts in this blog on the health concerns of indiscriminate use of mobile phones. Also, articles periodically appear on this issue which is of serious concern from public health considerations. The most recent ones appeared in an Indian news paper Mumbai Mirror. The reported study indicated that the radiation from the mobile phones weakened the bones by reducing the bone density. A decade-long investigation in UK, overseen by World Health Organization (WHO), says that heavy mobile users have higher risk (39% increase) of developing brain tumours later in life. Most of the health effects are of long-term nature and will be manifested only after a few years of usage.

In spite of all these, one fails to understand why the government authorities turning a blind eye to these concerns about the potential health effects, likely to be in catastrophic scale in the near future?

New Reference Computational Phantoms of the Adult Male and Female of the ICRP

In its recent recommendations (ICRP Publication 103: Recommendations of the ICRP. Annals of the ICRP 37(2-4)), ICRP adopted the new reference male and female computational phantoms, called RMCP and RFCP. These voxel phantoms will be used for the forthcoming update of organ dose conversion coefficients. The phantoms are based on medical image data of real persons and are consistent with the information given in ICRP Publication 89 (2002) on the reference anatomical and physiological parameters for both male and female subjects.

The reference voxel models are constructed after modifying the voxel models (Golem and Laura) of two individuals whose body height and weight resembled the reference data. The organ masses of both models were adjusted to the ICRP data on the Reference Adult Male and Reference Adult Female, without spoiling their realistic anatomy.

The numerical data representing the phantoms will be contained in electronic data storage medium (CD-ROM) that will accompany the upcoming publication. The phantoms' technical description is contained in a series of Annexes that form the larger part of the publication:

One of the aims of the report is to assist those who want to implement the phantoms for their own calculations.