-Reuters   Using a mobile phone may increase the risk of certain types of brain cancer in humans and consumers should consider ways of reducing their exposure, World Health Organisation (WHO) cancer experts said today. A working group of 31 scientists from 14 countries meeting at the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said a review of all the available scientific evidence suggested cell phone use should be classified as...

-PTI   Heavy use of mobile phones and other wireless communication devices could possibly cause cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said and asked people to use texting and free-hands devices to reduce the risk. 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. A group of 31 experts...

It is the improper mode of application, violating the law and regulations, that is responsible for the apparent adverse toxic effects of endosulfan. FROM a scientific perspective, an extremely pertinent question in the endosulfan story is why adverse health effects similar to those seen in the villages of Kasaragod district in Kerala have not been reported from other parts of the country where the pesticide is used in much larger...

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre. Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bihar’s Muzzaffarpur district, state chief minister Nitish Kumar sought to lay blame on the...

Proposed asbestos project could lead to a ‘Turner & Newall' epidemic There is a spectre over the verdant fields of Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, hitherto suppressed by the clamour and euphoria of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's massive electoral mandate. Its cause is asbestos — the magic mineral, paradoxically known by its more sinister monikers of the “killer dust” and “the silent time-bomb.” In November last, the Kolkata-headquartered Balmukund Cement & Roofing Ltd. (BCRL) proposed...