However it also noted that the dramatic rise in cancer incidences since the middle of the last century could not be accounted for solely by the simultaneous spread of cigarette smoking, since at least 75% of the cancers had shown up in sites other than the lungs in the human anatomy.

It was discovered that the Chinese smokers, for instance, showed a much lower rate of lung cancer than their American counterparts, which pointed to the evidence that something else, besides smoking, was responsible for lung cancer. There is growing conviction that the cancer epidemic is the result of the presence of a complex mix of apparently unrelated factors in modern life and we need to understand that tobacco can no longer be touted as the scapegoat for all cancers.

There are more than a 100,000 man-made chemicals in use today and the long term impact of most of these is still uncertain. It is time now to separate tobacco from its marketed versions or the industry behind it. All cigarettes sold by the tobacco giants contain anything up to a 1,000 additives, which actually add the lethal punch to the product, and lace it with addictive ingredients. It is more than a certainty, that it is this long list of 'other' factors which have made smoking as hazardous as it is today and ever-new factors are being added to the unending list.

The most prominent amongst these is the cell phone, which is treading the tobacco path to doom. Critics claim the cell phone industry, just like the tobacco industry, seems determined to prevent and deny any suggestion that its products might be dangerous; however a new report claims that cigarettes are slowly being replaced by an equally addictive obsession-the mobile phone. The prevalence of smoking fell to 23% in 1999 from 30% in 1996, the same year mobile phone use skyrocketed among 15- to 17-year-olds. In India the wireless subscriber base has reached the 250 million mark and it was slated to become the second largest wireless network in the world by April 2008.

"The marketing of mobile phones is rooted in promoting self-image and identity, which resembles cigarette advertising," the researchers note. Though the long-term effects of extensive cell phone radiation on consumer brain have not been studied, there is enough suggestive evidence to evince concern that prolonged exposure to electromagnetic radiation could trigger brain tumours.

Mobile phone companies are of course refuting these findings, but the warning from the award-winning specialist, Dr Khurana, has revived the debate on prolonged use of handsets, bluetooth and electromagnetic radiation from cell phone towers. The outcome of the 14-month study by Dr Khurana is significant for India, which is on top of the heap in adding new mobile phone subscribers. The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) in its $28-million research programme into possible health effects from cellular phones revealed, that heavy cell phone user experienced increased rate of brain cancer deaths, development of tumours and genetic damage.

There has been no follow-up after that because the cell phone industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry that can't afford to publicly admit that cell phones are dangerous. Moreover, similar to Big Tobacco, the cell phone industry will be opened up to large liability claims if they were to start issuing warnings and precautionary notices. "In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to observe the impact of this technology on brain tumour rates," said Dr Vini Khurana's study, and it has concluded that mobile phones may kill far more people than smoking or any other pollutant in circulation at the present time.

Earlier this year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones,
particularly for children. Germany also advises people to minimise mobile handset use. Professor Khurana based the notion that cell phones are more dangerous than smoking on the fact that 3 billion people use cell phones worldwide, which is three times more than the amount of people who smoke.

Dr.Roopa Vajpeyi Hony.Editor