Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a lobby group for mobile industry, has stated that the recently released BioInitiative Report 2012 is just an update on their 2007 report which had been heavily criticized as being biased, without balance and for not being an objective comprehensive review, or a weight-of-evidence assessment.

“Several credible Health Organisations across the world had disowned the 2007 version of the report as having clear scientific weaknesses including selection bias in several research areas, lack of multidisciplinary weight-of evidence method which leads to a scientifically sound judgment, lack of updated info, no consideration of the scientific quality of the cited reports, amongst others,” said COAI.

In a report released recently, BioInitiative Working Group 2012 said that in last five years, health risk due to radiations has increased substantially. It is an extensive report comprising review of over 1800 new scientific studies. The report also found that mobile users, parents-to-be, young children and pregnant women are more sensitive to the risks from mobile phones. IT further pointed out that a number of new studies link radiation to sperm damage. Even a mobile phone in the pocket may harm sperm DNA and result in infertility in men. Laptop computers with WiFi and mobile phone data card can also damage DNA in sperm.

Indian Cellular industry said that the BioInitiative Report is an informal interpretation of a limited selection of the available scientific information on electromagnetic fields (EMF). The report is largely critical of the internationally accepted and most widely adopted EMF exposure standards developed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), which have been endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The report does not include any new scientific data but reflects the interpretations of individual authors who do not have consensus among themselves.

According to COAI, following are comments on the reports from various bodies:

The European Initiative EMF-NET1 states on the BioInitiative Report 2012:
The ‘Summary for the public’ is written in an alarmist and emotive language and whose arguments have no scientific support from well-conducted EMF research.
There is a lack of balance in the report; no mention is made in fact of reports that do not concur with authors’ statements and conclusions.

The Committee on Man and Radiation (COMAR) Technical Information Statement2:
The BioInitiative Report...has a number of weaknesses and is a selective, rather than a comprehensive, review of the literature in various topical areas.
 
The German Federal Office for Radiation Protection3:
The Bioinitiative report has clear scientific weaknesses including selection bias in several research areas.