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Dr M F Levy
Head of Airwave Sponsorship and Radio Planning
Information and Communications Technology Unit
Home Office, 7th Floor
50 Queen Anne's Gate
London
SW1H 9AT
21 April 2004
TETRA Airwave and human electrical sensitivity
Dear Dr Levy
Many thanks for your informative reply of 5 April, which I appreciate. I am glad to learn that your are not dismissive of our concerns. However, you say that it would be impossible to carry out studies on adults:
- because you can't separate the effects from different sources, and
- because you have formed some idea of how weak a signal should be before you think it might have an effect on the human body.
I might respond by saying that it is not just coincidental that the very day a mast in Worthing was switched on, people around the mast started having disrupted sleep and headaches. These people have been living with three other mobile masts, co-located with TETRA, for years, and without apparent effect on their lives. Also, when they go away, their symptoms are relieved. When masts are turned off, or turned up or down, their symptoms disappear, get worse, or get better! The same is true in Bognor, in Littlehampton, in Dursley, in fact everywhere these masts go. Sleep deprivation, headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, increased epileptic episodes and much more. However, you may regard that as uninformative and anecdotal, and unworthy of investigation? You may regard such symptoms as unfortunate but acceptable? We hope not. We therefore call on you to recognise these reports for what they are: real people in trouble from TETRA.
We suggest that valid research into what is happening is really a lot easier than you think. We are calling this "the missing experiment".
Erect two TETRA masts, place them in two new communities, right among the houses. Make sure that each location is similar in terms of concurrent mobile phone transmission activity and social background, so that other effects of general health, activity and diet etc. are equal and controlled for. Make both base stations emit the same noises and share the same appearance, even cause the same TV interference. Don't tell anyone what the masts are, nor when the experiment starts. Then switch one on, and undergo the same tests currently being undertaken by O2 Airwave. The other remains off.
After three weeks, independently survey each community within say one mile radius (half a mile if you prefer, for economy) and see what they report in terms of concerns and unusual health and sleep patterns. If TETRA causes particular electrical sensitivity, for example, this difference should be statistically significant.
This is "the missing experiment" because nowhere in all the current and completed programmes of research by the Home Office or elsewhere, is TETRA being tested for its immediate health effects on people. There are, and have been, no epidemiological studies of communities surrounding TETRA masts, despite the wide reporting of symptoms.
We have written to everyone involved, from local level through to Government departments and agencies, we have read up all the research, we have spoken to scientists, we have spoken to people like yourself who are in positions of responsibility for this system. No one is prepared to say that TETRA is safe. This is because human testing prior to use, has not been done, and is not planned to be done. You cannot test a new drug on a sample population, whilst the entire population are simultaneously obliged to take the drug. Not even based on predictive research of the unlikely negative outcome. You, as a respected scientist know that.
We contacted Lord Avebury, because of his record and championing of human rights. When someone installs equipment that prevents another person from achieving normal health, and actively prevents them from sleeping, and then refuses even to investigate or protect, then at least two articles of the European Convention on Fundamental Human Rights are being violated. Lord Avebury responded by saying that epidemiological studies were therefore vital, and might best be done by the NRPB.
"The missing experiment" is a perfectly ethical, simple and relatively inexpensive experiment. Or so we thought. We contacted Dr Rubin, who is conducting MTHR research at King's College London into the effects of mobile phone technology on health. His reply was (in short) that to conduct the experiment would require every man, woman and child in the area subjected to the transmission of the experimental masts to give explicit consent. If even one person were to refuse, the experiment could not proceed.
That is astounding. You would not be permitted to erect and operate even one of these untested masts in any community in the UK without explicit consent from every person within range. Yet you are allowed to place these masts in these same communities, untested - providing you do not look for any ill effects, measure any response, or record any reports of ill health concerns, or fears?
This is a fact we intend to make very public indeed, unless you can demonstrate that the experiment can indeed be done. We do not wish to be subjects of an untested system that is effectively being tested on us without our consent.
Maybe Dr Rubin is wrong? He is just a careful scientist. What other good reason apart from ethics, have you not to commission such independent research; "the missing experiment", and urgently? It must surely be in all our interests to do so. Something is causing all these adverse health responses, and it is the government's responsibility to find out.
We are copying this letter as below, under introduction, in order to promote joined up thinking, open government and corporate social responsibility, as expressed by:
- 'Building a safe, just and tolerant society'
Home Office
- 'Big issues need a big conversation'
Tony Blair
- 'Reducing risks, protecting people ("R2P2")'
HSE
- 'Bold, clear, open trusted'
mmO2
- 'Connecting the public with policing'
Sussex Police Authority
- 'every person in Surrey and Sussex should have an equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible'
Surrey Sussex Strategic Health Authority
yours sincerely
Andy Davidson
Worthing Says No to TETRA
Dr Grahame Blackwell
Tetralert; representing the South West
Vivienne Coleshill
Rogate Against TETRA
John O'Brien
Protect Sussex from TETRA
Paul Wells
Bognor Against TETRA
Vivienne Baron
Sidlesham Against TETRA
Judy Gervais
SHAAFT (Save Headley and Arford from TETRA)
Mark Butler
Littlehampton Parents Against TETRA
Audrey Bannerman
FATAL (Fight Against TETRA At Ludgershall)
Stephen Lee
Ryde TETRA Action Group
cc:
Hazel Blears MP, Home Office
Rt Hon. John Reid MP, Department of Health
Timothy Walker, Director General, HSE
Sir William Stewart, NRPB
Peter Erskine, Chief Executive Officer, mmO2
Dr James Walsh, Sussex Police Authority
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