|
Dr Diana Grice
Public Health
Surrey Sussex SHA
York House
18-20 Massetts Road
Horley
Surrey
RH6 7DE
3 April 2004
Dear Dr Grice
I have been concerned since February, along with a number of residents in the Gaisford area of Worthing, about a number of reports of symptoms of ill-health that appear to be connected by their characteristics, when they have occurred and why they appear to be related to this particular locality. I have since discovered that exactly the same has happened in other localities. The characteristic reports relate to persistent headaches, seriously disrupted sleep patterns, itchy skin and nosebleeds.
I contacted my GP, and have since visited him several times, since my sleep in particular has been very seriously affected. He and I have both written to the Arun, Adur and Worthing PCT, to the Director of Public Health (Dr Farhang Tahzib), and indeed to the Chief Executive, to achieve some response.
We have both received replies, indicating that the matter has been referred to Surrey Sussex Strategic Health Authority and the Surrey Sussex Health Protection Agency. Since I cannot find any reference on the Internet to the latter, I come to you. Your website appears to indicate that you have some responsibility in this area, and I note the aims of SSSHA, and your personal role with regards to public health.
This appears clearly to be an issue of public health, and indeed appears to be so across the UK. What seems to be preventing proper investigation is a clouding of the issue.
The problem is, that we suspect the cause is some kind of widespread electro-sensitivity to whatever the particular characteristics are of TETRA masts. These have been erected across Sussex, as elsewhere in the UK, and in Worthing, Littlehampton, Bognor, Andover, Gloucester — well, all over. And wherever they go the same symptoms are reported and are separately ignored or dismissed. No-one connects.
As soon as we mention TETRA, the whole matter goes up the ladder to the NRPB, who can only refer to predictive research of long-term health effects, and their opinion of that. No-one appears to be interested in what is actually happening as soon as these masts are switched on. Or they refer to all the reports as anecdotal, or indeed as hysterical. Here we have been living with mobile phone masts in the same proximity for up to nine years. We have not been living in fear or anxiety. Yet as soon as these additional antennae were switched on, we began to exhibit these symptoms.
The most likely cause seems to be the TETRA masts, because:
- sufferers who go away from the area have their sleep restored and their headaches or nosebleeds cease
- sufferers who protect themselves at night with electromagnetic shielding can sleep, and when they remove the shielding they don’t (and this shielding is very specifically directional)
- sufferers experience the same headaches in proximity to other masts than the ones in the midst their own houses.
The trouble is, this needs to be shown to be the case by some independent body, before any action can be taken, to escape the “no evidence/anecdotal evidence/ you’re just biased” attitude we receive. Something plainly is happening and must be investigated quickly.
I suspect that my correspondence with Dr Tahzib and Mr Phoenix have already been forwarded to you, under the title of “from a local activist”. This is a title I resent, not because I am active in finding out what is going on, but because it implies that I have some kind of obsession that should be disregarded. I hope that you will be able to see through this prejudice and accept me as just an ordinary man in an ordinary place experiencing something, along with many others, that should not be happening. It is public. It is about health. We need public health authorities like you to do something for us.
Please will you help us? Lack of sleep wears us down day after day, our headaches aren’t cured by pills, and children with persistent nosebleeds are endangered.
yours sincerely and in hope
Andy Davidson
| 
