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Date: 5 April 2004
Ref: AREL-5XRC7E
Dear Mr Davidson
Thank you for your enquiry regarding TETRA base stations.
I have contacted the Principal Inspector in the Radiation Policy Unit who stated that there is no evidence that the base stations can cause the symptoms that you have described. If you have any concerns regarding medical issues you may wish to seek advice from your GP.
I hope this helps, but if you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact this address again or telephone HSE Infoline on 08701 545500.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Regal
HSE Infoline
To: Andrew Regal, HSE Info line
Date: 5 April 2004
On the contrary, your reply is most unsatisfactory. Even the NRPB state that ordinary mobile masts cause some people to feel unwell and that these feelings are "real and not imaginary". Electro-sensitivity, let alone hypersensitivity, is very well attested indeed worldwide, and is associated in a scale of increasing strength from power lines, to GSM, to G3 and finally TETRA base stations.
I have indeed consulted my GP, and he agrees entirely with me that the most likely cause is the base station near our homes.
The situation I am asking you about is TETRA base stations, since characteristic manifestations of ill-health occur almost as surely as interference with electrical equipment, wherever these masts are installed. The latter is not your department, except where medical equipment is involved or where interference with vehicle electronics may cause accident or injury.
All these of course do occur, and you should consider them also.
However, my primary concern is the surprising degree of electro-sensitivity that occurs in the vicinity of TETRA base stations, coincident on their being switched on. Symptoms disappear when either the base stations are switched off, the subjects move away, or where they are shielded. Subjects similarly are directly affected when standing relatively close to similar base stations, but not, for example, lamp-posts (so it isn't vertigo from looking up!).
This therefore IS a health and safety issue, and I would be pleased if you could supply a suitable senior contact to take the matter seriously.
(You might also wish to consider the huge disparity in Health and Safety signage between O2 Airwave installations, where for some workers, warnings about safe proximities, electrical dangers, harnesses and hard hats are present, with secure fences, and at other sites almost nothing at all except a single padlock and "warning: electrical equipment".)
yours sincerely
Andy Davidson
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