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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
Thursday 11 March 2004
Dear Dr Levy
As it is your job to promote and defend the Airwave Tetra system, so it is mine to help defend the residents of Worthing who are suffering from Tetra installations, erected without consent or consultation.
A local resident, J— C— of St Elmo Road, Worthing wrote to you in February about Tetra masts, and you were good enough to reply on 4 March. We acknowledge your standard answers, though we are glad that you admit that the advice given by NRPB was that 17.6Hz transmissions were ‘unlikely to pose a hazard to health’, ie that their opinion was such, in the face of a lack of proper research. You, as well as I, know that the health and safety guidelines on the intensity of radio frequency transmissions constantly quoted have nothing at all to do with electromagnetic radiation pulsed specifically around beta brainwave frequency. The Home Office still seems to insist that base stations do not pulse, whereas we have measured them, and assuredly they do.
We are not afraid of radio frequency electromagnetic fields, nor of being cooked by microwaves. We are, however, intelligent, informed (please, not misinformed!) adults with professional qualifications and prominent social standing. We know that if only for the sake of the pulsed radiation, and that unlike mobile phone masts, these masts talk to each other without land lines, these installations are indeed different.
We are familiar with the Home Office sponsored research, and indeed that its methodology may be questioned in places. However, unlike you, we had a Tetra mast switched on on February 26 in the midst of a residential area, and have been suffering the physical effects ever since. I have no doubt that you must have dismissed all the other communities in the UK suffering identical symptoms so far. Apart from the insult this is to us, it is also short-sighted, and one day the reasons for them will be determined. It is a tremendous shame and a huge opportunity lost that epidemiological surveys of such localities have not been undertaken, to confirm that the coincidence, both temporally and spatially, of these repeatedly reported experiences, has no connection with Tetra.
The most unethical research programme I have ever seen is that of the 15-year epidemiological long-term survey of 100,000 police officers to be undertaken by Imperial College. No food or drug would be allowed into the market place for 15 years whilst testing it on human subjects, with or without their permission. While the research is being conducted on police officers who can leave their handsets switched off, those of us living near the masts are being bombarded with this radiation 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and are completely ignored. We do not ban smoking in the workplace because it is unpleasant, but because passive smoking causes lung cancer. Some people are particularly sensitive to the carcinogens, whilst others smoke all their lives to a ripe and healthy old age. What you must recognise is that a surprisingly large proportion of the population appears to be sensitive to this pulsed radiation, and that uncertainties exist for the rest of us.
From your tone, you seem to suggest that since it is ‘impossible to prove a negative’ and yet that there is a ‘level of uncertainty’, the best course of action is NOT to take the precautionary route suggested by the Stewart report! This we cannot understand.
When we say we can’t sleep, suffer migraines and headaches etc., would you now suggest that we must also ‘prove a positive’? You can’t have it both ways.
Can you explain why the health reports by so many people in so many places are dismissed and ignored? It is one thing to fail to find a scientific reason for things (that is the history of human thought and learning), it is quite another to say that because you can’t identify a causal mechanism that the result does not exist.
Your faith in O2 as a company capable of dialogue and consultation with the public is, I have to say, a trifle naiive. Whatever their company policy (and I know that David Varney, their Chairman who is also Chairman of Business in the Community, would no doubt be horrified if he knew the extent to which O2 Airwave is behaving so badly to local communities), this is assuredly NOT their practice. Their arrogance is overwhelming, such that Sussex Police Authority, for example, distances itself publicly from their activities.
Finally, when you laud the benefits of Airwave, do remember that cheaper and more assuredly safer systems for delivering the same results have always been available. We have no contention with the aim to provide an excellent communications system, but Tetra has too many question marks to be stamped so universally on the face of the UK, and is certainly not best value for (our) money.
I think that my points regarding the health issues deserve some response, and I look forward to hearing from you. Is this really a "safe, just and tolerant society"*?
yours sincerely
Andy Davidson
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