Mobile mad: the wisdom of a wireless world

No going back? How about forward?

Imagine this announcement on the BBC Today programme, Tonight with Trevor Macdonald, Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman – whatever – carried on our new digital audio broadcasting and digital terrestrial TV.

‘The German government has today recommended that the existing mobile phone network must be dismantled and replaced in five years, that progressively masts must be removed from anywhere within one kilometre of residences and workplaces within the next two years, and that broadcast telecommunications must be supplied entirely by cable within ten years. The race is on for an alternative technology that is proven to be safer, and whoever wins has an immense global market in their grasp.

‘Following the latest findings of the widely respected European Association for Awareness of Radiation Growth and Harm (EAARGH), replicating earlier Russian and Polish studies, that all long-term human exposure to pulsed electromagnetic frequencies, from UHF to visible light, presents a confirmed risk of cancer in a sizeable minority of the population, it has been decided in Germany that the cost of healthcare and to society has become greater than the cost of developing alternative means of communications.

‘In recent years a significant number of highly skilled professionals, who form an increasing part of an ageing workforce, have become unable or unwilling to work in wireless environments, and their skills are being lost to the German economy. Demands for places of refuge are increasingly being listened to, as the incidence of electrosensitivity has shot up, and losses to the workforce been felt by German and international companies.

‘The rest of Europe is expected to follow suit, but the German government felt that by taking the lead, their own initiatives and expertise in new technology and change would be economically advantageous. Whilst at present litigation has been limited, it is expected that the courts will see a huge growth in health damage claims, though at present where blame will be apportioned is unclear. By taking an active approach, the German government intends to pre-empt accusations of being as culpable as industry scientists who have known about the risks for several decades.

‘Inevitably the stock market has reacted badly, and share prices have plummeted in all telecoms utilities. Nokia is considering legal action, and unions are finding themselves is a difficult position: protecting workers who have had to use wireless devices, yet protecting jobs. The immediate fallout is difficult to measure. Is this the death of the mobile phone? Or were microwaves just the cheapest and most convenient way of talking to each other?

‘And now, we have in the studio the Home Secretary, the Chairman of the Health Protection Agency and the Research Director of EAARGH. We are joined by the chief executive of the Global Institute of Satellite and Mobile Operators (GISMO). Thank you for joining our discussion. This is obviously a major turning point in global communications, and one that has been hotly debated for many years. Now that the link between pulsed EMFs and electrosensitivity and with cancer or motor neurone disease has been effectively proven, what is the UK going to do about it? Should we all throw away our mobile phones? And what are the police to do with their radios? We have almost 80,000 masts, not to mention broadcast stations for this programme going out now. What are the alternatives to a world in which we can communicate anything instantly and to anywhere, but where we many of us can expect to contract cancer as a direct result?’

Now imagine the answers from our studio visitors. Imagine the newspaper headlines. Imagine the industry response. Imagine the reaction of ordinary people on finding out that this has been known about by politicians and scientists, let alone the industry, for decades and that nothing was done.

Now ask yourself: what if the research indicating DNA damage from chronic low-level exposure to mobile phone masts, and twice-daily phone calls, about suppression of melatonin production, affects on blood composition, increase in stress proteins etc. is true? For sure we do not know that it is all wrong. Maybe, just maybe it is all wrong; that the clusters of cancers arising around phone masts after six to eight years are caused by something else, the rise in acoustic neuromas adjacent to phone antenna points are pure coincidence, that the widening reporting in electrosensitivity has nothing to do with our wireless world.

We were wrong to deny that power lines increased leukaemia incidence. But maybe we are wrong to accuse our wireless world now.

As the NRPB has told us personally: ‘you must decide’. But do you believe that the ‘balance of evidence is that mobile phone radiation presents no risk to the general population’? Where do you think that balance might actually lie, in relation to 50:50, and who do you trust?

You can choose whether to use a mobile phone. You cannot choose not to live near a mast. And if you use a mobile phone, you need a mast in someone else’s garden, street or place of work.

Are you still sure we don’t need an alternative to microwaves? The higher up the electromagnetic spectrum we go the more risk there is, because each photon carries more energy. TETRA is 400MHz (human cell resonation is around this frequency), DECT phones and mobiles are 900MHz, 1,200MHz and 1,800MHz, 3G is at 2.1GHz, computer network WiFi up to 5GHz. Heard about 4G communications? That’s terahertz, the near-infrared. Above this comes visible light: the one zone of the spectrum that reaches the earth’s surface, and to which we are biologically accustomed. After that comes ultraviolet, and above that ionising radiation, which we have come to respect.

We have swamped ourselves in EMF, and worse, we have decided to pulse it, to modulate it and to use biologically active frequencies. Sooner or later we must decide whether that is good for us.

And why are we requiring that every one of our police officers and CSOs uses TETRA daily and frequently, while we have any uncertainty at all?

  It’s not about technophobia. Here is another view.

  Just out of interest, this is what China is thinking . . .

  And the cost?

back

top of page