W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
5 December 2010
CHINGFORD: MP opposes phone-mast plans
Wednesday 1st December 2010
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/8712272.CHINGFORD__MP_opposes_phone_mast_plans/
By Safira Ali
MP Iain Duncan Smith is asking councillors to turn down an application for a phone mast near a school.
Concerned parents are opposing a proposed 12-metre mast in Richmond Road, Chingford.
They say it could be harmful to children who attend St Mary's Catholic School in nearby Station Road.
Mr Duncan Smith met with parents of children at the school and headteacher Philomena Egan last week to hear their concerns.
He said: "Considering the evidence about the damaging health effects of mobile phone base stations, it would clearly be irresponsible to have one so near young children.
"I have done extensive work on early years, and it is clear that the first few years of a child's life are crucial to his or her brain development.
"The parents of St Mary's Catholic Primary School are understandably very concerned for their children's health.
"I will be writing to the local councillors to impress upon them the need to ensure this application is never approved."
Last month Jim Stevenson, a spokesman for O2 and Vodafone, said: "We do tell anyone that asks us that there have been a lot of scientific studies done over the last two years.
"None of them have come up with any health or safety problems related to phone masts or mobile phones. We are satisfied with the research."
An application for a 15 metre mast in Shernhall Street in Walthamstow was recently turned down following a campaign by local residents.
The committee said the location was inappropriate.
Robert R
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Heated conversation! Man claims Motorola phone exploded in his ear during call
By Daily Mail Reporter
4th December 2010
Read more:
video
Comment - If he thinks this little cut is bad, how is he going to handle a brain tumour?
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Letter: Tower of Babel
Here we go again. Every eight years like a biblical plague come the cell phone drones. The same old arguments dusted off and tried again. Like a bad horror film the corpse of the cell phone tower keeps returning, seeking to scare us into submission.
If road safety is the argument, here are the facts:
In recent years cell phone use while driving is rivaling drunken driving as the No. 1 cause of accidents nationwide.
Each year, 21 percent of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 are the result of cell phone usage. This result is expected to grow as much as 4 percent every year.
Nearly a decade ago, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis calculated that 2,600 people die each year as a result of using cell phones while driving. They estimated that another 330,000 are seriously injured. Those numbers have continued to climb with the proliferation of the phones. Don't take my word for it. Read the decades long in-depth studies by the American Automobile Association. It makes for sobering reading.
Rappahannock County is significantly safer to drive in than anywhere else in the region precisely because drivers cannot be distracted by cell phone conversations, dialing phone numbers or text messaging. To repeat, Rappahannock County's roads are more safe, not less safe because it has fewer cell towers and less cell-phone usage.
Most of Rappahannock's roads are two lanes, winding, undulating and narrow. Many have no shoulders and more than a few are unpaved. That's how we like it, but there is no room for error. One glance to a cell phone's numeric dial could be the last thing you see in this life. Is the potential loss or crippling of even one life worth the added convenience we're supposed to benefit from by having cell phone service reach into every nook and cranny of the county?
Then there's our quality of life. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? Notice the difference between dining at any of our Rappahannock eateries and almost anywhere else. Outside of the county, in cell phone land, every other table is inhabited by people yammering away on their cell phones in conversation with people miles away. Who among us hasn't witnessed the absurd spectacle of a table with every single person on a cell phone talking to someone else? It reminds me of the delightful one-act opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti, titled "The Telephone," where in order to make a proposal of marriage the suitor must call his prospective bride on the phone because she never has the receiver away from her ear.
In Rappahannock County, the folks at the dining tables are talking to one another – not loudly and obliviously into their cell phones. In eateries in Warrenton and Front Royal the cacophony of ringing cell phones is part of the normal background din. In Rappahannock, we enjoy the peace and quiet of a more civilized world.
Do we really want to give this up? Restaurateurs and owners of B&Bs in the county probably understand more than most that the unique quiet and privacy afforded by the absence of obnoxious cell phone behavior constitutes part of the appeal for visitors and diners. It's one of the noisome city things they come here to escape.
Like almost everyone else I too have a cell phone. When I'm away from the county I suppose I use it as much as most people, although after a couple of breath-catching close calls I try to refrain from using it while driving. Although I confess to its usefulness, each time I drive home and enjoy the view of the Blue Ridge I say a silent prayer, thankful that I live in a place with no traffic lights, no fast-food and few cell phones. I'm relieved I can't get service and happy to turn the thing off.
There seems to be an ever present minority that isn't content without being wired in, turned on, hooked up and electronically interconnected everywhere all the time. But is the trade-off worth it? The majority of residents don't need the pervasive intrusion of cell phones in the bucolic oasis that is Rappahannock County. We don't want the tall tower and flashing lights to blight to our view sheds, the added danger to our driving safety or the degradation of civility when strolling through our local shops or patronizing our local eateries.
It is not the responsibility of our elected officials to assure the profits of multinational cell phone companies or the income of their middlemen in Virginia. The government's first responsibility, whether local, state or federal, is to protect the safety of its citizens. Before a decision is made regarding the installation of any more cell phone towers in our county a serious and thorough study should be made to determine how road safety will be impacted in our particular and specific environment. None of us would want to create the conditions for unintended consequences.
Simultaneously, considering the long-lasting nature of such installations and its possible adverse effects, we should have an adequate time for citizen feedback and discussion.
To paraphrase from the recent front page article of the Rappahannock News, "I know that the Planning Commission will remain the good stewards that we know they are, and consider rejecting the application from AT&T for a cell phone tower, with or without balloons."
Ron Maxwell
Flint Hill
David
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Is Your Health on the Line?
Unless you've had your cell phone permanently glued to your ear, chances are you've heard the recent health buzz: Mobile devices may cause cancer. While it's true that the National Cancer Institute has ruled them safe, a growing number of independent researchers disagree.
Those experts point out that the FCC wireless regulations on cell phone safety are largely based on something called specific absorption rate (SAR) levels, or the rate at which our bodies absorb radiation. Most phones do comply with the federal standards, but SAR monitors only thermal effects. (In other words, if the radiation from your phone isn't cooking your brain, it's regarded as safe.) But mounting scientific evidence suggests that nonthermal radio frequency radiation (RF)—the invisible energy waves that connect cell phones to cell towers, and power numerous other everyday items—can damage our immune systems and alter our cellular makeup, even at intensities considered safe by the FCC.
"The problem is that RF can transfer energy waves into your body and disrupt its normal functioning," explains Cindy Sage, an environmental consultant in Santa Barbara, California, who has studied radiation for 28 years. "Here's why that's crucial: Overwhelming evidence shows that RF can cause DNA damage, and DNA damage is a necessary precursor to cancer."
The 2010 Interphone study, the largest to date on RF exposure from mobile phones, has spawned a quagmire of controversy, says health researcher and medical writer Kerry Crofton, Ph.D., who spent four years reviewing RF science for her book Wireless Radiation Rescue: Safeguarding Your Family from the Risks of Electro-Pollution.
Many groups, including the National Cancer Institute and the telecom industry, read the results of that study as a green light for wireless calling.
Others, like Crofton, point out that because it was largely based on lower cellphone usage in the '90s, the research has little bearing on today's world, in which 285 million Americans have mobile phones and 83 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are "wired" all the time and sleep with their cell phones next to their heads.
One thing the Interphone study did find? People who chatted via cell for just 30 minutes a day for 10 years saw their risk of glioma (the type of brain tumor that killed Ted Kennedy) rise 40 percent.
As a result, many European countries are considering banning cell phones for children under age 6 (RF penetrates little kids' brains more easily), and France has already banned all wireless technology in some schools and many public places, notes physician and epidemiologist Samuel Milham, M.D., a leader in the growing field of electromagnetic research.
All parties agree on this: More studies need to be done. In the meantime, it's best to take easy precautions—and not just with mobile phones. "Never before in human history have we gone from one radiated environment to another," says Crofton. "We're going to wireless offices and living in wireless homes. Even beaches and parks are going wireless. We're exposed everywhere."
The good news is that you don't need to ditch your gadgets. This advice will let you stay plugged in—and keep you healthy.
Cell Phones
When your phone is on (which it probably is even as you read this) it's constantly sending and receiving RF signals to and from the nearest cell tower to keep you in service. The farther you are from a tower, the harder your phone has to work and the more RF it emits, explains David Carpenter, M.D., director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University at Albany. The activity really amps up when you're, say, driving through rural areas. Plus, within the close confines of a car, your entire core is exposed to the radiation.
The safer solution: Keep your phone off when driving until you really need it, says Carpenter. And no matter where you are, avoid holding a cell phone directly to your noggin (the Interphone study showed gliomas were more prevalent on the side of the head people continuously pressed phones to), always keep it at least six inches or more from your body (in your purse, not your pocket), and use either speakerphone or a corded headset (not a wireless headset). Or text up a storm. If you have a smartphone that's loaded with games, music, and movies, turn your wireless settings off while playing or rocking out. Similarly, don't ever use your cell phone as a bedside alarm clock without first disabling the wireless mode.
Cordless Phones
These stealth wireless threats "have become so powerful, they're often as strong as cell phones," says Sage. "The phone base is like a mini cell tower. It radiates 24-7 and can have a range of up to 300 feet."
Particularly suspect are digital enhanced cordless telecommunication (DECT) phones. Preliminary blind studies have found that, when sitting beside a DECT phone base, some people experienced arrhythmia, a troubling heartbeat irregularity that could eventually lead to stroke or coronary disease, says Sage.
The safer solution: You might feel somewhat retro, but "just get a corded phone with an extra-long cord so you can still walk around," says Crofton. "They're better, they're cheaper, and they work in a power outage. Every time you replace a DECT with a corded phone, you're cutting the RF levels in your home significantly."
Wireless Routers
Your neighborhood coffee shop's wireless Internet access may often seem like a godsend, but the router that's needed to provide the service is continuously emitting high levels of RF (up to 200 feet out), and that constant exposure has been linked to deadly diseases. "If the whole body is radiated by a router's RF emissions, the greatest concern is cancer, especially leukemia," says Carpenter. Also, be aware of your at-home router and any plug-in wireless USB cards you often use.
The safer solution: Ditch your wireless router and plug your computer directly into a cable modem, says Sage. That Ethernet technology doesn't leak RF and is often faster and more secure. If you just can't give up your wireless router (e.g., if you live in a home with a handful of computer users), make sure you sit as far away from it as possible, says Crofton, and turn it off at night and whenever you're not online. Another easy fix: Plug your router into a surge protector with a timer, and set it to go off each night so you don't have to remember to flip the switch.
Laptops
"When you hold your laptop on your lap, what you're essentially doing is radiating your pelvis," says Carpenter, "so all the cancers that affect that area are of concern."
Indeed, early studies point to a heightened risk of testicular cancer for men who keep RF-emitting devices close to their belts. For women, adds Carpenter, "the studies aren't quite there yet, but I think we can say that anything that might cause cancer almost always causes birth defects, so pregnant women—or those wanting to become pregnant soon—should take extra precautions."
The safer solution: Keep your laptop off your lap (if you have to rest it there, buffer it with a sturdy pillow that's at least six inches thick). Try to use a desktop computer at home and treat your laptop as an on-the-go convenience. One thing to keep in mind: Laptops are a high RF radiation risk only while connected to wireless Internet, so when you're watching a DVD, fiddling around with your photos, or writing that dissertation, just disable your connection and you'll be much safer.
Baby Monitors
"Baby monitors release more RF than cell phones do, and putting them next to a crib is very, very unwise," says Carpenter. He points to a recent University of Utah study that shows RF radiation can penetrate almost entirely through a child's brain, which doesn't form completely until nearly 20 years of age. "It's very clear from all the existing research that the younger the child is, the more vulnerable he or she is to the effects of RF radiation."
The safer solution: Consider not using a baby monitor. If you absolutely must use one, place it far from your baby's crib—at least 10 to 15 feet away.
Bill
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