Mobile Phones, Masts & 'Electrosmog'

Our love affair with electronic equipment and wireless technology has consequences we didn't anticipate.  As our exposure to microwave and radio frequency radiation continues to climb, a growing population is becoming ill.  Their illness resembles rapid ageing with insomnia, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, cognitive difficulties, with concentration and poor memory, skin rashes, dizziness, nausea, tinnitis, depression, anxiety, tremors, heart palpations, cancer etc.  
 

What’s cooking? Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are invisible electrical and magnetic forces that radiate from anything which operates on an electrical current. Whenever an electric current runs through a wire or an appliance it produces an electromagnetic field. The frequencies at which these fields oscillate vary widely depending on what is emitting them. The frequency of EMFs which mobile phones emit are similar to the ones that are emitted by a microwave oven. Exposure to these kinds of EMFs over time may have harmful effects on adults – if a child is exposed to the same kind of radiation, the dangers are unthinkable.

What can be done

Media headlines jump back and forth between reporting the dangers or the safety of mobile phones. Because mobile phone technology is relatively new, we need much more research before we can give definitive advice. In the meantime, however, it is simply common sense to be cautious, especially where your child's health is involved.
It makes sense to restrict the use of mobile phones in your children but if you cannot then encourage them to use their phones with a speakerphone if at all possible.

The jury is still out on the benefits of using headsets to reduce your risk to radiation. Indeed, research conducted by British consumer research magazine Which has shown that hands-free mobile phone kits can significantly increase your brain's exposure to radiation. So by itself, your mobile phone headset can act as an antenna that actually channels radiation to your brain.

Mobile Phones: DO’s
     
 Encourage short calls and texting rather than calling. 
 Ensure your child's mobile phone is turned off at night and as much as possible when not in use.
 Keep cordless phone calls short. 
 Replace your cordless phone with a wired phone or a low radiation phone. 
 Replace your wireless computer router with a non-wireless router (most standard routers are wireless). 
 Replace your digital baby monitor with a wired or analogue baby monitor or a low radiation digital monitor. 
 Turn off your mobile phone when children are nearby, especially in the car and at  
 night.   
 Switch off the cordless phone (handset and base) and the wi-fi router at night if you have them.
 Try only to use your mobile phone with a headset or on speaker phone mode or  plugged into an external aerial in the car.  
 Keep a few metres away from children and pregnant women when using a mobile phone. 
 If using a mobile phone when pregnant, keep it as far away from the baby as possible and switch off whenever possible. 
 Turn off your mobile phone when there's low signal, like on the tube or in a  basement, as it "powers up" when it can't find a signal. 
 Use the mobile phone with the lowest available SAR rating.

Mobile Phones: DON’T’s

Don't encourage your child to use a mobile or cordless phone unless absolutely essential. 
Don’t let your child sleep near a cordless phone or wi-fi or mobile phone switched on. 
Don't use your mobile phone in the car with children unless you have an external aerial. 
Don’t keep your mobile phone close to your baby or child – never in the back of the pushchair. 
Don't let your child carry a mobile phone switched on in a pocket.
Don’t let your child play games or listen to music on a mobile phone.
Don't hold the phone to your ear except for short essential calls. 
Try not to use a mobile phone if you are pregnant.

         ALSO
         Avoid wireless computer games
         Avoid bluetooth
         Avoid bluetooth enhanced SatNav and satellite tracking devices (GPS)
       
 

Community-wide WiFi

This is latest addition to the already heavy electrosmog load.  In November 2009, Swindon Borough Council announced that it was introducing a WiFi 'net' that would cover the entire town.  Similar, but less extensive, schemes have been tried in Norwich, Manchester and Bridgend with varying success.
When the proposed 1,400 WiFi ‘mini-masts’ are fixed to lamp posts throughout Swindon and the project is switched on, there will be no escape from the radiation.  Everybody from the newborn to the aged will be inside the net, whether we like it or not, twenty-four hours a day for the foreseeable future. 

The government says that this is acceptable because the emissions are within the limits approved by the Health Protection Agency (HPA).  They don’t tell us that these limits, drawn up in the 1990s, disregard all but the thermal (heating) effects of electromagnetic radiation.  The huge amount of current scientific evidence – that the non-thermal effects can break DNA, cause leukaemia, brain tumours, depression, behavioural problems and much, much more – carries no weight with our political masters.   It is ignored.

Perhaps the billions of pounds poured annually into the Treasury coffers in licence fees and taxes from the industry have something to do with this official silence.  Or maybe the ‘experts’ at the HPA have developed too cosy a relationship with those in the industry they are supposed to be monitoring. 

Whatever the reason, any questions about the wisdom of current policy are invariably met with bland, evasive comments.  “We take public health issues very seriously”, “There is no credible/consistent/convincing evidence” are the usual kinds of responses, rarely a considered reply that addresses the issues raised.  In its press release announcing the WiFi plans, Swindon Borough Council quotes the HPA’s anodyne PR statement word for word.

The International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety (ICEMS) takes a more challenging view: “We take exception to the claim of the wireless communication industry that there is no credible scientific evidence to conclude there is a risk.  Recent epidemiological evidence is stronger than before, which is a further reason to justify precautions be taken to lower exposure standards”.

One expert in the field who serves on the Standing Advisory Group on Electro-pollution which advises, but is seldom heeded by, the Department of Health.  He says: “The government isn’t listening and doesn’t care what science tells it.  If WiFi had been a drug it would never have been granted approval”.  He feels that history is being ignored “It took thirty years for x-rays to be recognised as hazardous. It looks as if exactly the same thing is happening with electromagnetic radiation.  It is wrong to install WiFi without considering the potential health risks to the thousands of residents”.
He expects the effects on Swinbdon's population to include an increase in headaches, absenteeism and chronic tiredness; then an increased incidence of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease; And in five or six years time – a greater number of brain tumours”. 

It is common for scientific papers to conclude with a call for further research to confirm or contradict their findings.  Funding, at least for independent research, has nearly dried up.  Considering the crucial importance of safeguarding the public health, this is truly astonishing.  Most funding nowadays comes from the industry itself so it is perhaps not surprising that finance will not readily be allocated to any .research that might come up with awkward results.  Similarly, the industry, with vast amounts of money involved, is highly unlikely to finance a researcher who has challenged it in the past.  Some scientists are waking up to this and beginning to voice their opposition.  On past performance, the response they are likely to get will be the usual one: silence.

In the meantime and without our consent we are being used in what amounts to an enormous experiment by stealth.  The future of our children, who are most vulnerable to the potential harm that electrosmog can do to their brains and bodies, is being jeopardised.  Common sense demands that we take proper precautions to protect them.  Turning any town into a “Digital City” is a big step in the wrong direction.

Links:  www.mastsanity.org; www.powerwatch.org.uk; http://wiredchild.org; www.radiationresearch.org