It has been crazy here in the UK with the phone companies throwing up masts without planning permission and all sorts. The number of people reporting sick is frightening - 3G but mostly Tetra as soon as it is switched on. Two people were reported to have just dropped down dead when one mast was switched on last week.

I don't know if you follow news reports here but every week seems to bring another report of a very sick child (usually with leukaemia) who does not want a mast near to them but the phone companies charge ahead because to not put a mast next to one sick child means they would have to take them all out. The Orpington case is terrible - Crystal Palace has an old TV transmitter (1 million watts) and masts and there is a cluster there that I don't think has been reported. Also I am organising a London Mast Sanity Social at the Royal Festival Hall, Level 6 and a letter delivery to No. 10, Tony Blair after. We are absolutely overrun - let this be a lesson to Australia, and the rest of the world.

Best Yasmin



Mobile mast health fears

Bromley Express

06 April 2005

A MOTHER who lost her son to leukaemia claims her surviving children's health has deteriorated since a new mobile mast went up.

Angela Shields, of Footbury Hill Road, Orpington, says she and her autistic son have suffered from headaches since three O2 phone masts were put up at Orpington BT phone exchange.

But staff at the phone firm deny this is due to the new installation.

Mrs Shields said: "The masts went up one weekend and a couple of days later my son came to me holding his head and said 'headache'.

"I was shocked because he is autistic and doesn't speak. I didn't even know he knew the word!"

The mother-of-two says she has headaches most mornings and her teenage daughter's migraines have got worse.

She is now planning to test radiation levels in and around her home.

"It just seems strange that all this started since the mast went up. If the [radiation] levels are high I can say it's due to the mast."

Mrs Shields is considering using radiation-deflecting nickel paint on the outside of her house and protective coating on the windows.

Her son Michael contracted an aggressive form of leukaemia when the family were living in Beckenham near the Crystal Palace tower.

He died 16 months later, a month before his fourth birthday. A neighbour's son, who often stayed in the adjacent bedroom, also contracted leukaemia around the same time.

This spurred Mrs Shields to move to a new area without mobile phone masts.

She added: "I moved here because there weren't any masts and I never dreamt this would happen.

"As BT has sold all its roof space I feel we are fighting a battle for the whole country and maybe that's why O2 hasn't backed down because if it did it would have to do it for them all."

Community relations manager for O2, James Stevenson, said the masts were only running in a testing mode and were being switched on and off every few days.

He added: "We sympathise with her if she is getting headaches but I do not think this is due to our installation.

"It is in testing mode and all the scientific information we have is telling us that the emissions cause no problem at all for anybody."

Residents fought against the O2 masts for four-and-a-half years but they finally went up a month ago.

Campaigners are continuing to fight to have them removed. A public meeting is planned for 7.30pm on April 13 at the Goodmeade Centre, Orpington.

Website http://www.orpington


Informant: Don Maisch



Electromagnetic Fields, Leukaemia and DNA Damage
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/473112/

11:00 - 18 April 2005

I Refer to The Bath Chronicle's articles of April 14 about mobile phone masts. Geoff Webber, B &NES' planning control manager quoted the Government's planning policy guidance on telecommunication (PPG8) paragraph 30 saying that health concerns cannot to be considered when determining mobile phone mast planning applications. However, Mr Webber failed to mention that Government guidance (paragraph 29) also states: "Health considerations and public concern can in principle be material considerations in determining applications for planning permission... It is for the decision maker (usually the local planning authority) to determine what weight to attach to such considerations in any particular case."

So the guidance is at best ambiguous but does allow for health considerations to be taken into account. However, when local council tax payers object to being bombarded with harmful electro magnetic radiation from masts sited on their doorstep, planning authorities conveniently ignore paragraph 29 of the Government guidance and side with the mobile phone operators.

I should point out that independent research is constantly highlighting the damaging effects of the low level electro magnetic radiation emissions pulsing from these masts. Unsurprisingly, it is only the vested interest of Government and mobile phone operator funded research that appears to try and prove low risk to health. Some research suggests that the current (ICNIRP) Government guidelines for mast emissions are 9,000 times too high. The guidelines were adopted by government 13 years ago in the technology's infancy.

They were approved following testing on animals subjected to 20 minutes of this electro magnetic radiation. People living in the vicinity of mobile phone masts are currently subjected to this radiation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Unsurprisingly, ill health clusters are appearing around these masts.

JOHN ELLIOTT

Badminton Road Mast Action Group

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=163492&command=displayContent&sourceNode=163173&contentPK=12246223


Informant: Sylvie

Federal ‘Marshall Plan’ Needed to Protect Children’s Health and Schools, Groups Say; 'National Healthy Schools Day' April 18

4/18/2005 10:44:00 AM

To: National Desk, Health and Education Reporters

Contact: Claire Barnett of the Healthy Schools Network, 212-482-0204, or Sabrina Jones of the American Public Health Association, 202-777-2509

WASHINGTON, April 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- School building environmental problems are eroding children’s health and test scores. Parent, public health, environment, and education groups today urged the White House and federal agencies to develop a “ Marshall Plan” to identify and to promote solutions to protect the nation’s schools and the health and safety of schoolchildren. This critical issue deserves an action plan that involves federal awareness and intervention, the groups say.

Each day 54 million schoolchildren and six million adults -— 20 percent of the entire U.S. population -— enter our nation’s school buildings. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one-half of the nation’s schools have problems with indoor air quality, as well as problems with lead, radon, asbestos, chemical spills, molds, and poor lighting.

Healthy Schools Network Executive Director Claire Barnett said, “Today is another un-Healthy School Day, with 54 million children in schools with serious environmental problems that erode children’s health. This is not just a local issue. This is America’s largest, single unaddressed public health problem facing the federal agencies.”

According to the groups, many school facilities have been poorly maintained and thousands of our nation’s schools remain severely overcrowded. These problems contribute to absenteeism, student medication use, learning difficulties, sick building syndrome, staff turnover, and greater liability for school districts.

American Public Health Association’s Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP: "It is unconscionable that millions of our nation's children, many of them from low-income households, are surrounded daily by environmental health hazards such as unsafe indoor air, chemicals, asbestos and mold. This is a problem that should be addressed swiftly and thoroughly at the federal level. Adults expect to work in safe buildings, why not children?”


EDITOR'S NOTES: Also quoted: National PTA President Linda Hodge; American Association on Mental Retardation Executive Director Doreen Croser; Center for a New American Dream Executive Director Diane Wood.

See full press release and list of local events in 15 states and cities: http://www.healthyschools.org. Also available, national Coalition Position Statement 2005 and list of 300 endorsing organizations; Good News/Bad News in schools around the country.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

© 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/


Informant: Sylvie



CHILDREN & MOBILE PHONES
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/258953/

Phone masts a risk to ‘millions of lives’
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/559799/

Schools & Cellular Antennas
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/544426/

Mobile phones cause child cancer
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/501729/

Young should not use mobile phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/469427/

Mobile phones tumour risk to young children
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/469215/

Child warning over mobile phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/467288/

Mobile Phones and Health - Get off that mobile, expert tells children
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/465579/

Childhood brain cancer and EMFs
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/375650/

Children and cell phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/295280/

Teens in mobile phone danger
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/295252/

Mobile Phones and Children: Is Precaution Warranted?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/257993/

A Possible Association Between Fetal/neonatal Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation and the Increased Incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/224062/

http://tinyurl.com/crps4


Informant: Sylvie

I am more concerned about the Salford "dark neuron" effect resulting in early onset dementia rather than brain tumours. There is a significant increase (I don't have actual figures but some hospitals have been setting up early-onset dementia units to support people in their 40's and 50's) in early onset dementias and two of the (ex) BT heavy users developed early onset dementia in their late 30's. I have also had quite a few sales reps and self-employed business people who use their phone a lot saying that they are having increasing difficulty in remembering things and concentrating.

A vast "ga-ga" population would be a large drain on the world's and health people's resources.

http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/news507sal.asp (Feb 2003)

As far as I know this work has yet to be repeated by other researchers which is inexcusable seeing how important the implications are.

Alasdair Philips


Informant: Don Maisch

--------

At first sight both the Swedish and Danish studies are just another of those "No effect" articles the industry and their friends regularly publish as a counterbalance to the independent studies that show that there are biological or health effects. Actually these 2 epidemiological studies show that there is an effect, but no explanation. During the these years whenever an independent scientist published work showing Non-thermal effects or the existence of "windows", they, the industry and their helpers, always denounced it as being incredible, unreliable, never replicated, bad science, or simply ignored it. However these 2 studies show that there are "Windows", almost similar to what e.g. Salford and others found. So how credible are these studies or is it our turn to smile at them now?

On the other hand I do not think that a direct comparison can be made between these epidemiological studies and the previous biological studies mentioned. Those were biological studies and here there can be negative or positive or no effects. Both negative and positive effects, even when apparently insignificant show there is a biological effect and certainly a matter of concern. It is only a matter of intensity and time. Biological effects are certainly a warning for future health hazards. These epidemiological studies cannot give rise to any conclusions or recommendations. However, it suits the industry perfectly, because it gives them another reason to harp on the same string "Scientists cannot agree - there is no proof - more studies are required".

Sianette Kwee



Danish phone study: No need to fear mobiltelephones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/624703/