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Phone masts probe indicates no danger to public
A REPORT on mobile phone masts says there is no evidence to suggest that they pose a risk to health.
The government report was instigated after Douglas North MHK John Houghton raised concerns in Tynwald in June 2007 about a phone mast located above the Village Walk Health Centre, in Onchan.
Doctors at the health centre were concerned about health problems which may be caused by radiation from the masts and also about what they said was a lack of consultation about the siting of the mast.
A 1,000-name petition was collected in protest at the mast.
Mr Houghton asked that a working party be set up to look into the matter.
A working party was established by Tynwald to examine the siting of masts, current government legislation on masts and whether this legislation was being adhered to.
The inquiry also looked at whether there was a need for further regulations about the siting of mobile phone masts.
That report has now been published and says that there is 'no general risk to health of people living near mobile phone mast base stations'.
It says the 'vague symptoms' reported by some members of the public are more likely caused by 'anxiety' over being near to phone masts.
Even directly under a phone mast the power of electromagnetic fields would be much lower than when an individual was using a mobile handset.
However, the report does suggest that precautionary measures should be made in relation to children.
It says that there is no scientific evidence that electromagnetic radiation from masts has an adverse effect on children, but as a precaution any masts in school grounds should be set up so that the strongest signals are directed away from school buildings.
And while there is no evidence of ill health being caused by masts the report says that when patients report symptoms that they think are caused by phone signals their GPs should take every measure to determine the cause.
In the recommendations section of the report the working party says it would like to see a code of practice set up in regard to mobile phone masts similar to the one in operation in the UK.
It also recommends that the Department of Local Government and the Environment accepts that the public health directorate be notified about planning applications for mobile phone masts.
The working party also want the public health to produce material about research into mobile phone masts in a form that is easy for people to understand.
The director of public health should also monitor international research about phone masts and health issues and raise any subsequent concerns with the minister for health and social security.
The working party looking into the possible health dangers of mobile phone masts was led by Dr Parameswaran Kishore, director of public health.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Send your comments to newsviews@newsiom.co.im
YOUR COMMENTS
I have to completely disagree with this statement! To say that there is no evidence of health problem is completely untrue. There are 2 published studies showing a tripling of cancer incidence after 5 years exposure in the main beam of a phone mast.
The Naila Study, Germany: 10-year Study of Residents near Mobile Telephone Mast 1000 case notes were studied of patients living within 400m of the mast for 10 years. The doctors found a trebling of cancer risk after 5 years exposure. www.tetrawatch.net/papers/naila.pdf Cancer near a cell-phone transmitter station. Tel Aviv University. Wolf MD and Wolf MD. They found a 4-fold increase in cancer within 350m of a normal mast. Www.omega.twoday.net/stories/518760 Full Study: www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20050207_israel.pdf There is a study on Children in Latvia showing increase in cognitive disorders on exposures to similar intensities in the main beam of a phone mast. This study was not included in the UK's Stewart Report In fact there are 1000's of lab studies showing effects from double strand DNA breaks to increase in tumours on exposure to similar levels of intensity from a phone mast or WiFi. Some of these were reviewed by a group of eminent international scientists in the Bioinitiative Report www.bioinitiative.org. Please see our web site for more information.
SARAH WRIGHT, www.mastsanity.org
I wonder why Dr Parameswaran Kishore's working party failed to find any evidence of health hazards from mobile-phones masts. One needs only search the World Health Organisation research database in order to find that 80% of mast studies show adverse health symptoms in people living near masts.
Please find linked two documents.
The first: http://www.mast-victims.org/resources/docs/who.pdf
is a list of mast studies from the WHO database. Notice the symptoms found in the description of each study and also note that the "WHO id"
column is a link pointing to the actual study in the WHO database, for checking.
The second document: http://www.mast-victims.org/resources/docs/basestation-studies.pdf
I received from Prof. Michael Kundi of the University of Vienna, Austria who recently published a scientific review of mobile-phone mast studies. Notice that the studies marked with red show adverse health effects. Prof. Kundi's review demonstrates that all the red studies comply with WHO standards of scientific quality and thus should be included in risk assessment. See the review abstract here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19261451
Please note the passage: "Cross-sectional investigations of subjective health as a function of distance or measured field strength, despite differences in methods and robustness of study design, found indications for an effect of exposure that is likely independent of concerns and attributions."
I hope Mr. Allen and his journalist colleagues will challenge Dr Parameswaran Kishore's claims of "no risk" from mobile-phone masts.
Those claims are obviously not based on science.
HENRICK EIRIKSSON, www.mast-victims.org
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