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MONEY FOR JAM? Cellphone companies are offering schools lucrative inducements to install cellular equipment, such as this transmission mast, disguised as a palm tree, at George Campbell Technical High School in Durban.
The ultimatum from the teachers at Eldorado Park Senior Secondary School in Joburg was clear: either the planned cellphone mast went, or they did. For Lionel Billings, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.
“I thought that I could rather lose the mast but not the teachers,” says Billings, the chairman of the school’s governing body. “My kids also attend the same school.”
The school entered into a contract with Cell C more than two years ago and a mast would provide a guaranteed income. “The thought of radiation was in the back of my mind… but some of the schools in the area do have these towers and I thought it can’t be that bad.”
But when construction started towards the end of last year, everything changed. “The teachers told me if the mast went up, they would leave. They had done their research and were concerned about the dangers of cellphone masts.
“Some of the research was very inconclusive, but the bottom line was that the word radiation was mentioned in every article. That was enough for them to say we don’t need this at our school. I don’t want to put our school’s 1 600 learners and 50 teachers at any risk. We don’t even allow cellphones at the school.”
Tracey-Lee Dorny, the chairwoman of the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Foundation of SA, applauds the school’s move, noting that a village in Spain has just removed a cellphone mast after 50 villagers contracted cancer or suffered from headaches, insomnia and depression.
Too many schools in SA allow the erection of cellphone masts on their grounds, says Dorny, despite “burgeoning” scientific evidence about the potential health effects of electromagnetic fields emitted by cellular base stations.
“There are thousands of papers showing possible links to cancer, and now increasing incidents of attention-deficit disorder, Alzheimer’s and diabetes from cellphone radiation,” she says.
“When I give talks to schools, the first thing I ask is who is sleeping with their cellphones under their pillows. Almost all the hands go up. You find our children hiding their cellphones on their bodies so that they don’t miss an SMS while their poor little breasts are being fried.
“I teach the children how dangerous phones are and not to put them in their bras or panties, sleep with them under their pillows and walk with them in their pockets.”
Like most South Africans, Dorny, an events organiser, was using her cellphone regularly two years ago. But when she and her family, who live in the upmarket suburb of Craigavon, Joburg, started to fall ill, they looked at the iBurst mast just metres from their home.
“I was actually using iBurst,” recalls Dorny. “But I ended up starting to vomit until I brought up blood. I had a rash from head to toe. It felt like my eyes were melting in my head. My husband had bleeding headaches. My son would wake up screaming in the middle of the night holding his head, which he said felt like a rocket had gone off.”
Dorny says the effects were so severe that the family could not live in their home for 18 months. Eventually, iBurst dismantled the mast, which had been illegally erected, but its former chief executive maintained it had been switched off for weeks at a time and denied it could be the cause of similar illnesses affecting scores of residents in the suburb.
Dorny believes she has another battle on her hands. She says MTN’s testing of 4G LTE (long term evolution) is “scorching” trees in her garden and the surrounding area, and is the source of growing reports of illnesses, including tinnitus, headaches, shooting pains, nausea and dizziness, in the suburbs where it is being conducted.
4G is the fourth generation of wireless communication standard for an era of ultra-fast broadband internet access.
“People ask me if we’ve had a fire here,” says Dorny, pointing to a cluster of some of the 60 burnt and blistered pine trees in her garden – she has numbered each one.
She says 4G has higher penetration levels into buildings, and “therefore into our bodies”. “My big concern is that we’ve got so many service providers rolling out waves and levels of radiation… but they are actually clueless about the damage they are causing… The only reason we have 4G is purely to now flog a whole generation of gadgets to the public. What sort of powers and frequencies are being transmitted to do this and what is it doing to people?”
But Dr Walter Meyer, a senior lecturer in the physics department at the University of Pretoria, disagrees. “In principle, electromagnetic radiation can cause heating effects. The best example is the microwave oven, but the kind of effect to scorch a tree would imply a serious health hazard to people.
“You actually start heating people up, cooking them. It’s certainly possible… but the power output of such a transmitter would be much higher than that which is used for cellphone communication. I doubt whether this scorching is due to cellphone radiation. To have those kinds of thermal effects you should in principle feel the heat.”
Ivan Booth, a former Vodacom spokesman, lashed out at Dorny’s “pseudo-science”.
“I’m willing to put a R1 million bounty out there to anyone who can prove that cellular base stations scorch pine trees,” he wrote.
But Dorny says several studies point to the deterioration of trees around masts. “I’m not an alarmist. I wish I could shout louder. What’s happening now with the mass of towers and all the different layers of technology on top of each other is you’re being exposed to electromagnetic radiation 24/7. You’re not having a choice of ‘I don’t want this coming into my home, it’s making me ill’. You can’t switch it off like you can your cellphone.”
SA is guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the exposure guidelines published by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). SA authorities say that there is no risk to the health of the general public from exposure to the microwave emissions of cellular base stations, for example.
Barrie Trower, a military scientist from the UK, on a visit to King Kgafela II of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana, notes how there are at least 11 international committees that “vehemently” oppose both the WHO’s and ICNIRP’s safety levels.
“This is mostly due to the former’s safety levels being based… on thermal levels, whereas other international studies recognise responses to electrochemical interactions between microwaves and cellular biochemistry and set safety levels according to lower rates.”
The king had invited Trower to speak because he blamed the death of his father from a brain tumour on a cellphone mast erected near the royal residence.
Last May, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the WHO reclassified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as a Class 2B carcinogen – possibly carcinogenic to humans – because of links to some types of brain cancer.
“But this has been ignored by the industry,” says Dorny. “They will keep quoting the ICNIRP. But those guidelines have been declared obsolete by several governments, because it’s only based on six minutes of thermal heating on an adult male… not one organisation has yet declared what they feel is a safe level for children… We’re sitting in 2012 with masses of new technology and huge cellphone use.”
Late last year, a Danish study, billed as the largest of its kind, found that there were no increased risks of brain cancer from cellphone use after tracking 350 000 users for 18 years.
SA, says Dorny, should err on the side of caution and follow the example of Sweden, Canada, France and Switzerland, which have adopted safer radiation limits for their citizens and even prevented wireless fidelity (wi-fi) in schools.
She accuses government departments of passing the buck and leaving SA’s cellphone industry “unregulated” and uncontrolled.
The departments of Health, Environmental Affairs and Communications and the Independent Communications Authority of SA failed to respond to the IOS’s queries.
Last year, Olle Johansson, an associate professor at the department of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and a scientific adviser to Dorny’s foundation, wrote an impassioned plea to the SA government. He said several studies had demonstrated “cellular DNA damage, disruptions and alterations” because of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
The ICNIRP/WHO public safety limits were inadequate and obsolete with respect to prolonged, low-intensity exposures, he said, and the precautionary principle should be in force in the implementation of this new technology, especially when it came to the exposure of children.
Dorny says her exposure to the iBurst mast made her electrosensitive, which means she becomes ill when exposed to electromagnetic radiation. She wears specially made nets to shield her from radiation at home and when she travels. According to her foundation, 3 percent of the world’s citizens are electrosensitive, and the number is surging.
Dorny is not averse to the use of technology but says that a properly planned fibre-optic network, “from backbone to final source”, is safer if broadband is to be expanded.
She even owns a cellphone. “It’s an ancient thing but I only use it for emergencies. It’s never on. I used to use my phone quite avidly. But I don’t feel well when I do use one. If I have to pick up a smartphone, it actually burns my hand.”
She adds: “Anything… that is going to make you sick is of concern. If it’s going to give you rashes, make you vomit, give you blurry vision, memory loss… that either happens till the signal goes down or you take yourself away.” - Saturday Star
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Anon, wrote
Tobacco industry = PR people well paid to ridicule and lie. Mobile phone industry = PR people well paid to ridicule and lie = dead birds + dead bees + dead people. Some witchcraft eh?
Anonymous, wrote
cellphones = witchcraft. tv = witchcraft. education = subversive. just wear a tin foil hat. have to go, my voices are telling me to clean my guns
Rob, wrote
I quote from the World health Organisation Web Site. Are there any health effects? A large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use. This sort of scare psuedo science is raising the level of anxiety in society as well as causing economic damage.
Linda, wrote
Every reliable study takes time. Decades sometimes. I believe we are about to see plenty more difference of opinion until time shows true impact of man made EMF radiation to human health in long term. Until we know more, it doesn't harm to just be careful about the time we spent exposed to EMF radiation. I used to keep my cellphone in my pockets all the time, and I used to sleep with it next to my head so I can hear the morning alarm when it goes on. I don't do that anymore. I've also reduced time spent on my cellphone; I use corded phones whenever possible. I use cellphone protection (http:personalbioprotector.com ) as additional precautionary step to reduce amount of radiation reaching my body.Basically, it's simple; there's a golden rule I always keep in mind - when it comes to EMF radiation -"distance is your friend".
helen corcoran, wrote
radiation sickness from microwave radiation has been around since the 1930's and has been well documented in Russia. I never knew what it was until I suffered mysterious health symptoms for 6 months - insomnia, eye inflammation,headaches etc and spent most of that time being referred to A & E by my GP. Finally I realised that a mobile phone antenna mast was beside my house, and had been there for the previous 6 months coinciding with my ill health. The mast was there for 3 years. When it was removed I had developed microwave sickness which is referred to in the west as electrosensitivity. I can no longer live a normal life with this condition which is not recognised by governments for fear that they will lose the revenue they receive from the mobile phone industry. People like me have had their lives destroyed and receive no medical nor practical support from those who have caused the damage eg the mobile phone company concerned, the business premises on which the mast was erected and the government who profits from the revenue. How many more years do we have to wait for an apology from the Irish government? How many more of our children have to die from this radiation before the government comes clean and tells the truth? How long more do we have to wait - having to stomach the sickening lies told by vested interests ? We have indeed reached a new low when profits come before the lives of our children - it is time for this scandal to be exposed.
Meme-Man, wrote
Having read some of these posts I might have to reconsider what I wrote about non-ionizing radiation and the square inverse law... something is making people's thinking go fuzzy.
In support of science, wrote
Blackberry documentation advises “If you do not use a body-worn accessory supplied or approved by RIM when you carry the BlackBerry device, keep the device at least 0.98 inches (25 mm) from your body when the BlackBerry device is turned on and connected to a wireless network.” Why weren't people getting these warnings in the past? Why is it only now that they're being cautioned to use headsets, limit duration of calls, restrict use in childrenteens as much as possible...?
In support of science, wrote
In Feb 2011 Volkow's study reported that it takes just 50mins of cellphone exposure for the emitted radiation to increase brain cell activity. In April 2011 the Supreme Court of Italy ordered Vatican Radio to compensate the small town of Cesano following allegations that "the broadcaster's high-powered, inappropriately sited, AMFM transmitters put children at a higher risk of cancer". According to a 300 page report by Milan's National Tumour Institute, “There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between exposure to Vatican Radio’s structures and the risk of leukaemia and lymphoma in children.” The report also stated that there were risks of dying form cancer for people who had resided at least 10 years within a 9km radius of the radio’s giant antenna towers near Cesano." In May 2011 Time Magazine pointed out that the reclassification of electromagnetic radiation as a possible carcinogen "is notable because until now, the WHO had reported that 'no adverse health effects have been established for mobile-phone use.'"
Jimmy, wrote
Craigavon is not an upmarket suburb. It is a swamp that has been drained, has sewage flowing down it's main street and is used as a tip for dumping. No wonder people there get sick.
anonymous, wrote
it is about time that the lid was blown off this particular foul can of worms. Shame on the media for their cowardice in not exposing this corruption. Our children are dying while governments and the mobile phone industry continue to hide the truth.
Anonymous, wrote
Eileen OConnor, wrote
I believe that many people may be suffering as a result of electro sensitive symptoms without understanding the real cause. I often visited my doctor with headaches, dizzy spells and suffered with sleep problems when living 100 meters from a 22.5m phone mast, I eventually developed breast cancer at the age of 38 and discovered that I was living in a cancer cluster. Dr Becker said: The major problems come from extremely low frequencies, but higher frequencies have the same effects if pulsed or modulated in the ELF range. Robert Becker points out in his book “The Body Electric” “experiments in which cells or organisms are exposed to a single unmodulated frequency, though sometimes useful, are irrelevant outside the lab. They're most often done by researchers whose goal is to be able to say, “See, there's no cause for alarm.” Dr Blackman also mentions pulse-modulated frequencies in his paper: “Evidence from ELF and RF studies supporting more inclusive risk identification and assessment”
Joe64, wrote
The power transmitted from a tower is the same as 10 cell phones @3w each. When one sits in a meeting room with 15 cell phones, the radiation from that is 1.5 times more than that of the mast. The transmitting power of a cell mast will put you in connection with that mast, depending the setup, at MOST, 5 km. 3G has poor penetration into buildings and will work over much shorter distances. While the radio wave from say, communication satellites, radio stations, TV broadcasting, will connect you anywhere on the planet, miles and miles away from the transmitter. It's not like these things send out signals that are any different to a radio signals you receive in your car, only a lot less powerful than FM radio. Your microwave at home has 900w and presumably contained, while these mast at MAX will send out 30 watt. At 2m away the radiation is almost not measurable. Radiation of different types will have different effects on human, but simple every day stuff like RC cars run on the same type of radio signals albeit it on a different frequency. Calm down, if you phone has no effect on you, relax.
Meme-Man, wrote
Anon @6.18pm - who worked with RF and had no ill effects; in light of my original posts (non-ionizing and inverse square law) I must say it does underline that thesis. The case of children is an entirely different question - Again, invoke the inverse square law and you get the point - an adult has thicker skull and the deep brain regions are significantly further from a cell phone held to the ear than in kids - so; radio masts aside, yes - young children using cell phones (for significantly longer as a rule than adults would) can cause 'normal' RF burns (though not ionize radiation).
Anonymous, wrote
Different people will react differently to EMF radiation exposure; not all will develop cancer, but some of them really might, that's what studies show. I personally believe that reliable studies take long time, to test all long term effects of EMF radiation to human health. Until then, we are about to hear many opposite opinions whether cellphone radiation is carcinogenic or not. I also believe, if something is labeled "potentially carcinogenic", caution is advisable. I don't have to stop using cellphones completely, it's just there are ways to reduce amount of radiation I'm exposed to (until I know with certainty that I can sleep with cellphone under my pillow and still stay healthy). I don't use as much cellphone as I used to; I have completely lowered time spent in talking via cellphone. I use land lines instead (learned to love my good old corded phone). I also use EMF protection (http:personalbioprotector.com ) that reduces man made EMFs to to Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum called Scumann resonance, natural and safe to human body.I text more whenever I can, to avoid calling. And I use a headset when I have to make a phone call.
Anonymous, wrote
I am 66 years old. I worked on radio transmitters for 40 years. frequencies varied from 500khz to 23ghz. unlike cell masts pumping a couple of watts, these beasts pushed up to kw each and I was often on site with tv transmitters, which are the real bad boys pumping signals near the cell phone band up to 50km. Long story short.. I am not aware of one of my workmates that has ever suffered cancer or tumors.. actually there was one, he had skin cancer removed.
Terry J Theunissen, wrote
Commonsense, wrote
It is thanks to activists like Dorny that people today are more aware of the risks. A few years ago few thought there could be the slightest health risk with their phones or children's use of them but today cautions like this one from Mobile Phones UK website are now mainstream in first world countries: How to reduce your exposure to phone radiation Do not use your phone more than necessary and keep your calls short Send a text instead of making a call Try to avoid using your phone if the signal strength is low - find a better location to make a call Try to use the phone outdoors rather than inside, or move close to a window to make a call Keep the phone (and particularly the aerial) as far as possible from your head Avoid touching the aerial while the phone is turned on, and keep the phone away from areas of the body such as eyes, testicles, breasts and internal organs Limit usage as much as possible if pregnant Switch off your phone when not in use ..... http:www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uksar.htm But only a small percentage of people in this country are aware of this. Such an important debate and the more the neverending ad hominem attacks (alarmist pseudo-scientist hypocrite loony...) can be avoided the closer and quicker we'll get to the actual truth.
Sue Wright, wrote
Here is a example of a meta analysis for those who claim there is no evidence (too lazy to look) http:www.hese-project.orghese-ukenniemrecologsum.php This review of over 220 peer-reviewed and published papers found strong indications for the cancer-initiating and cancer-promoting effects of high frequency electromagnetic fields used by mobile telephone technology. Experiments on cell cultures at power flux densities much lower than the guidelines, yielded strong indications for genotoxic effects of these fields, like single and double stranded DNA breaks and damage to chromosomes. The findings that high frequency electromagnetic fields influence cell transformation, cell growth promotion and cell communication also point on a carcinogenic potential of the fields used for mobile telephony. The study also found teratogenic effects (birth deformities) and loss of fertility in animal studies. Moreover, disruptions of other cellular processes, like the synthesis of proteins and the control of cell functions by enzymes, have been demonstrated.
tim, wrote
This is just a press release from her one person advocacy group. IOL has made not made any attempt to critically evaluate her claims.
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