The safety of cell phone towers is the subject of extensive scientific debate. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that the electromagnetic radiation they emit, even at low levels, is dangerous to human health.
The cell phone industry is expanding quickly, with over 100,000 cell phone towers now up across the U.S., which is expected to increase ten-fold over the next five years. The industry has set what they say are "safe levels" of radiation exposure, but there are a growing number of doctors, physicists, and health officials who strongly disagree, and foresee a public health crisis.
Many towers have been built recently in Siskiyou Colorado, with dozens more planned, as telecommunications companies rush to corner markets in this fast-growing industry. These towers emit radio frequencies (RF), a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), for a distance of up to 2-1/2 miles. They are essentially the same frequency radiation as microwaves in a microwave oven.
Studies have shown that even at low levels of this radiation, there is evidence of damage to cell tissue and DNA, and it has been linked to brain tumors, cancer, suppressed immune function, depression, miscarriage, Alzheimer's disease, and numerous other serious illnesses.
Children are at the greatest risk, due to their thinner skulls, and rapid rate of growth. Also at greater risk are the elderly, the frail, and pregnant women. Doctors from the United Kingdom )UK) have issued warnings urging children under 16 not to use cell phones, to reduce their exposure to radio frequency (RF) radiation.
Over 100 physicians and scientists at Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health have called cellular towers a radiation hazard. And, 33 delegate physicians from seven countries have declared cell phone towers a "public health emergency".
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in charge of setting the standards of exposure for the public, and claims that, based on scientific studies, the current levels are safe. But it is not a public health agency, and has been criticised as being "an arm of the industry". Many who work for the FCC are either past, present or future employees of the very industries they are supposed to regulate. With an explosively emergent $40 billion dollar a year industry at stake, critics have stated "you can bet that their studies are going to show whatever they want them to show".
"Our federal government also once told us that asbestos, cigarettes, thalidomide, and the blood supply were "safe", but which were later found to be harmful.
"You can bet that their studies are going to show whatever they want them to show."
Scientists and advocacy groups say that the current FCC "safe" standards are based on 1985 research, and fail to consider more recent research that found brain cancer, memory impairment, DNA breakdown, and neurological problems with RF at much lower levels. The earlier studies considered only the "thermal", or heating effects of the radiation - in other words, the level at which the radiation would heat tissue, or "cook" a person, in the same exact manner that a microwave oven works.
The FCC levels may ensure our tissues are not "cooked", but they fail to address long-term chronic exposure at low levels, or what is called "non-thermal" effects.
Doctors say that RF radiation is wreaking havoc on normal biological cell functions. "RF alters tissue physiology"says Dr George Carlo, an epidemiologist who found genetic damage in a $28 million research programme, paid for by the industry. He now fights to have safety levels lowered. [9]
In 1998 the Vienna Resolution, signed by 16 of the world's leading bioelectromagnetic researchers, provided a consensus statement that there is scientific agreement that biological effects from low intensity RF exposure are established. It says existing scientific knowledge is inadequate to set reliable exposure standards. No safe exposure level can be established at this time.
Cell phone towers expose the public to involuntary, chronic, cumulative Radio Frequency Radiation. Low levels of RFR have been shown to be associated with changes in cell proliferation and DNA damage. Some scientific studies show adverse health effects reported in the .01 to 100 mW/cm2 range at levels hundreds, indeed, thousands, of times lower than the US standards. These harmful low levels of radiation can reach as far as a mile away from the cell tower location. Reported health problems include headache, sleep disorders, memory impairment, nosebleeds, an increase in seizures, blood brain barrier leakage problems, increased heart rates, lower sperm counts, and impaired nervous systems.
Health Effects From Cell Phone Tower Radiation
Source: mountshastaecology.org
Date: 07/01/2008
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