Subject: Letter to Chicago Tribune (Curry)
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 050417 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
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........Many thanks!! Bill........
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
NEW!!! Website
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 22:39:40 -0600
From: "Bill P. Curry"
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Letter to Chicago Tribune
Roy,
Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 12 as a
response to an article I read in the Tribune of the preceding Sunday. The
article in question tried to invoke a paradox that people are using wireless
phones more than ever but are less and less willing to allow the antennas to
be put up near them. The reporter tried to blame it all on the NIMBY attitude,
and she also seemed to imply that, since the telecommunications Act of 1996
supposedly forbade baseing siting decisions on fear of health hazards, we
could trust the government to protect us. All in all, I thought it was very
poor reporting.
December 12, 1999
Editor, Chicago Tribune
I am a semi-retired physicist who used to work at Argonne National Laboratory
and who has consulted in several areas of electromagnetics. Recently, I have
become concerned about the growing menace to health of humans and other
creatures of the "wireless revolution." The danger includes the effects
of microwave transmitters held against the head of wireless phone users
and the proliferation of base station antenna towers that are required for
the wireless networks, but that are inundating our countryside and our
city scapes. Not to be ignored is also the congressionally mandated
switch to digital television, which will subject the populace to at least
a doubling of radiation power density in many locations and a quadrupling
of power density in some locations.
The article "Cell Towers Still Scorned Despite Phone Popularity" by Nancy
Ryan in the Chicago Tribune of Sunday, Dec. 12, 1999 leaves two incorrect
impressions. The first of these is the notion that the residents of the
suburbs oppose these installations only because of the "not in my
backyard" syndrome. I suggest that this view is an oversimplification. I
have testified in hearings on base station antenna siting in three states.
Every hearing was well attended by citizens concerned about these issues.
Usually the attendants included residents of neighborhoods not directly
affected by the tower siting.
Second, the article leaves the impression that, because federal regulations
prohibit allowing health concerns to block antenna citing, the antennas may be
assumed to be safe. The article states that studies supporting the federal
regulations have overwhelmingly found the antennas safe. Unfortunately, the
federal regulations take no account of a large body of research published in
the last decade. Some of this research was sponsored by the
telecommunications industry’s own creation the Wireless Technology Research
group (WTR) headed by Dr. George Carlo. The studies were performed at
universities and independent laboratories. Carlo's group found and
reported to the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA) that 1)
a type of brain cancer that grows from the outside of the brain inward is
almost 3 times more probable among heavy cellular phone users than among
non-users, 2) a non-malignant tumor of the auditory nerve was
significantly more probable in cell phone users than in the population at
large, and 3) damaged chromosomes were found to be significantly more
probable in heavy cell phone users than in the general population. These
observations were later released to the public, and the results will be
submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Some recent published research results include the following health hazards
found at specific absorption rate (SAR) values hundreds of times less than the
FCC guidelines of 1.6 watts of absorbed power / kilogram of body tissue: 1)
DNA destruction at SAR as low as 0.0024 w/kg. Phillips, et. al, “DNA damage in
molt-4 lymphoblastoid cells exposed to cellular telephone radiofrequency
fields in vitro,” Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics, 45:103-110, 1998, 2)
Blood brain barrier alteration at SAR as low as 0.00004 w/kg. Salford, et. al,
"Blood brain barrier permeability in rats exposed to electromagnetic fields
from a GSM wireless communication transmitter," Proceedings of the Second World
Congress for Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and Medicine, Bologna,
Italy, June 1997. 3) Changes in calcium flow across cell membranes at SAR as
low as 0.005 w/kg (calcium regulates cell functions). Dutta, et. al,
Radiofrequency radiation-induced calcium ion efflux enhancement from human and
other neuroblastoma cells in culture. Bioelectromagnetics 10: 197-202, 1989.
4) Increased brain tumor incidence in rats at SAR as low as 0.6 w/kg. Adey,
et. al, "Brain tumor incidence in rats chronically exposed to digital
cellular telephone fields in an initiation-promotion model," Proceedings,
Bioelectromagnetics Society 18th Annual Meeting, 1996. All but the last
reference are concerned with exposures smaller than those one would get in
the main radiation beam, several hundred feet from a base station antenna.
Bill P. Curry, Ph.D. (retired)
22W101 McCarron Road,
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
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Bill P. Curry, Ph.D. |Physics is fun.
EMSciTek Consulting Co. |Trying to make a living!
22W101 McCarron Road, |Phone: (630) 858-9377
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137 |Fax: (630) 858-9159 with prior notice
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com