‘Forum Is The Way Forward’
and ‘Protect Our Children from Masts’
published in Knaresborough Post 12-1-01
Dear Editor
A forum in which your readers can express their views on mobile phone microwave radiation dangers is most welcome. The telecom companies and the government both profit enormously from mobile phone revenues and have vested interests in the existing system being declared safe. It is not surprising that any health hazard has yet to be proven when most research to date has been industry funded. Until more is known every possible precaution against radiation dangers should be taken, including the sighting of transmitters not just away from school grounds but well away from all inhabited areas. We welcome Harrogate Council’s new policy on this matter and hope it shows others the way.
Use of mobile phones in aircraft or hospitals is restricted due to adverse effects on sensitive electronic equipment. The little understood human brain is a much more complex device with millions of minute electrical signals, and it isn’t shielded within a metal box! Even when a link between current brain tumour cases and prolonged mobile phone usage can been proved, it may still be decades before we can hope to understand the possible damage that continuous brain wave disruption from base stations can cause.
‘Protect Our Children from Masts’
Dear Editor
Many thanks for further exposing the helplessness of communities when faced with the vested interests of the government and mobile phone companies. Your article last week included several quotes from the Stewart report. This report also describes the increased susceptibility of children and recommends that base stations should not be placed where the main beam crosses school grounds (paragraphs 6.63 & 6.65). Logically this has to apply to residential areas as well, where children spend much more time.
Local residents are currently fighting the installation of a Vodafone transmitter in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Knaresborough. The church will be making money at the expense of our children’s health safe in the knowledge that they are covered by current safety guidelines. They can wash their hands of all responsibility, as, when the dangers are officially recognised, the government and the phone companies will pay. Two biblical precedents spring to mind. It is interesting that underwriters at Lloyds and several other companies have refused to insure cell phones against health risks.
We are grateful for all that Harrogate Council has done to take a stand in this matter but ultimately they are as powerless as the rest of us. Only the government can restrict the use of the phones and the siting of base stations until more is known about the long term effects, and their past record does not inspire confidence. If one child is damaged by phones or base stations, it is one too many and how are we as parents to accept that money is more important than our children.
