Grand Bend area residents fear radiation that Health Canada says is safe within limits
Protesters say cell towers harmful
By Debora Van Brenk,
The London Free Press
A cellphone tower protester demonstrates outside the office of Bev Shipley, MP for
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex. (DEREK RUTTAN, The London Free Press)
It’s become a common refrain among critics in Southwestern Ontario: stretching higher than city skyscrapers, the towers are blights on the landscape and health hazards to nearby residents.
Only,
this time, the targets aren’t giant wind turbines but cellphone towers.
On
Monday, a group of Grand Bend-area residents appealed to Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
MP Bev Shipley for a moratorium on cell towers — two of which are
set to be
built in that area.
Opponents
of wind turbines want them stopped until Health Canada finishes a
health study
next year. There’s no similar study on cell towers; Health Canada
calls them
safe.
Skeptics
include Melissa Chambers, who lives near Port Franks, and others who
have
signed a petition calling for a tower-free “sanctuary.”
“I
have become electro-sensitive,” said Chambers, a commercial airline pilot
who
flew around the world until her illness became debilitating in March.
Now
her world is limited mostly to cell-free areas around her home — a result,
she
says, of an extreme reaction to cellphone radiation.
Chalmers
fled London for Port Franks after a specialist in Toronto diagnosed her
vertigo, nausea, tinnitus and memory loss as an over-sensitivity to those
waves.
She
says she can feel it through her skin when she is around cellphones, cell
towers, WiFi hotspots and cordless phones.
“It
feels like a rippling, prickling sensation.”
Low-level
radio-frequency fields emitted by cellphones and cell towers are similar
to
those emitted by AM/FM radios and televisions, Health Canada says.
Shipley
said Industry Canada and Health Canada regulations govern the safety of phone
towers and, unless compelling evidence comes forward, he’s content with
the
rules as they stand.
But
even the demonstration couldn’t change the use of cellphones.
Protester
Arthur Lake of Southcott Pines said cellphone radiation contributed to
his
wife’s death from a brain tumour. Nonetheless, he continues to use one and
carry it on his hip.
Residents
are critical of the process that has enabled Bell Canada to build a bigger cell
tower near a playground and homes in the Southcott Pines subdivision of
Grand
Bend. Another tower is planned for Port Franks.
The
group gave Shipley a sheaf of papers with studies they say prove the harm cell
towers can pose. They have also carpeted the community with flyers and a
petition.
Laureen
Maurizio, an organizer of the protest, said, “We want to choose what we
live
around.”
Canadians
in 2010 were packing 24 million cellphones and there’s no sign of
stopping.Chalmers
admitted that halting all tower construction could result in
“a lot of pushback
. . . There are a lot of people that don’t want to believe it
because they want
their devices.”
A
spokesperson for Bell Canada couldn’t be reached for comment. In the past,
the
company has said its towers are safe and meet Industry Canada standards.
deb.vanbrenk@sunmedia.ca
--with
files from Derek Ruttan,The London Free Press
---
--- ---
WHAT
HEALTH CANADA SAYS ABOUT TOWERS
Cellphones
may interfere with medical devices such as cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators
and hearing aids. With respect to cellphone towers, as long as
exposures
respect the limits set in Health Canada’s guidelines, there is no
scientific
reason to consider cellphone towers to be dangerous to the public. . .
Precautions to limit exposure to RF (radio-frequency) energy from cellphone
towers are unnecessary because exposure levels are typically well below those
specified in health-based exposure standards.
Poll
Do
you think cell towers are harmful?
53% 389
votes
Yes
34% 245
votes
No
13% 94
votes
I
don't really know
http://www.lfpress.com/2012/09/10/protesters-says-cell-towers-harmful
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