Benson: Mobile Phone Tower Cancer Clusters
EMR Issues - Phone Mast Dangers
To begin the section, we have chosen some Australian content. This is an excerpt from "Joining the dots: An overview of public health trends in 2007: To what extent do these trends reflect the research into adverse effects on health of Electromagnetic Radiation? A Discussion Paper" by Melbourne Researcher Sarah Benson. The full paper, downloadable as separate chapters, is available at an external site, located here.
The passage below is taken from the section of Sarah's document focussing upon Cancer.
Mobile Phone Tower Cancer Clusters
In 2002 Tory leader in the UK, Iain Duncan Smith, called for an urgent government probe into the link between mobile phone masts and cancer after it emerged that people living in five of the seven homes surrounding a building in Woodford with16 masts on its roof have contracted cancer.
The incidence of leukaemia near these masts is also far higher than would be expected normally, according to statistics. There was a significant decline in the incidence of all cancers the further residents lived away from the masts.
Also in the UK Dr John Walker from Sutton-Coldfield compiled three cancer cluster studies around mobile phone towers from Devon, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands. He was convinced they showed a potential link between the angle of the beam of radiation emitted from the masts' antennae and illnesses discovered in local populations.[i] Dr Sutton first noticed a high number of specific cancers in the early 1990s. Out of 18 houses in one street ten people were diagnosed with one form of cancer. He said the odds of three such clusters occurring were one in a billion. The epidemiological figures show that, within 1.4 miles of the Sutton-Coldfield mast, the number of adult leukaemia cases was nearly double what would normally be expected.
In April 2007 The Sunday Times reported that seven clusters of cancer plus serious illnesses had been discovered around mobile phone towers in the UK.
In 2003 Telecom company Orange suspended operations at a school phone mast site in Paris after eight cases of cancer were confirmed among children in the district.
Near Cardiff in Wales at least eight residents in the parish of St Georges and St Brides died of cancer over five years, and in every one of the 10 houses on a residential street close to the Sandy Heath transmitter in Bedfordshire, there has been a cancer death.
In 2006 17 people around a mobile phone tower in Norfolk County in the US reported symptoms of microwave sickness – including headaches, fatigue, nausea and dizziness since the installation of the tower. The tower was removed.[ii]
An industry funded study found in 1997 that of the exposed mice, 43% developed cancer, compared to 22% in the control group.[iii] This was regarded by biomedical scientists around the world as highly significant.
"…it may indicate that in individuals genetically predisposed to certain forms of cancer, the long-term intermittent exposure to RF such as those used by mobile phones may be an important stimulus in the induction of malignancy."
Peter French, Principal Scientific Officer, Centre for Immunology, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, 2001[iv]
In the UK in 1999, analysis conducted for The Sunday Times by Professor Gordon Stewart, one of Britain's leading epidemiologists, showed there may be a significant increase in the risk of cancers, including leukaemia, associated with mobile phone masts. The study revealed an increased incidence of cancer within up to 7km of masts. Subsequent inquiries unearthed clusters in London, Bedfordshire, south Wales and the Midlands. People in one area near the mast were found to be 33 per cent more likely to suffer from cancer. Studies of the sites show high incidences of cancer, brain hemorrhages and high blood pressure within a radius of 400 yards of mobile phone towers.
In Warwickshire, a cluster of 31 cancers were found around a single street, and a quarter of the 30 staff at a special school within sight of a 90ft high mast had developed tumours since 2000, while another quarter suffered significant health problems.
The tower was pulled down by the mobile phone company after the presentation of the evidence by local protesters. While rejecting any links to ill-health, the company admitted the decision was "clearly rare and unusual".
A health survey carried out in Spain in 2004 around two GSM mobile phone towers showed "statistically significant positive exposure-response associations between the E-field and fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea, loss of appetite, sleeping disorder, depressive tendency, feeling of discomfort, difficulty in concentration, loss of memory, visual disorder, dizziness and cardiovascular problems."[v] According to the Mast Sanity group in the UK, 47 cancer clusters have been reported around schools in Spain.
A study instigated by the President of the Federal Agency for Radiation Protection in Germany from 1999 until 2004 found that after five years operation of the mobile phone tower, the relative risk of getting cancer had trebled for the residents of the area in the proximity of the tower compared to the residents outside the area[vi].
Two studies carried out in 2004 around transmitters in Israel found a threefold increase of cancers within a 400 m radius of transmitters, and for breast cancer a tenfold increase was found. As a result, two lawsuits were filed for 33 people who lived close to phone towers and who consequently contracted cancer and leukaemia in that year.[vii]
In 2006 an Egyptian study found that "Inhabitants living near mobile phone base stations are at risk of developing neuropsychiatric problems and changes in the performance of neurobehavioral functions – either by facilitation or inhibition".[viii]
In France researchers found that people living within 300m of a base station suffered from tiredness, headaches, sleep disruption, and within 100m irritability, depression, loss of memory, dizziness, and loss of libido.[ix]
In 2005 the Nobel Prize winning Irish Doctors Association listed 70 research papers showing the dangers from low level microwaves. Dr. Santini listed 20 similar studies, the EM Radiation Research Trust listed 9 studies, Dr. Blackwell listed 6 similar studies in his report, and finally, four international universities completed the Spanish Study which verified all of the known illnesses.
Public health surveys of people living in the vicinity of cell site (mobile phone) base stations should be being carried out now, and continue progressively over the next two decades. This is because effects such as …cardiac disruption, sleep disturbance, reduced immune system competence, cancers and leukaemia are probable[x]
Dr Neil Cherry, 2001.
A study published in 2007 by Mina Ha of Dankook University in South Korea found that "children living within 2km of an AM transmitter had more than twice the risk of developing leukaemia, compared to those living more than 20km away." [xi]
Communities living near the Vatican radio transmitter north of Rome have reported high rates of cancer – with twice the usual rate of childhood leukaemia within six kilometres of the radio station. The incidence of both decreased with distance from the antennas.[xii]
In 2000 Australian Dr Bruce Hocking presented the findings of a health study done on residents within a 4km zone surrounding Sydney TV towers. He found that children living within this radius had a 60 per cent higher incidence of leukaemia than children who lived further from the towers - with a far greater risk of dying from the disease. Dr Hocking also found a slightly increased rate of adult cancer in the study area than beyond it.[xiii]
When you turn on the body's defence mechanism against disease, which the non-ionising radiation does, and you keep turning it on every day, you down-regulate it and it no longer turns on.
Professor Ted Litovitz, 1999[xiv], Catholic University of America, 1999.
In October 2007 another cancer cluster of 10 people was discovered on the top floor of a hospital in Israel, and another one in Mt Kuringai in Sydney, Australia, also in 2007.
We thank Sarah Benson for both her research and her permission to reproduce it upon this website.
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