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Strange
Illnesses Blamed On Police Radio System
'We Could Be
Seeing A Pandemic Of Brain Tumours In 10 Years'
By Terry Kirby
The Independent - UK
11-23-4
The ill-fated Cornish revolt of 1497 began in the
pretty, isolated village of St Keverne on the Lizard peninsula, as a
protest over unjust taxes levied by London. Now, its population has
rebelled once more against an idea imposed from afar, which they believe
could have been far more damaging than any mere financial loss.
This time the population has had more success than
in 1497, when its leaders were executed. They have won their point and
become one of the few communities in the country to be without a Tetra
radio mast. "It's not as though we aren't already chock-a-block with
radio masts and aerials around here: there's the BT Satellite Earth
Station at Goonhilly, and RAF Culdrose up the road," says John Gough,
spokesman for the anti-Tetra campaigners. "But when we saw they were
going to put up a Tetra mast, we decided to find out about it on the
internet. We were immediately very concerned." More than 350 people out
of a total population of only 1,600 lodged objections to the local
planning committee, which rejected the application to erect the
50ft-high mast on farmland near the village.
It was the experiences of others elsewhere that
motivated the St Keverne campaign. They learnt of stories like that of
Andy Davidson in Worthing who, suffering headaches and insomnia, had to
sleep with metal plates around his head; and of the 80 people around
Dursley in the Cotswolds who claim to have suffered similar problems,
one of whom has covered her bedroom windows with metal mesh to stop the
symptoms. They also learnt of Mandy Keeling and her family in Bognor
Regis, whose sickness and sleeplessness ended when the local Tetra mast
was taken down.
You may not have heard of Tetra masts, but there's
almost certainly one near you. If not, it's on the way. Tetra -
Terrestrial Trunked Radio - is the new police communications network
that is replacing their outdated, unreliable VHF system. It gives
officers a mobile phone and two-way radio in the same handset, and is
being implemented around the country by O2 Airwave, previously part of
BT, which has a £2.9bn, 15-year contract with the Home Office to supply
all 51 forces in England, Wales and Scotland through a network of around
3,500 masts. Around 40 forces have been supplied so far, but the system
will not be fully operational until May 2006.
Around 70 per cent of Tetra masts have been, or
will be, built on sites already in use; some replace old masts, others
are added to existing ones. The remainder are new masts, such as St
Keverne, requested by police to improve communications in remote areas.
The Home Office says it chose the Tetra system, which is used in 65
countries, in preference to others such as the French-based Tetrapol,
used in about 28 countries, because it is technically superior. It was
criticised by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee for failing
to incorporate financial safeguards in case the health fears proved
justified, and by the EC for refusing to accept tenders from non-Tetra
operators.
But the programme's completion next year is
unlikely to be the end of Tetra installations. O2 Airwave is
short-listed for the contracts to supply the fire and ambulance
services; this may lead to further masts. If Airwave is not awarded the
multimillion-pound contracts when the decisions are announced over the
next two months, it will be seen as a victory for anti-Tetra campaigners
and evidence of a lack of official faith in the Tetra network.
Although the health fears surrounding Tetra are
linked to concerns about mobile-phone masts, the symptoms that affect
some people appear consistent - sleep deprivation, nausea, headaches,
ear pressure, nosebleeds. They seem to stop when the Tetra exposure
ends. They occur, it is claimed, because the masts transmit and receive
signals on the 400 MHz frequency, which are pulsed at 17.65Hz. In 2000,
the Government's report on mobile-phone safety by Sir William Stewart, a
former chief scientific adviser, recommended that frequencies around
16Hz - the frequency at which the human brain transmits signals - be
avoided as a precaution, even though there was no confirmed health risk.
Campaigners say the apparent link between cause and
effect underlines their concerns about Tetra. In Bognor Regis
44-year-old Mandy Keeling began to vomit last New Year's Eve. "It was
the day, I later learnt, that the Tetra mast 150 yards from my home
began transmitting. I had two months of nausea, headaches and poor
sleep. Doctors could do nothing. Then I heard about the mast. I was
cynical about it at first. I thought, 'Pull yourself together.' I've
lived here for 12 years, and there are other mobile masts, but none had
made my brain vibrate." By now her two sons, aged nine and 19, were
suffering, too; the younger one had nosebleeds.
She went knocking on doors and discovered
neighbours had been affected as well. They campaigned to have the mast
taken down; eventually, the company agreed. The mast was dismantled in
May. Keeling was transformed: "I felt better within a month, and we're
all perfectly healthy now. Except when I go near a Tetra mast somewhere
else."
What seems clear is that, if Tetra does have an
affect, it is only triggered in those who are sensitive to low-frequency
radio waves are directly exposed. After months of sleeplessness and
headaches, Andy Davidson's solution was to take a couple of metal plates
and place them around his pillow to block out the signals from the
transmitter across the playing-field; both the mattress and the plates
were earthed. It worked. "It may be strange, but it's the only way I can
get a decent night's sleep," he says. But his wife and children have not
suffered, and a survey of more than 400 local people showed that, while
around 40 per cent had suffered from sleeplessness and/or headaches
since the mast arrived, everyone else was OK. Davidson is now moving
house.
His case is one of hundreds of examples collected
by Tetrawatch, the national campaign against Tetra, which has gathered
force as Tetra has been rolled out around the country over the past
three years. Tetrawatch argues that the system is untested; is being
imposed secretively; is shunned by many other European countries,
including France; and that health fears are being underplayed by the
Government in the same way that, say, the link between CJD and BSE was
in the early 1990s.
John O'Brien, the spokesman, stressed that the
Tetra system in this country is different to both Tetrapol and other
Tetra systems elsewhere, because to meet police requirements it uses the
pulsed technique, which is feared to create the symptoms. "This is an
untried and untested system. There is something different about this
type of Tetra system compared with other mobile transmissions systems,
and that is why we're worried about it." And concern isn't confined to
people living near base stations - a number of landowners, including
Lord Cowdray and the Duke of Norfolk, have refused to allow Tetra masts
on their land.
And then there are the police officers, who are
being exposed every day. When Tetra first began, the Police Federation,
which represents lower-ranking officers, commissioned a report by an
independent physicist, Barrie Trower. He predicted the occurrence of
cancers resulting from Tetra and warned that the system could lead to
"more civilian deaths in peacetime than all the terrorist organisations
put together". But it was too late. Tetra was already being rolled out
around the country.
One of the first forces to go "live" was
Lancashire, in 2001. Within a short space of time, more than 170
officers out of a force of 3,500 were reporting the typical symptoms.
But, says Steve Edwards, chairman of the local branch of the Police
Federation, complaints have tailed off. "If my members were suffering on
a daily basis, they would be knocking on my door every day. They are
not. Opinion is divided. I can't tell members it's safe, but I can't say
it's definitely going to damage their health."
But concerns remain. In Leicestershire, PC Neil
Dring, an otherwise healthy motorcycle officer, suffered headaches and
nosebleeds soon after being issued with his Tetra handset. He developed
oesophageal cancer and died this summer. His family believe the cancer
was linked to his handset, which he wore strapped to his body. Another
officer in the force has also developed the same relatively unusual
cancer.
It is not, says Steve Edwards, as though the Tetra
handset is even the answer to all police communication needs. "Tetra
hasn't delivered yet. It's encrypted, so it's more secure than VHF, but
it can't yet do all the things we were told it would, like send photos,
link to the police national computer, or allow communication between
officers in different forces. We hope it will be better when the whole
system is up and running."
Medical opinion is divided. On one side are the
"establishment" scientists, such as Professor Colin Blakemore, chief
executive of the Medical Research Council, who say there's no evidence
that Tetra is unsafe; on the other, independent consultants such as Dr
Gerard Hyland, a former head of physics at the University of Warwick,
who believe otherwise. "We could be seeing a pandemic of brain tumours
in 10 years," he told The Ecologist recently. Earlier this year, the
National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), the independent watchdog,
concluded: "Although areas of uncertainty remain about the biological
effects of low-level RF radiation... current evidence suggests it is
unlikely that the special features of signals from Tetra mobile
terminals and repeaters pose a hazard to health."
Curiously, The Ecologist pointed out, there is now
what some see as evidence of official backtracking on the Stewart
report. Professor Blakemore, a member of the NRPB's advisory group and
the Stewart committee, said16Hz radio waves provide "no cause for alarm.
I still hold to both of my previous statements. In principle, it would
have been better if 16Hz pulsing could have been avoided. But that was
said in the context of the strict precautionary approach of the Stewart
report." Professor Lawrie Challis, deputy chairman of the Stewart
committee, said the 16Hz warning was made in recognition of the
existence of "unreplicated research from the 1970s", and there was "no
evidence that 17.65Hz modulation of the emission from Tetra phones would
lead to any adverse health effects".
Tetrawatch questions the NRPB's independence from
the vested interests of the Home Office and the mobile-phone industry.
Answering the criticisms, Home Office ministers and Airwave cite the
technical virtues of Tetra, and refer health concerns to the conclusions
of the NRPB. The Home Office says some symptoms suffered are, like those
associated with mobile-phone masts, often related to stress caused by a
perception of risk, rather than the reality; whether some people are
genuinely sensitive to certain radio waves, it says, must be the subject
of further research. It has also commissioned a 10-year study of police
handsets by Imperial College London. But Tetrawatch says if its fears
are justified, any results will come too late.
Airwave adds that gaining the fire and ambulance
contracts would help to provide an integrated national system with only
"minimal" increase in the number of masts; that it operates within
recommended NRPB safety levels; and that the handsets pulse, the masts
do not. But such assurances are not enough for Mandy Keeling: "If a food
you could buy on the high street had all these concerns raised about it,
it'd be off the shelves straight away."
Back in St Keverne, John Gough, a 69-year-old
retired research chemist, believes they have saved the village from an
experiment with uncertain consequences: "I'm a scientist and was a radar
mechanic in the Army, so I know a bit about radiation. Nobody can give
us any assurances about the long-term effects of low-level frequencies,
and I don't see why anybody, anywhere, should be used as a guinea pig
for this."
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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