Government Minister Misinforms MPs

in Commons TETRA Health Debate

On Thursday 10th July 2003, in an Adjournment Debate starting at 7.06 p.m., the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing, and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears) responded to observations from MP Jim Dowd (Lab), relating to TETRA.

In that response, Ms Blears made two definitive statements, both clearly intended to allay public concerns on TETRA radiation emissions, that can’t by any normal standards be considered to truly represent the significant facts:

1. "In particular, the [Stewart] report looked into work on pulsing signals, which is one of the key areas of concern. It noted that some researchers had found that biological effects could arise from pulsing signals even at weak powers. The experiments were carried out in the 1970s and it has since been virtually impossible to replicate them."

In the section in the Stewart Report to which this refers - on calcium efflux (also often referred to as ‘calcium leakage’) from brain tissue - the 1970s studies cited above were followed by no less than five research studies published in the 1980s and 1990s (the latest in 1996) that replicated the findings of those 1970s experiments. These outnumber the total tally of unsuccessful replication attempts (all but one of which involved the same researcher, Merritt) detailed in that Report. In no way does this support the assertion that "it has since been virtually impossible to replicate" those 1970s findings. Far from being a virtual impossibility, successful replication after the 1970s was documented in the Stewart Report as the majority outcome for such studies.

If it was the Minister’s intention to include all of the above studies as ‘experiments carried out in the 1970s’ then her statement is untrue for a different reason, that of dating: a study published only seven years ago is thus falsely condemned as being at least twenty-four years old. Note also that the NRPB Report on TETRA, published in 2001, included only one additional later study in this field – yet another successful replication, in 1999.

Recent research findings by Dr. John Tattershall at DSTL are cited as a failed attempt to replicate those earlier results [N.B. This is the only ‘failed replication’ since Stewart that I have heard of!]. Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch notes that this Government-backed research fails, on three counts, to take account of conditions found to be significant in earlier studies. A study with such deficiencies can’t be regarded as a genuine serious attempt to replicate those earlier studies.
(see www.powerwatch.org.uk)

2. “I can offer that reassurance to people everywhere that the pulsing identified in the Stewart report comes from the handsets, not the masts. We need to be clear about that.”

MM02 Airwave, and others, have chosen to interpret the term ‘pulsing’ in a way that they claim does not apply to emissions from a TETRA mast. This view is questioned by many, including at least one scientist cited by Airwave as endorsing the safety of TETRA – see ‘hairsplitting’ article on the home page of www.starweave.com. What is beyond question, however, is that the output from a TETRA mast is amplitude modulated at 17.64 Hz. This is acknowledged even in a PR letter widely circulated by Airwave themselves – see ‘Oops, what a giveaway’ article on the home page of www.starweave.com – as well as being readily apparent from the section on ‘Base Station Signals’ in the 2001 NRPB Report on TETRA.

The concern about TETRA’s 17.6 Hz output derives from paragraph 5.59 in the Stewart Report – which doesn’t in fact refer to ‘pulsing’ at all, but to ‘amplitude modulation’ at around 16 Hz, as the potential threat to health. The minister makes it very clear in the preceding paragraph that this is the basis of her remarks. In other words, here “the pulsing identified in the Stewart Report” is in fact amplitude modulation, which does in fact come from the masts. In this very specific context the “reassurance to people everywhere” offered by the minister is based on an assertion which doesn’t fit the facts. As the Minister herself observes - We need to be clear about that.

This ‘debate’ – actually a pair of mutually-congratulatory monologues from two members of the same party – included references by both to use of this form of technology already being in operation in various other countries. Mr Dowd goes so far as to say “Those who fear that they are being used as guinea pigs to determine the effects of the system are misled.” If so, then they are being misled by the Home Office, who have explicitly stated that groups of police officers are to be monitored for signs of health effects over a number of years – if this is not ‘being used as guinea pigs’, it’s difficult to know exactly what is.

The misunderstanding probably arises from use of a generic term, TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) for a very specific version of that technology. There are a number of ‘flavours’ of Terrestrial Trunked Radio – non-satellite-based systems of wireless handsets communicating via earthbound base stations linked by a central ‘trunk’ network. In fact that description fits almost every mobile phone system currently in use on this planet.

But the particular mix of frequencies in this system made to order for the UK emergency sevices, and now being peddled elsewhere, is completely experimental. There is no established user base from which we can gain any reassurance. This was made very clear by a senior Home Office representative only last year. Speaking for a House of Commons Committee set up to investigate police concerns over TETRA in April 2002, Richard Bacon MP asked “What is the state of play on health research?” Home Office Science & Technology Officer Vaughn Asque replied “It is only now being rolled out. We do not yet have a user base. We need proper scientific trials.”

Hardly the response of someone who has data from numerous other countries to draw on.