So there you are, tracking this international terrorist across Europe. You know that in his pocket he’s got a vial containing a deadly virus and he’s planning to put it in the English water supply to start a nationwide plague. You’ve followed him right up to Immigration Control at Dover, and you’re determined to let the authorities know what he’s up to.

But what’s this? By some strange twist you have both been thrown back in time, back to the 13th Century. There at Immigration Control, beside a barrier of straw bales, are two burly guards. One is leaning on a rather wicked-looking broadsword, the other has a large club slung nonchalantly over his shoulder.

Nothing daunted, you decide it’s now or never. You step forward and say in a loud voice “You have to stop this man! He’s carrying a deadly virus. It could kill a lot of people!”

“Hang on mate, not so fast.” says the guard with the sword – to you, not to the terrorist. “This ‘ere virus - ” and here he runs his thumb meaningfully down the flat edge of the sword-blade “Is it, is it sharp?”

You are of course a bit nonplussed. “No, no I wouldn’t say it’s sharp. You see – “

“Well, then – “. He looks over at his sidekick, who is hefting his club in a significant way, “If it ain’t sharp, is it ‘eavy?”

“No, no it’s definitely not heavy. It’s really very sm–“

“Well, chum, if it ain’t sharp and it ain’t ‘eavy, it can’t possibly be dangerous, can it?” says the guard with the sword, in a tone that makes it clear that you’re definitely going to agree with him. “We ‘ave these ‘ere guidelines, see, the ‘Plantagenet Policy Guidelines’ we calls ‘em. Guideline number 8 – PPG8 for short – says if it ain’t sharp enough to split a reed down the middle and it ain’t ‘eavy enough to raise a bump on yer ‘ead the size of a duck egg, it can’t do no ‘arm – see?”

“But you don’t understand! A virus is tiny – you couldn’t even see it, it’s so small! It gets inside a living cell and disrupts its activity!”

The guard with the club cuts in, he knows he’s on safe ground here. “Well, if it’s that tiny, it’s millions of times too small to do any ‘arm. We’ve done loads of thump-tests,“ (here a look of deep satisfaction glows in his eyes) “an’ we know that nothing smaller than a penny whistle can’t do nobody no ‘arm, not even a baby!”

“But that’s not how it works! It interferes with the behaviour patterns of – “

“Look ‘ere mate,” Sword-man again, he’s obviously the boss, “I don’t know what your game is, but you’re dead out of order!” Club-man is hefting his weapon as if he’s looking forward to using it – very soon. “We’ve ‘ad your sort through ‘ere before, trying to make trouble for ‘onest folk.” Turning to the terrorist, “Sir, I’m really sorry you’ve bin delayed by this troublemaker. Can I offer you a mug of ale to make up for yer trouble? And if sonny-boy ‘ere tries to bother you again, you just let us know.” Then to you, “And you, scarper, quick – if you know what’s good for yer!”


So what’s all this got to do with mobile phone masts?

Well, of course we’re not talking about terrorism – though many will regard the enforced irradiation of whole communities who’ve made it clear they don’t wish to be irradiated as legalized assault.

And we’re not talking about viruses – unless of course we include computer viruses, those packets of information that can invade and disrupt an information-handling process, possibly incapacitating the whole system. Actually, this is a pretty fair description of a virus in the conventional sense – a packet of DNA information in a protein wrapper, that invades and disrupts the activity of a cell. It also gives an accurate picture of the activity of amplitude-modulated microwaves; ‘wave-packets’ of information (modulation) that has been shown to: weaken the blood-brain barrier, allowing toxins into brain cells; initiate low-temperature release of HSPs (heat-shock proteins); inhibit night time release of melatonin, an anti-cancer agent; etc, etc.

One thing we can say for sure, though: the attitude of the establishment, including establishment scientists, towards the health effects of phone mast emissions is definitely mediaeval. The NRPB guidelines, and their international counterpart, the slightly stricter ICNIRP guidelines, make absolutely no recognition of the information (vibrational) content of electromagnetic radiation. They continue to only consider the energy content of that radiation. If it’s a high-energy waveform such as x-rays or gamma rays, capable of separating an electron from its parent atom (ionisation) or splitting a chemical bond – analogous to our guard with the sword – it is obviously bad news as it can play havoc with your DNA, as well as other cellular structures. If it’s a lower-energy (non-ionising) waveform – such as microwaves – it can still have a heating effect. If that effect is ‘heavy’ enough – analogous to our guard with the club – i.e. of sufficient strength, it can heat body tissue (including internal organs – like a microwave cooker) faster than the organism can dissipate that heat. This, too, is bad news. Both of these effects are ‘brute force’ effects, observable in dead as well as living tissue. They are quite obviously destructive, just as a sword or a club is destructive. Less obvious, more subtle – and effective at a far lower energy level – is disruption of the information flow that is an essential part of any living organism. It is recognised that the emissions from a TETRA handset, for example, can upset the activity of a variety of equipment, notably ventilators, defibrillators, heart pacemakers – all of these vital medical equipment (note that none of them are technically radio receivers). For some unaccountable reason, however, it is still not recognised by the decision-makers that the most sensitive of electronic instruments, the human brain (sensitive to signals one ten-millionth of the power level of emissions a moderate distance from a mast) could be affected by such radiation. In this ‘Information Age’ are we still so ignorant of the susceptibilities of our own inbuilt information processor?

And so we continue to be told that, for example, the 17.6Hz component of the output from a TETRA mast is ‘thousands of times below the safety standards’ – meaning that it won’t actually destroy your body’s cellular structure by one form of brute force or another. Ask, though, whether the information in the vibrational pattern of that output could interfere with the information-handling activities of your brain and other cellular tissues, and the official answer is that this is not an issue – meaning that it is an issue that is not being addressed.

It was ever thus. For 100 years, throughout the 18th Century, the scientific establishment believed in a substance referred to as ‘phlogiston’ with strange properties - including, sometimes, negative weight – that was given off when substances burned. Joseph Priestley, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a renowned scientist whose own experiments led to the discovery of oxygen by Lavoisier, continued to the end of his life denouncing that discovery and insisting on the correctness of the phlogiston theory. What a good thing for the people of the 1700s, and for us their descendants, that their lives were not put at risk by that insistence.


Footnote

ICNIRP: International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation. This body issues certification as to the compliance of transmission installations with ICNIRP guidelines. These guidelines indicate the energy levels (in Watts/m2) considered to be safe, based purely on their heating effect. The spurious reference to these guidelines with reference to amplitude-modulated components of transmission is a clear indication of the lack of understanding of this totally different form of hazard.


Dr. Grahame Blackwell