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The TETRA handsets for the police are considered far more potentially dangerous than the masts because the handset is a brief but intense source of radiation close to your head. When the technology was first used in Lancashire, 177 police officers (out of 246 respondees to a questionnaire) reported symptoms including migraine, nausea, sleeplessness and lack of concentration. Norfolk Police have confirmed that six people including a chief inspector at North Walsham police station have become ill, with dizziness and headaches, since a mast on top of the station went live in late February/early March this year. Twenty five people living near the mast have reported similar illness.(10)
The late Professor Ross Adey, at the University of California, who studied the effects of pulsed low frequency and microwave radiation on people for several decades, and whose work was funded by NASA and the American military, has commented: “I would be very concerned about a four-watt TETRA hand-held radio against my head day after day.” (11) While researching this article, I heard of officers “terrified” (their word) of using TETRA but also pressured not to speak openly about it.
One brave Lancashire police officer wrote to the Police Federation Magazine in March 2002 saying “I personally know of new cases of skin problems, sleeplessness, migraines, depression, difficulty in concentrating and headaches”. He has been moved to another section. One police source said to me that the system was a “done deal the first day we heard of it.” They felt they had no choice in the matter. “It was something we couldn’t stop.”
Speaking only in confidence, a senior police source told me “I’ve got to be guarded. There’s an awful lot of political pressure regarding this issue.” He was not allowed to speak to other officers about the risks of TETRA, and felt that his career was on the line if he objected publicly. He spoke of his feelings of being kept ignorant and isolated. He asked for information and he asked for help – any help; legal help or campaign help. I was moved: it isn’t often that someone so powerful sounds so helpless.
I spoke to Steve Pierce, Chair of Devon and Cornwall Police Federation. “We need 21st century technology,” he said. “And in that sense we welcome TETRA. But if you ask me am I easy about TETRA, the answer is no. How can I be?” In October 2002, at a Police Federation meeting on TETRA, Pierce spoke to Dr. Mirielle Levy, the Home Office Health and Safety Officer in charge of TETRA. Levy remarked that, “Nothing will stop TETRA and if the Officers don’t like it, they can resign...” Heads swivelled. Conversations stopped, said Pierce. An officer asked her who would be responsible if he contracted leukaemia. “No one is,” she replied.
Tell that to Dr. Ian Dring. His brother Neil, a police officer from the Leicester constabulary, died in agony of oesophageal cancer this summer. Neil, he said, was convinced that it was TETRA which caused his death. “If people want to know how it feels to have your brother die in your arms, fighting for 48 hours for every breath, then I’ll tell them. It was a death you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”
Dr. Dring, himself a scientist, has spent much of his working life in Health and Safety and monitored his brother’s condition. “As soon as he started using TETRA, he got severe headaches. And the site of the tumour was where he mounted the handset.” Neil had none of the preconditions for oesophageal cancer; he was only 38, younger than the age group associated with it, he was a non-smoking, light-drinking triathlete with no stomach problems and whose diet was good. “To us,” said Dr. Dring, “that’s suspicious. And then another officer of similar age and equally healthy has been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the Leicester force and in the same place.” Dring quotes the U.S. Cancer Society as saying that for a man under forty without preconditions, the incidence rate would be one in 100,000 and, they added, the chances of two people getting that kind of cancer simultaneously would be millions to one.
Stan Sexton, health and safety adviser for Leicestershire police has said that the second officer rarely used TETRA for radio calls. Dr. Grahame Blackwell, who formerly led a team researching and developing third generation mobile communications, says that’s not the issue. “Even infrequent use could initiate cell disorders that are then accelerated by radiation” (from masts, often sited at police stations) which “inhibits the body’s own immune response.” In other words: radiation from handsets could trigger problems which are then worsened by constant exposure to radiation from masts. I spoke to Professor Challis about these two officers. “Sadly people die of cancer every day,” he said, and dismissed the case of two identical and rare cancers as chance.
Meanwhile, Llanidloes is realising the diversity of its talents. The mayor and his town councillors energetically oppose the mast. An ex-physics teacher reads up on the science. In the buildings around the mast, people inform their landlords they will move out of rented business space if the mast is switched on. People who have never campaigned over anything in their lives get active. (“Never,” says Councillor Morgan, “never, ever underestimate Llanidloes.”) The guys in the local printers stay working till ten at night to help produce information leaflets. The town council organises a leaflet drop to every house. Someone begins a subvertising campaign NO2 TETRA. Llanidloes is famous for its annual Fancy Dress Night competition, when thousands of people flock to the town in costume and this year the local MP, Lembit Opik, gleefully chooses the winner of the competition: “Doctor TETRA” in a lab coat brandishing a toy silver TETRA mast.
A public meeting is called. 02 are invited. And the NRPB. And the helpful MP. Local people come in their hundreds. Virtually everyone is there. Except, that is, 02. They send an insulting letter saying “the nature of public opposition and local activism have raised serious concerns with regard to the safety of 02 employees at such a meeting.” (They are worried about their safety?) Further, they say: the site “perfectly fits the needs of the Airwave service.” Quite, comments Lembit Opik, “but it does not fit the needs of Llanidloes.”
The man from the NRPB, Dr Michael Clark, arrives and speaks of sunshine, x-rays and ordinary radio signals. He says very little of TETRA. And he lies to the town, claiming that the Trower report was not commissioned by the Police Federation. (When I spoke to Steve Pierce, I asked him about the Trower report. “Do you know who commissioned it?” “Yes.” “Can you tell me?” “Yes.” “Who was it?” “Me.”)
The NRPB is an organisation which exists to regulate radiation. It is half government-funded. Like many regulatory bodies, it has unhealthily close ties to the industry which it claims to regulate, and there are clear conflicts of interest. The NRPB subcontract research on microwave radiation to “Microwave Consultants Limited” whose director is Dr Camelia Gabriel. Meanwhile a senior consultant for Orange plc is none other than... Dr Camelia Gabriel. Concerns over this were noted in The Observer.(12)
Dr. Keith Baverstock, who was the World Health Organisation’s senior radiation adviser in Europe, addressed a conference on low-level radiation in July 2004, accusing the NRPB of “misusing” science (in studies of nuclear test veterans). He said science has been “perverted for political ends” by government agencies which should be protecting public health. Baverstock alleged a “serious flaw” in the NRPB’s methodology in these studies. (13)
The Observer reports that “vital evidence of harmful effects on children from transmitter masts” was kept from the Stewart Committee. The panel had asked the NRPB for copies of a particular study on children. The NRPB informed the committee that the research was unpublished and unobtainable. Not so. As the Observer remarked: “the research, published in an international scientific journal in 1996,... has been easily obtained by ordinary members of the public.” (14)
There is a yawning discrepancy between the NRPB and others over safe levels of this kind of radiation. If, comments Alasdair Philips, (Cambridge researcher in electronic and bio-medical engineering and founder of campaign group Powerwatch,) you compare the NRPB’s recommendations with others, in terms of miles per hour, it is as if in the UK an acceptable speed limit would be 2847mph while the EU recommends a limit of 9mph. (See panel)
Why the difference? Crucially, the NRPB and ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection) set their standards only taking into account thermal effects. Dr. Hyland says: “That’s not the problem” – the non-thermal effect of radiation from TETRA handsets and masts “is far more serious.” (“Thermal effects” means that there is enough energy to heat tissue. “Non-thermal effects” means that although heating has not taken place, there are other effects on biological structure and the body’s communication systems.)
So, says Hyland, there are effects which cannot be measured simply by measuring heat. Hyland writes: “For ‘official’ standard setting bodies... to be so confident that their purely thermal guidelines afford a completely adequate degree of protection is effectively to deny that, when alive, our sensitivity and vulnerability to pulsed microwave radiation are no higher than when we are dead...” (15)
Roger Coghill, who runs the independent Coghill Research Laboratories, specialising in bio-electro-magnetics, remarks that if non-thermal evidence is accepted then low frequency radiation is demonstrably able to induce biological effects, some of which may be adverse. “The scientific community in general is shocked that the regulatory authorities of the West (in contrast to China and non Western countries) are ignoring plentiful and robust evidence that non-thermal radio frequency exposure can cause serious adverse health effects.”
The Home Office and 02 insist the system is safe by referring to the NRPB’s “AGNIR” report. But this work is not peer reviewed (16) and a court case in 1998 revealed that virtually none of the NRPB documents on non-ionising radiation (including TETRA) are peer reviewed. (17) Dr Michael Clark, the NRPB’s spokesperson on TETRA is by his own admission not a specialist in it. (His background is ionising radiation.) (18) (Ionising radiation means that there is enough energy to strip electrons from atoms and to leave the atoms electrically charged. Non-ionising radiation, including microwaves, doesn’t have so much energy and is therefore often more benign. But. The “but” is that certain particular wavelengths can have certain particular effects. Which is why you don’t put your poodle in the microwave oven. And why Professor Ross Adey didn’t want to put a TETRA handset to his head.)
The NRPB has been furiously attacked by the Coghill Research Laboratory. The NRPB, they say, “fail to mention or discuss the hundreds of studies being reported in the literature of adverse effects at levels well below the so called thermal levels.” Standards set in the West are, they say, “influenced by commercial not biological considerations.” The work of the NRPB completely ignores the exposure levels set in China and the former Eastern bloc and this “raises the question whether such deliberate wilful omissions by experts purporting to carry out a protective function on behalf of the public constitute criminal neglect.” (19)
02’s response to public disquiet has been cavalier. They have been accused in court of “corporate bullying” and, in reference to protesting residents, 02 has said “We had to bring certain places into line”. (20) A spokesperson for 02 has even stated that: “The safety of what we supply is nothing to do with us.” (21)
At a meeting in the House of Commons between Llanidloes residents and 02, Josh Berle (head of regional PR) referred to the use of TETRA by the “police, fire and ambulance services”. Not so fast. You can read in the House of Commons Library Research paper on TETRA that the fire and ambulance services have rejected TETRA, apparently for reasons of cost.
TETRA, said Berle, is in use in many countries. Careful. In fact, the system used by many police forces including France, Switzerland and Germany, is the French-standard TETRAPOL, which, crucially, does not pulse at 17.6 Hz. Alasdair Philips says TETRAPOL is “intrinsically more bio-friendly as it does not pulse in the same way or at similar endogenous brain-wave frequencies.” TETRAPOL, then, doesn’t pulse at the brain’s own frequencies, and is safer.
TETRAPOL is also far cheaper than the initial cost of TETRA of £2.9 billion. Here we get to the financial scandal. Not only very expensive, the TETRA system doesn’t Do What It Says On the Tin. (Data transmission speeds are about a quarter of the promised speeds) (22). Further, it does do things it shouldn’t. The Medical Devices Agency has complained that it interferes with defibrillators and incubators, can upset heart pacemakers and could have “direct impact on patient care” (23).
In September 1999, the European Commission severely criticised the Home Office, proposing that the Home Office had unlawfully limited the contract to tenders that could supply the TETRA standard. (24) The system was secured under Public Private Partnership and the contract was given by the Home Office to BT (which has since hived off the “Airwave” contract to 02) with the American company Motorola.
The Public Accounts Committee scrutinised the deal and were underimpressed with Airwave as a system, and with the behaviour of the Home Office. The Committee concluded that “Airwave might be more sophisticated and expensive than it really needs to be.” They commented “In negotiating a deal with 02, PITO [Police Information Technology Organisation] and the Home Office failed to secure any clawback for the taxpayer of additional profits if … the system is sold by 02 to overseas governments…. Failure to negotiate a clawback agreement was a product not just of 02 being in a powerful position as the only bidder but also the inability of the Home Office to bring the fire service and other safety organisations on board…” They also commented “It was by no means clear to us who will bear the risk if concerns about the effects on health of using the Airwave system prove to be real.”(25) This is the political scandal; that the Home Office should apparently put the interests of a huge private company before the safety of the police and the public.
The Tetra Industry Group admits on its website that they have their eye on the lucrative market of security, construction and transport industries. The industry dearly wants to sell the TETRA system to many countries around the world, as the newsletter Electromagnetic Hazard and Therapy reports. (26) Trower quotes some thirty-two countries: “I know because I’ve spoken to most of them, and they’re worried,” says Trower. And, he tells me, one country to have rejected the TETRA system for their own emergency services is America.
The industry seeks the endorsement of the British police force, seen as conservative, safety-conscious and well-equipped. For the industry, it is a kind of celebrity endorsement: As Seen On The Bill. “That,” says Dr Grahame Blackwell, “is a strong selling point. It’s a very cynical use of our emergency services.”
Blackwell shows me extracts of e-mails about TETRA from a Crime Scene Examiner in Lancashire which grow increasingly desperate over the weeks, describing how all but one member of their team “are suffering from symptoms ranging from headaches/toothache/neuralgia to high blood pressure and even a cancerous tumour in the throat... It is the tumour which has finally been the last straw...” This officer, says his colleague, had been “very pro tetra radios – needless to say he’s changed his mind since finding out he has cancer.”
As I finish this article, an e-mail arrives. The officer is now dead. As his colleague remarks: “We are a group of people who love our job and we are not “trouble makers” – but we are genuine in our belief that these radios are killing us.”
Meanwhile, around the country hundreds of local campaigns have sprung up and are linking nationally. In Llanidloes, the spirit of the Chartists lives on. Fighting for the rights of ordinary people to make the decisions affecting their lives, Chartists faced imprisonment and transportation for their part in a popular revolt. But ultimately they won. So, in the end, will Llanidloes.
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