EVERYWHERE USA – A lawsuit has been filed in Louisiana by the family of Frank A. Walker, a man who died of brain cancer after using a cell phone for years and years. The list of defendants is lengthy as it includes not only the manufacturers of the phones Walker used and the service providers, but the cellular phone trade industry association as well. But this lawsuit isn’t the only one in play today.
A lady in the Lake Tahoe area is suing the joint California and Nevada planning group for cell phone towers in that area as she is affected by the radio frequency signals from those towers. The basis of her lawsuit uses the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) since the cell towers cause her verifiable distress.
A third lawsuit is located in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts and is based on the county approving a cell site in a neighborhood without any notice for the residents located there. In this case, a school-aged girl developed rashes, depression, and headaches as soon as the cell site transmitters were activated.
In case you think cell phones don’t cause human reactions, consider these common problems: Ringing in the ears, brain fog, fatigue, stress, irritability, pain in arm or hand, sleep disturbances, rashes, insomnia, high frequency hearing loss, sperm damage, heart fibrillation, and any combination of these effects to the point of suicide.
To be totally up front, I personally believe radio frequency (RF) emitting devices can cause cancer. In today’s world, almost EVERYONE carries an RF-emitting device – SMART PHONES!
Many years ago, I saw a photo of a law enforcement officer sitting in a patrol car with a radar speed gun next to his right leg. On the top of his leg was an orange-sized tumor caused by the radar gun because the officer left the gun turned on and used his leg to block the signal until a car came in sight.
In addition, visible light and adjacent bands of electro-magnetic energy produce infrared heat and ultraviolet rays. Everyone knows that if you go out into the sun with skin exposed, ultraviolet light can cause skin cancer. Cell phone and WiFi radiations are also electromagnetic in origin, and a logical conclusion to be drawn is that electromagnetic energy does bad things to the human body.
Why has this problem of human body effects been ignored for so long? Medical and physiological effects are hard to diagnose and sometimes it takes years to understand what things are possible and to give them a chance to do their damage. Some 25 years or so ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could only measure the heating effects of an RF signal in the head and body.
Determining the effects on human subjects requires a number of people who exhibit symptoms. Then the RF signal level for each subject has to be measured and some signal limit below the most sensitive subject has to be determined for the FCC rule-making process.
The human skull appears to be a partial barrier to RF entry into the brain, although the Louisiana lawsuit (mentioned above) alleges a brain tumor known as Glioblastoma. Other parts of the human body are quite vulnerable. We are a mass of electrical circuits. Electrical signals tell the heart when to pulse, or for pain from a finger touching a hot surface to be registered in the brain. Exposure to RF signals for only ten minutes is enough to cause problems in young children.
In research sponsored by the cell phone industry, 30 percent of studies show some type of effect; but 70 percent of the studies show no effects! This can be likened to the tobacco industry studies of years ago, which showed smoking was not addictive.
A knowledgeable cell phone sales person might know about ‘Specific Absorption Ratings’ known in the industry as SARs. They are indicators generated by the FCC, which are supposed to compare potential RF radiation damage from one cell phone to the next.
The lawsuit, filed by the Walker family in Louisiana, suggests the ‘dummies’ (simulations of people) used to make the RF qualification tests are flawed. For example, the substances used in the phantom body were not standardized. Air bubbles in the liquids of a dummy likely lowered the intercepted radiation level. The FCC apparently didn’t take cell phone samples and test them at their Maryland laboratories in order to verify the cell phone manufacturers’ test results.
Not to be flippant, this situation reminds me of an old joke: A man asks a mathematician, “How much is 2+2?” The mathematician replied, “Four, of course.” The man next asked an engineer, who replied, “3.999 to slide rule precision.” The man then asked an accountant, who replied, “What would you like it to be?”
The telecommunications industry does not want to pursue any research that might jeopardize
its multi-billion dollar investment.
In urban areas, the need to reuse frequencies is at a premium. To solve this problem, urban cells (geographic territories) are smaller, but there are many more of them. Antennas can be installed on roof tops, church spires, metal poles, power line towers, water tanks and so on.
In rural areas, the towers can be a few hundred feet tall and spaced seven to nine miles apart. The difference is that the cells (square footage served) in an urban area are small – perhaps a few hundred feet on each side. In rural areas, the cells are much, much larger – think miles instead of feet.
Obviously, it takes more RF power to go miles versus a few hundred feet. Therefore, the cell phone has to be able to reduce its output power to have less RF power in the city to avoid interference with communications in adjacent cells. When one drives into Pamlico County for example, the cell phone has to increase its RF output power to reach the cell site. As you approach the rural cell site, the cell phone will automatically throttle back near the site and increase again as you drive away from the site.
This presents two scenarios to examine.
1) Cell phones are used close to the body, near the brain. Between uses, cell phones are carried in pockets, near the heart and lungs or near the human reproductive system and kidneys. In an urban environment, low transmitter power would be used and that would cause less damage to the human body. In rural areas, the cell phone will work at maximum output to cover losses from tree absorption and covering large distances.
CELL PHONE CALLS OF LENGTHY DURATION CONDUCTED IN REMOTE RURAL AREAS ARE DANGEROUS.
2) The other consideration is the cell site itself. Let’s say there are 50 channels available, and assume all channels are in use at the same time. Let’s also assume the alignment of the RF signals adds another 100 percent of power. Now the total RF emitted from the cell tower is around 250 watts!
Your typical cell phone emits a maximum of about about 3 to 5 watts. Envision the cell site as a three-way 250-watt bulb, while your cell phone is a night light on the wall.
If you live near a cell site, you are bombarded with that 250 watts 24 hours per day, seven days per week and 52 weeks per year. YIKES! Fortunately, people living in Pamlico County probably don’t have to contend with 50 channels on all sites. Do you see the problem? THIS STUFF IS EVERYWHERE, AND YOU NEED NOT CARRY A CELL PHONE TO BE EXPOSED.
Editor’s note: Next week in Part 2 of his report, Gordon Allison will examine practical, common sense ways to minimize exposure to RF radiation, which is expected to grow in exponential fashion.
Gordon is a frequent contributor to The County Compass
