[LINK] Mast debaters strike again

[Stewart Fist]

Ivan's article:

> By Guy Kewney, NewsWireless.Net

> Both reports have quoted "scientists" - and in both cases, it seems
> the source for this, is the mysterious comment by Professor Sir
> William Stewart, who headed a Health Protection Agency investigation
> into microwave and health.
>
> Sir William has never explained his original comments, which he made
> personally at the press conference announcing the HPA report, and in
> which he disagreed with the findings of the report itself.

I didn't find Sir William Stewart's comments "mysterious" in any way, and I
was closely involved at the time.

He headed a team of scientists with very good academic backgrounds which
looked into the enormous range of scientific evidence as to the 'potential'
biological effects of radio-frequencies.

They found that there was sufficient evidence of adverse biological effects
(from good laboratory and epidemiological research) to suggest that the
wholesale use of mobile phones by kids in their biologically-formative years
should be discouraged.

Stewart was basically espousing the 'precautionary principle' -- suggesting
that, until we know they cellphones safe, then we would be wise to proceed
slowly and cautiously with their wholesale distribution to children.

There are now numerous studies which show that RF at cellphone frequencies,
pulsations, and power densities, can increase the number of single and
double-strand DNA breaks in dividing cells.  There are also many which show
disruption of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) which protects the brain from
the invasion of the larger (potentially destructive) cells in the
bloodstream.

Fortunately, DNA breaks tend to be repaired fairly quickly (mutations happen
when they aren't), and the BBB disruption tends to be only transitory. But
neither is desirable, and life-time outcomes from changes of these kinds are
unknown. Without many years of experience, we won't know whether increases
in DNA breaks has an overall adverse effect on kids over their lifetimes --
it might well just show up as an increase in brain-cancer rates in 40 to 50
year-olds.

The only way Stewart can be said to have disagreed with his own report, is
that he didn't outrightly condemn mobile phones, while suggesting that until
there was better evidence of long-term safety, they should be kept away from
kids.

The onus of proof here has been reverse. The public has to prove danger, not
the companies establish safety.

This is the first time in 3 million years of evolutionary history that we
have deliberately put a RF transmitter against the side of our heads for an
hour-or-two a day, for a lifetime.

The companies never seriously attempted to establish the long-term safety of
these devices before they were introduced, and the source of research
funding lies almost entirely with the cellphone industry itself.  In the
early days, the companies did everything they could to cover up and deny
problems (such as the interference with hearing aids, and electronic
devices) and starved independent researchers of funds.

They also employed a tobacco-industry scientist as head of their so-called
Wireless Technology Research organisation, to provide a public illusion of
genuine research.  In the words of one critic "they (WTR) spent $27 million
without ever getting a test-tube wet".

That's why many of us doubt company-funded research.

The last paragraphs in the article are to do with a quite different problem.

> Investigators for a medical journal have attempted to test for
> general ill-health associated with wireless. They said that their
> test subjects, who complained of acute sensitivity to microwaves,
> were unable to tell whether the wireless was actually switched on or
> not. 

There will always be some sad person in any community that is utterly
convinced that his/her headaches, tiredness, etc. is due to any one of
10,000 different possible causes, of which WiFi is just one.

It's an old ploy to direct attention to the more extreme forms of behaviour
and belief, as a way of distracting attention from the more genuine and more
knowledgeable centre-ground of opinion.


The so-called RF hypersensitivity syndrome is well known around the world,
and there are many people who claim this is the cause of their condition in
Australia.  Most of the RF investigators I know (and I know many) believe
this is a psychiatric problem rather than a physical one.   Similar claims
are made about hypersensitivity to perfume, petrol fumes, etc. etc.

But you can't automatically dismiss such claims without thorough
investigation. Unfortunately such chronic and diffuse problems as Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome were also dismissed by the medical establishment as
psychiatric conditions until recently.  As was RSI ('kangaroo paw'!).


The WiFi fears may well be irrational -- and most probably are.  My guess is
that those hyper-senitivities associated with cell base stations and WiFi
are all psychological -- but that's only a guess.  I've seen some evidence
that suggests no, but I don't think the research was valid.

The problem is that many of the cell-phone-tower activists, and those that
finger radio emissions generally as the cause of their personal health
problems, have no concept of their low exposure to incident power from WiFi
and cellphone base-stations.

Equally: Those who summarily dismiss cellphone fears, often have no concept
of the inverse-square law.

Personally, I don't think it makes sense to put a couple of dozen
base-stations on top of a school building, or on apartment blocks where
people spend 12 hours a day.  But the main problem is with handsets.

A cell-phone radiating against the side of the head is exposing the brain at
millions of times the power-density of a distant cellphone base-station, and
hundreds of times the amount that will scattered vertically by a
base-station on the school roof.

But the problem perceived by most scientists working in the area is with
cellphone handsets.  Almost all of the independent scientific research today
is going into investigating how radio waves at this close-proximity, with
such high power-densities, effect stem-cells in the bone marrow of cranial
cavity, the permiability of the blood-brain barrier, the DNA division of
cells in the brain,  etc.

In the past walkie-talkies and their like radiated power from antenna kept
well away from the head. They could only be used for a few minutes a day
also, and the frequencies were different, and they broadcast a continuous
analogue wave.  

So you can't extrapolate from past experience. This is a greenfields
problem.

Where does WiFi fit in?    It has a lower power output than a cellphone
working over short distances, yet it is used in relatively close proximity
to children-en masse, and the exposure is for long periods of time.  Taken
cumulatively, it is probably roughly equal (for the student) to a cellphone
base-station exposure -- so WiFi and its successors, will possibly double
the student's lifetime ambient exposure.

Is this a problem?   I doubt it, but we don't know.  And my guess is no
better or worse than anyone else's guess.

So while I don't have any real problems with WiFi or cellphone
base-stations, I am still concerned with a few hundred million kids running
around with their heads pressed up against a mobile phone for an hour a day.

Yet when the cellphone companies promote the idea of 'irrational fears',
they group all three sources of RF together  -- then studiously ignore any
mention of the phone-against-the-head research.

Some of these fears probably are irrational.  Some maybe confused -- and
some maybe not.  Which is why Sir William Stewart said we should act in a
precautionary manner. And I totally agree.
-- 

Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458
.