UK WiFi & Mobile masts - health dangers, electropollution special

What do you have to back up your claims other than hearsay and flimsy science? It simply reminds me of the people who said that microwave ovens will cause everyone to get cancer...

Have you never used a mobile phone or wifi system? Me thinks you're lying if you say no.

I used to smoke in the bad old days when we were assured it was safe (a bit like mobile technology now...) - does that mean I can't campaign against the advertising of cigarettes to children now?

But then you knew this before you brought your strawman out, troll.

The evidence that wifi impacts upon humans is flimsy at best, in the same way the whole cancer scare from microwave ovens was proven to be false I'm sure the same will be found out about wifi.

What are you going to do about it? Knock on all your neighbours doors and ask them to stop using it? Wifi is here to stay, as is mobile telecommunications.

All electronic devices emit detectable electromagnetic radiation, the keyboard on your computer you used to type that message, your television set, your light bulbs. Are you going to stop using all electronic devices and live in a lead mine?

That's an odd choice of name you have there 'curious'. If you were truly curious as you claim to be would you not be curious to get as much accurate information on the issue as possible. Are you not in the slightest bit curious about the significant increase in brain damage (cancers, tissue etc) in areas with mobile phone masts or on people with long term extensive use of mobiles? Or are you not in the least curious about the reasoning of mobile phone companies, hijacking and restricting research on the potential health effect mobiles have on humans. But i'm sure this is what you class as flimsy evidence and your ever so curious mind is at rest with the little information you are given by the same people who produce these items.

Mobile phones, Tetra etc. emit nothing more sinister than UHF radio waves - exactly the same kind of "radiation" that's been coming out of TV transmitters, two-way radios, wireless microphones and umpteen other devices for decades and decades. Anyone living near a main TV transmitter will have been subject to far higher signal levels for years, yet we don't hear a mention of "shut down the dangerous TV transmitters".

If there is ANY risk at all, then it would be from the phones themselves: being pressed close against the head, the fields can become quite strong, and are present for longer periods than, say, a two-way radio. But claiming that Tetra or mobile phone masts pose a cancer risk is utter twaddle - the inhabitants of, say, Crystal Palace or Sutton Coldfield would have been dropping dead like flies ever since the birth of television if that was the case.

RF engineer has a typically 'scientific' approach. and yes, it's true, the type of waves used in mobile phones is not all that different from before.

but, the frequencies are much higher, they are more pervasive, digital signals are far more disruptive than analogue signals, and the health effects are really not measured, analysed, or publicised. as always in capitalist-funded science, it's very easy to say "there's no evidence to support the theory that mobile phone microwaves are dangerous". but it is equally true to say there is no actual evidence to support for one second that they are totally safe!

like with cigarettes, there are huge capitalist vested interests to support the notion that there's no problem, and yet there is a common-sense question about the widespreadand expanding use of this technology.

and microwave cookers are not a great example to prove the point. they were banned in russia for most of the 20th century simply because of the scientific evidence that they dangerous, and that the food cooked in them was likely to increase susceptibility to cancers and other auto-immune diseases. this is not flakey hearsay, it is real science.

i have always maintained that mobile phones, wi-fi, and digital broadcasting will turn out to be the cigarettes of the 21st century. i have yet to see any real scientific evidence that this is not the case - only the usual "lack" of scientific proof of harm. something the tobacco empires relied on for many years (and which also made maggie thatcher very rich!) - stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

"RF engineer has a typically 'scientific' approach. and yes, it's true, the type of waves used in mobile phones is not all that different from before."


What is so wrong with having a 'scientific' approach? Science works. Supposing that pulling out the word 'scientific' will scare people is little more than recycling existing prejudice. It does nothing to support arguments against electromagnetic pollution.

"but, the frequencies are much higher, they are more pervasive, digital signals are far more disruptive than analogue signals, and the health effects are really not measured, analysed, or publicised. as always in capitalist-funded science, it's very easy to say "there's no evidence to support the theory that mobile phone microwaves are dangerous". but it is equally true to say there is no actual evidence to support for one second that they are totally safe!"

There are many sources of electromagnetic waves. Radio masts, television sets, quartz watches, telephones, the sun, the movement of tectonic plates, light bulbs, motor vehicle spark plugs, welding equipment and microwave cookers.

The risks involved are not clearly quantified. So claims such as yours are, to be honest, nonsense. The claims of RF Engineer are current wisdom. But science can, and does, change what is current wisdom. The first problem is: Engineers are not Scientists. Engineers work within the constraints that Science says exist. Capitalism, in its apparent wisdom, is very reluctant to get involved in Science. Where it does, it reduces the role of the Scientist to be as close to an Engineer as possible ("Genetic Engineers" instead of "Geneticists").

Realistically, it might be said that you simply do not like science or you do not like Engineering. If you wish to live in a primitivist anti-technological society, go find or found one and do so. But "accusing" science of being "capitalist" is nonsense. The soviet union was, at one time, not particularly capitalist and managed to do a lot of science. As does Cuba. Your complaints - like those of many Scientists - are against the narrowness of Engineering.

As to Science having no interest in Electromagnetism:

 http://www.radiationresearch.org/pdfs/20080606_venice_resolution.pdf

Stripped of the jargon it says: "we are respectable scientists and are not happy that people say there is no hazard. Our reason for this is that standards only consider thermal effects. We understand that there are other effects." What you might also notice is that the majority of the scientists are biologists. Biologists tend not to be treated as being "serious" like physicists and engineers. So part of what you see is the natural process of science. Which is not just about "facts" but also about specialised rhetoric.


If you must slag off science then you might actually work out which particular science you are slagging off.

Private Eye magazine reported many problems from serving Police Officers when they were initially trialling the 'new' TETRA communications equipment.

From memory, symptoms included nausea, vomitting, general fatigue and unwellness.

Anyone with back issues of PE should start searching around 18 months to 2 years ago I think...possibly longer.

Anyone without back issues of PE should subscribe to it now; it's quite useful for research into many things!

Dick Tracey

rather than reading Private Eye (great though it is!), buy yourself an elementary textbook on radio communication techniques, and pay particular attention to the sections on "modulation" and the ways in which digital and analogue signals are applied to a carrier wave. Or pop down to your local amateur radio club and get the old boys there to explain this sort of thing, which shouldn't take more than half an hour or so. If you are VERY keen, there was, and probably still is, an excellent Open University course, but that would go into far, far greater depth than is necessary to thoroughly debunk Mast Sanity.

That will empower you to see for yourself, from an accurate and impartial source, why statements like "digital signals are more disruptive than analogue" are absolute nonsense, why Tetra doesn't actually "pulse", and why it can't possibly cause greater health problems than the traditional FM police radios that it replaced.

Having done that, you can read the articles on Mast Sanity's website, and marvel at the quite stunning ignorance of basic, easily understood, telecommunication principles shown by the "experts" quoted. My particular bugbear is a certain Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy BSc PhD, a retired biology lecturer and "amateur radio enthusiast" who apparently doesn't even know the difference between amplitude and frequency modulation (or chooses to ignore it 'cos the facts don't fit his dodgy pseudo-scientific "argument"). For the sake of his students, I hope Dr Andrew's biology is a lot less flakey than his engineering :O(

We all know cops are workshy hypochondriacs, so it's not surprising they would get on the scam that new radios made them ill, so they could get some time off to do their gardening or whatever the filth do in their spare time!

I think the statement about "digital signals are more disruptive than analogue" wasn't just about the information content, where clearly it is irrelevant whether it is in digital or analogue form. It was more about the way the physical networks work, e.g. with mobile phones having to generate strong outgoing signals to the base stations when held so close to the head (with the inverse square law relationship).

Whether or not that means mobiles phones, wi-fi and similar technology are dangerous or not, I'm not sure. Clearly it's not going to make you keel over and die, but maybe we won't know the full effects for sure until 50 years down the road.