www.energyfields.org/science/CWTI.Hylandreport11.2000.doc
How Exposure to Mobile
Phone Base-station Radiation can Adversely Affect
Humans*
G J Hyland,
November, 2000
Department of Physics International Institute of
Biophysics
The claim made by the
from the antennae of a GSM
Base-station are many times lower than the limit to which the
Government’s Statutory Body the National
Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) maintains it
is safe for us to be exposed to, is perfectly true.
The NRPB exposure
limits are, however, purely thermally based - i.e. they simply limit the
intensity of the radiation to ensure that tissue heating by the absorption of
microwaves is not in excess of what the body can cope with. If heating were the only effect of the
radiation,
the NRPB
guidelines would afford adequate protection; unfortunately, however, this is
not the case. For microwaves are, after
all, waves, and, as such, have properties other than solely intensity. In particular, the pulsed microwave radiation
used in the digital GSM system of mobile telephony has certain rather well
defined frequencies, which facilitate its discernment by the alive
human organism, and via which the organism can, in turn, be affected in a
purely non-thermal way. This is so
because the alive human organism (and only the alive one) itself supports a
variety of oscillatory electrical biological activities, each characterised by
a specific frequency, some of which happen be close to those used in GSM. Thus, the microwave carrier frequency is
close to those characterising the highly organised electrical activities that
are involved in the
control of certain biological processes in
living organisms at the cellular level (including processes as fundamental as
cell division), whilst the rates at which the microwaves are emitted in
distinct groups of flashes (or pulses) are close to the frequencies of some of
the brain’s own electrical activities; this makes them vulnerable to
interference (or even entrainment) by the radiation.
It is to be stressed
that unlike heating, such non-thermal influences are possible only when the
organism is alive: the Dead have no electrical brain activity with which an
external electromagnetic field can interfere!
What the Industry and the NRPB
dispute is that the very weak, pulsed microwave radiation used in the GSM
system can non-thermally affect these various biological (electrical)
activities in ways that can provoke adverse health reactions. Their difficulty in accepting this reality is
due to an out-dated ‘linear’ mentality, which leads them to believe that
exposure to weak radiation
can entail only
correspondingly weak effects, and vice versa.
Whilst this is true in the case of
inanimate systems or dead
organisms, it is certainly not so either for energised electronic equipment, or
for living organisms. For the latter, in
consequence of their vitality, are themselves electromagnetic instruments of
great and exquisite sensitivity, and thereby vulnerable to interference by weak
external electromagnetic fields whose frequencies are close to those found in
the alive organism. The situation is not dissimilar to the way in which the reception of a
(turned-on) radio that is tuned to a particular frequency can be interfered
with by a signal that is slightly off-station.
In both cases, it is more a question of the ‘information’ content of a
given (interfering) signal, rather than how much energy it contains (or
equivalently, its ability to heat
tissue). Whilst the importance of ensuring non-thermal
electromagnetic compatibility between mobile phone radiation and energised
electronic equipment (in aircraft and hospitals, and with heart pacemakers, for
example) is accepted and generally respected, the same, unfortunately, does not
yet obtain in the case of the alive human organism!
Despite persistent claims to the contrary by the Mobile Phone Industry, the existence of non-thermal effects
of low intensity, pulsed microwave radiation is established
beyond dispute, on the basis
of many replicated experiments that have been performed over the last 30 years
on a variety of living organisms. The
results of these experiments have been published in international, peer
reviewed scientific journals, and are acknowledged by the 16 signatories (of
international standing) to the 1998 Vienna Resolution, the only non-signatory
being the head of the WHO Project on Electromagnetic Fields.
Of particular relevance is the way in which this
radiation affects brain function specifically, its
electrical activity (EEG), its
electro-chemistry, and the blood brain barrier - and degrades the immune
system. For these established influences
are of a kind that are consistent with the nature of adverse health reactions
reported both by some users of mobile phones and by
some people (involuntarily)
subject to long-term exposure to the radiation from a Base-station. For example, the radiation is
known to affect the dopamine-opiate system of the brain and to increase
the permeability of the blood brain barrier, both of which are medically
considered to underlie headache one of the most persistently reported adverse
health effects. Similarly, the duration
of REM sleep is shortened by exposure to
radio-frequency radiation, whilst nocturnal secretion of melatonin is partly
inhibited, both of which are consistent with reports of sleep disruption.
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*The opinions expressed herein are based entirely on my own independent research, and are
neither endorsed nor rejected by the
minority of epileptics who are
photosensitive. For visible light and
microwaves are both simply different realisations of electromagnetic radiation,
and the microwave radiation used in GSM similarly ‘flashes’ in a way that the
brain is able to recognise, as has already been mentioned; unlike visible
light, however, pulsed microwaves can penetrate the skull directly.
It should be noted that
although microwave radiation is non-ionising i.e. does not have enough energy
to break chemical bonds, particularly in DNA exposure can still cause
interference with the natural DNA repair process, and produce chromosome
aberrations and micronuclei.
Such effects are
consistent with the finding that exposure to pulsed microwave radiation
promotes the development of cancer in mice that have been genetically
engineered so that they have a predisposition to cancer, and also with the
3-fold increase in the incidence of a rare form of cancer in the periphery of
the human brain (where the penetration of the radiation is greatest) - the
laterality of which correlates with that of handset use -which has been found
in a recent nationwide epidemiological study in the US. The relevance of these disturbing findings to
the less intense, but often more prolonged,exposure
to Base-station radiation is at present unknown, although the increasing number
of reports of serious adverse effects in animals could
well be valuable warning
portents that should not be ignored.
It is essential to realise that because the
possibility of non-thermal influences is dependent on the
organism being alive, it
necessarily follows that not everyone will be equally susceptible - even under
the same exposure conditions - susceptibility depending on the physiological
state of the individual when
irradiated, such as the stability of the brain’s electrical activity and
the person’s level of
stress prior to exposure. Whilst this admittedly makes the occurrence of non-thermal effects
more difficult to predict, than is the case with thermal effects and hence to
regulate against it does not mean that they can be safely ignored, or that
they cannot provoke adverse health reactions in some people, the severity of
which will again vary from person to person, according to the robustness of
their immune system. It is
probably true to say that if the same degree of risk and lack of consensus as
to noxiousness obtained in the case of a new drug or foodstuff, they would never be licensed.
In connection with the biological noxiousness of low intensity microwave
radiation, it should not be forgotten that during the
‘Cold War’, such radiation was used (rather successfully) by the Soviets to
induce serious adverse health effects in
the staff of Western
Embassies in Eastern bloc countries, as well as in their children!
Quite apart from their weaker immune systems,
children are particularly vulnerable because of the increased rate at which
their cells divide (which makes them more susceptible to genetic damage) and
their still developing nervous system - the size of their heads and the
thinness of their skulls causing
them to absorb more radiation than do adults.
Particularly vulnerable to interference by the pulses of microwaves, is
their electrical brain-wave activity, which does not settle into a stable
pattern until about the age of 11 or 12 years.
The use of mobile phones by pre-adolescent children is thus to be
strongly discouraged, and the siting of Base-station masts in
the vicinity of schools and nurseries resisted: financial gain must not
be allowed to be the overriding consideration!
To cite the examples of radio and television
transmission in an attempt to support the claim that
exposure to the (much
less intense) radiation used in mobile telephony is flawed, on account of (i) the occurrence, in any case, of certain health problems
that correlate with exposure to the radiation from these installations, (ii)
the fact that, unlike the radiation used in GSM, this radiation is not emitted
in pulsed patterns that the brain can recognise, and (iii) the fact that the
lower frequency carriers used in radio and TV are somewhat less biologically
active than are higher
microwave carrier frequencies
used in GSM.
In conclusion, it can hardly
be disputed that to enjoy an acceptable quality of life requires more
than simply an absence of terminal disease.
Adverse health effects in humans of the kinds already consistently
reported worldwide such as headaches, sleep disruption, impairment of
shortterm memory, etc. - whilst
maybe not life-threatening in themselves, do nevertheless have a
debilitating effect that undoubtedly
undermines the general well-being of those affected, and
which in the case of some
children could well undermine their neurological and academic development.
It should, of course, be stressed that the
apparent absence to date of life threatening adverse effects on a global scale
that are attributable to exposure to GSM Base-station radiation is no guarantee
of immunity in the long-term. For
exposure to this kind of radiation is still in
its ‘early days’ in comparison to the much
longer (10-15 years) latency period of the kinds of cancers that could well be
promoted or initiated in certain people.
REFERENCE
G.J. Hyland, ‘Memorandum’ -
Potential Adverse Health Impacts of
Telephony - see EMF??,
in: http://www.emfguru.com