TETRA :: Ecologist - October 2004
By Jay Griffiths
page 7
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 But this work is not peer reviewed(16) and a court case in 1998 revealed that virtually none of the NRPB documents on non-ionising radiation (including TETRA) are peer reviewed.(17) Dr Michael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)
