http://www.wickedlocal.com:80/marblehead/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1713654197/COLUMN-The-antennas-are-coming
Wed Jul 02, 2008, 12:32 PM EDT
Marblehead -
http://www.wickedlocal.com:80/marblehead/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1713...
There’s something the government, the
telecommunication industry and the corporate
media don't want you to know: Invisible things can hurt you.
The invisible things in question are low-level
electromagnetic waves emitted by cell phones and
cell-phone towers. Three neurosurgeons appearing
on Larry King confessed that the danger is such
that they never put their cell phones up to their
heads, but at least cell-phone use is a matter of
choice. The antennas going up at the Jewish
Community Center and on the Village Street water
tower are another matter. Neighbors, some of
whose property line is only 2 feet away, will be
involuntarily affected by low-level radiation 24
hours a day. The Veterans Middle School is within
a 750-foot radius of the water tower, where six
more antennas will soon join those already there.
Kids at Hillel and the JCC are the new JCC single antenna’s nearest neighbors.
Why don’t more people know that low-level,
non-heating electromagnetic waves can adversely
affect people’s health and well-being? One reason
is that citizens are prohibited by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 from speaking at
public meetings about health effects when
cell-phone antennas are proposed for their towns,
a law written by lobbyists designed to keep
information about health effects from the public.
Another is the Wireless Communications and Public
Safety Law of 1999, which gave cell phone
companies total immunity from product liability.
Unlike cigarettes, you will not read in your
newspaper about any high-profile lawsuits
claiming cell-phone use causes brain tumors or
cancer. By law, there can be no lawsuits.
A third reason we hear so little about health
effects is that following the passage of the
Telecommunications Act, the government stopped
funding independent research on health effects
from cell-phone radiation. University studies in
progress in the U.S. were shut down, and this
highly profitable industry became the only one
investigating itself. The corporate press
refrains from reporting the bad news uncovered by foreign research.
I know that last point is true from personal
experience. When I wrote a weekly column for the
Boston Globe, I pointed out that the government
of Great Britain was warning parents against
giving cell phones to children because their
brains are more vulnerable to harm due to thinner
skulls and rapidly growing grey matter. The
column was never printed; it was deemed outside my “area of expertise.”
“I don’t even have an area of expertise,” I told
my editor. “How can I be outside it?”
“Linda,” he said, as if I were a child. “Look at the advertising.”
I looked. And saw page after page of advertising
for cell phones, especially family cell-phone plans.
There’s total agreement in the scientific
community that exposure to low-intensity radio
frequency waves in the microwave portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum causes biological
changes in living things. Research in Finland,
the UK, France, Australia and Japan indicates
that those cellular changes can lead to
short-term physical ailments such as chronic
fatigue syndrome, insomnia, headaches and memory
disturbance, as well as long-term weakening of
the immune system and the protective blood-brain
barrier, eventually leading to brain tumors and
cancer. The American Cancer Society and other
groups dependant on corporate funding are waiting
for definitive proof that will never come. With
so many poisons in our environment (each one of
us has traces of hundreds of toxins in our blood
stream), science will never be able to pinpoint
exactly which one has finally caused our illness.
Why is this invisible threat an issue in town
now? For a total fee of $2,000 a month, the Water
Board solicited telecommunications companies to
look into siting new antennas in town. The Board
of Selectmen signed a lease with MetroPCS in
January, then waited four months to inform
neighbors on Village Street, as required by law,
that new antennas would be going up. Six weeks
later, the Planning Board approved a special
permit, encouraging other companies to follow
suit. This scenario monetary rewards, neighbors
taken by surprise, federal limits on local
authority, an uninformed citizenry and compliant
boards plays out in town after town across the
United States, orchestrated by highly paid
corporate strategists. Oh, and agreements once reached cannot be rescinded.
Town Planner Rebecca Curran and a group of
volunteer citizens will soon be working on a new
by-law to regulate the further proliferation of
antennas in Marblehead, which hopefully can be
presented at next year’s Town Meeting. The
principle of prudent avoidance, which has led New
Zealand and Scotland to prohibit antennas on
school grounds, should lead us to limit the
number of antennas situated here. We already have
sufficient coverage for town-wide cell-phone use.
We need not add more threats to our environment
if we are half as determined to protect our
health as the telecommunications industry is to
keep us believing that we needn’t bother our
pretty little heads about invisible things.
Linda Weltner is a Marblehead resident.
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