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Insurance and TETRA
Old news but interesting (Feb 2005)
Infected airwaves
Date: 10/02/2005
Despite health concerns being linked to the police
force's new Tetra radio system, roll out will continue this year.
Rowena Byrne-Jones explores the evidence for a causal link and
assesses potential insurer ramifications.
Much has been written recently on the potential for
oesophageal cancer, and other health scares, caused by exposure to
radio waves, with particular reference to the installation of a new
and controversial radio system.
Currently, the Home Office is equipping the 53
police forces in England, Scotland and Wales with the Tetra system -
Terrestrial Trunked Radio - at a cost of £2,9bn. Rollout of
the new system will be complete by the end of
2005 and it will replace an outdated and unreliable
VHF system. Approximately 2500 of the required 3500 transmitters have
been erected and
65000 officers in 39 forces are using the system.
Tetra will also be installed for the fire and ambulance services, and
MM02 Airwave - the telecommunications company carrying out the
installations - is currently bidding for its licences. The result
will be made available during the next six months.
However, the system has provoked strong protests,
with claims that the radio signals cause headaches, sickness,
disturbed sleep and skin rashes. Although the health fears
surrounding Tetra are linked to concerns about mobile-phone masts, as
the symptoms that affect some people appear consistent - sleep
deprivation, nausea, headaches, ear pressure and nosebleeds - the
symptoms appear to stop when the Tetra exposure ends.
Precautionary approach
Prior to implementation of the system a report was
issued, which concluded that, although the evidence to date did not
suggest adverse health effects, a precautionary approach should be
adopted. Despite this, however, Tetra went on to be piloted in
Lancashire and now continues to be rolled out across the rest of the
country.
The Police Federation then commissioned a report on
Tetra in 2001 from the independent physicist Barrie Trower, who
predicted the occurrence of cancers resulting from the use of Tetra
and recommended that the system "be halted until further
research on safety is carried out". He has warned that the
system could lead to "more civilian death in peacetime than
[caused by] all the terrorist organisations put together".
Yet, the implementation of the system was not
halted. During the past two years, more than 300 officers in
Lancashire and Yorkshire have reported numerous accounts of ill
health that they have attributed to using the system - the complaints
being compiled in a questionnaire that was put together by the Police
Federation. Further complaints were raised in the Crime
Investigation Unit in Lancashire after throat tumours had occurred as
well as numerous other ailments.
In Leicestershire, the family of a police officer
who died of oesophageal cancer have questioned whether the force's
controversial new radio system caused the disease. A second officer,
who is aged 40 and works for the same force, has also been diagnosed
with the same cancer and is being treated.
As a result, the Home Office last year announced a
£5m health study, including a detailed study of 150 officers
and a 15-year monitoring programme involving 100,000 users.
The benefits?
So what exactly are the operational benefits of
using this new system? Tetra promises to offer guaranteed national
coverage, vastly improved sound quality and features such as
emergency buttons on officers' handsets. But are these supposed
benefits worth the risks to health? Is there any published evidence
to suggest the health fears are well grounded? And what about our
planning and communication laws - do they take into account health
risks associated with the erection of masts, substations and use of
handsets? The answer, presently, is no. Will future legislation
ensure that it does?
Sir William Stewart, the former chief scientific
adviser to the government, said in a report on mobile phone health
concerns that frequencies around
16Hz - close to Tetra's 17.6Hz - should be avoided
because previous research suggested they could cause potentially
harmful changes in cell biology. However, Professor Colin Blakemore
of Oxford University and chief executive of the Medical Research
Council, has dismissed the health concerns surrounding Tetra.
A report last year from government-appointed
independent advisers the National Radiological Protection Board
concluded that: "Although areas of uncertainty remain about the
biological effects of low-level radio-frequency radiation, current
evidence suggests that it is unlikely that the special features of
the signals from Tetra mobile terminals and repeaters pose a hazard
to health."
However, the Police Federation insists that "current
evidence" is inadequate since there have been no tests on humans
of the effects of electromagnetic radiation from Tetra technology.
This view was echoed at the National Society of Clean Air Conference
in June 2004. Dr Mike Clark, NRPD scientific spokesman, says: "The
NRPD continues to recognise the need for good and continuing research
into this area, and there is already a large research programme -
funded by the Home Office - looking into the possible health effects
of Tetra."
Recently, Lisa Oldman, director of the campaign
group Mast Sanity, said that the fact the government has announced
such a programme proves that police officers are being forced to use
an untried technology. "It is also far too late for many police
officers who are already suffering, and the police have no way of
complaining or doing anything about it. They are guinea pigs - and so
are we."
Mast Sanity is now calling for an immediate public
inquiry into the Tetra system as a whole. "It needs to not just
look at the appalling risks our police officers are forced to take,
but also the countless number of civilians who are suffering ill
health as a result of masts erected close to their homes,"
argues Ms Oldman.
Local authorities have also voiced their concern
over whether the Tetra network is safe, which only adds to the
criticism directed towards MM02 Airwave from campaigners and MPs that
the company is failing to consult with local communities over the
public health fears. In July, MM02 Airwave was accused of illegally
erecting two masts in Sussex by abusing emergency powers under the
planning system.
Causation
What seems clear is that, if Tetra does have an
effect, it is only triggered in those who are sensitive to
low-frequency radio waves and are directly exposed. A recent survey
of more than 400 people showed that, while around
40% had suffered from sleeplessness, and/or
headaches since the masts arrived, others were not affected.
Tetrawatch argues that the system is untested, is
being imposed secretively, is shunned by many other European
countries including France, and that health fears are being
underplayed by the government in the same way that, for example, the
link between Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and BSE (bovine spongiform
encephalopathy) was in the early 1990s.
Tetrawatch spokesman John O'Brien stressed that the
Tetra system in this country is different to both Tetrapol and other
Tetra systems elsewhere because, in order to meet police
requirements, it uses the pulsed technique, which is feared to create
the symptoms. "This is an untried and untested system. There
is something different about this type of Tetra system compared with
other mobile transmissions systems, and that is why we are worried
about it."
Medical opinion is divided. On one side are the
'establishment' scientists, such as Professor Blakemore, who say
there is no evidence that Tetra is unsafe. On the other, there are
independent
...
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