http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/2/7/the-cell-phone-quot-tower-of-doom-quot.aspx

The Cell Phone "Tower of Doom" - Articles
   
 
POSTED BY
February 07 2008
The Cell Phone "Tower of Doom"

cell phone tower, cell phone mast, mobile phoneOrange mobile phone company agreed to remove its cell phone mast -- dubbed the “Tower of Doom” -- from the top of a five-story London apartment building after seven of its residents got cancer.

The cancer rate among those living on the top floor, where residents from five of the eight flats were affected, is 20 percent -- 10 times the national average.

The mast, along with a second mast owned by Vodafone, was put up in 1994. Since then, residents have battled cancer, headaches and other health problems they say are caused by radiation from the masts. Three residents have died from cancer, while another four are still fighting the disease.

The World Health Organization and other agencies say there is no risk of radiation from cell phone masts, so the companies had no legal obligation to remove the masts.

In August 2007, after a long legal battle, Orange agreed to move the mast from the building -- to another area near homes, a public library and a primary school.

Vodafone has no plans to remove their mast from the building, and is working on securing a new long-term lease.

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Dr. MercolaDr. Mercola's Comments:
Unless you live in some unbelievably remote location, the odds are high that you’re being bombarded with information-carrying radio waves that can wreak havoc on your body.

These radio waves have increased dramatically and exponentially over the last few years -- especially from cell phones, but also from WiFi, WiMax, BlueTooth, and other wireless devices. For most people, the damage from this 24-7 exposure will take years or even decades to surface since there is a lag time of five to 20 years for the health effects to become clinically apparent.

For those unfortunate people in London who were living directly below a major cell phone mast, the damage became apparent sometime between the mast’s construction in 1994 and the beginning of the resident’s campaign to have the mast removed in 2002.

You may not realize that you are likely living closer to a cell phone tower than you think. Cell “sites” can look like antennas or huge towers, but they can also be quite camouflaged. They exist on many schools, churches, firehouses, cemeteries and even in national parks. If you’re wondering why a school or park would want a cell site on their grounds, it’s because the cell phone companies pay to have them there, with fees that can range upwards of $2,000 a month.

While there are already more than 175,000 cell towers in the United States, this number is expected to increase by 48 percent to 260,000 by 2010, according to CTIA (the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry).

If you want to know just how close you are to a cell phone tower or antenna, simply type your location into AntennaSearch.com. It will tell you all of the towers (existing and future) and antennas that are within eight miles of your address!

Why are Increasing Cell Phone Towers so Concerning?

What most people, including experts, fail to understand is that the danger from land-based portable phones, cell phones and WiFi routers is not from the magnetic radiation or the microwave carrier wave from which typical SAR ratings are given on phones. Unless you have massive exposures like you might expect in a microwave oven, these thermal effects are insignificant.

Nearly all the biological damage comes from the modulated signals that are carried ON the carrier microwave. These modulated information-carrying radio waves resonate in biological frequencies of a few to a few hundred cycles per second, and can stimulate your vibrational cellular receptors causing a whole cascade of pathological consequences that can culminate in fatigue, anxiety and ultimately cancers.

Again, this is  a very serious concern because, unless you live in an isolated rural setting, you are probably being exposed to these radio-waves day-in and day-out -- whether or not you even own or use a cell phone.

Numerous studies have linked exposure to information-carrying radio waves to health problems, but you may not realize that your symptoms are related to these radio frequencies because they could easily be attributed to other causes as well.

Aside from cancer and brain tumors, cells phones and other radio frequencies can cause:
  • Alzheimer’s, senility and dementia
  • Parkinson’s
  • Autism
  • Headaches
  • Sleep disruptions and fatigue
  • Altered memory function, poor concentration and spatial awareness
Can You Hear Me Now? The Truth the Cell Phone Industry Doesn’t Want You to Hear

One of the world’s undisputed experts in cell phone safety is Dr. George Carlo, and I had the privilege of spending two full days with him in October 2007.

I was so compelled with the information I heard that my next book, slated for release in 2009, will detail the reasons why I believe using cell phones is far more dangerous than smoking cigarettes ever was.

In the 1990s, Dr. Carlo was given a $28-million grant from the cell phone industry to put an end to the talk that cell phones were hazardous to your health. Unfortunately, what he found was not what he’d been paid to find. Instead, he discovered that they DO, in fact, cause damage.

The cell phone industry offered him a position for $1 million a year to silence him, but he refused, and started a non-profit institute called The Safe Wireless Initiative to inform the world of this danger instead. I highly recommend you check out his site as he has compiled excellent resources on interventions you can use to maximize your health and minimize your risks.

I also tried to spread the word about the dangers of cell phones via a Today Show interview I did last year. Well, they only aired four seconds of my 20-minute interview, completely censoring the supporting evidence that cell phones can cause damage.

Tips to Limit Your Damage from Information-Carrying Radio Waves

There quite simply is no safe biological threshold for exposure to information-carrying radio waves, and there is, quite honestly, little you can do to avoid them 100 percent.

But you can reduce your, and your family’s, exposure by taking the following commonsense precautions:
  • Limit the amount of time you spend on a cell phone or cordless phone.
  • Use a wired headset to limit your exposure to the cell phone -- ideally, an air tube headset that conducts sound but prevents any radiation from traveling up the wire to your brain. Also make sure the wire is SHIELDED, which prevents the wire from acting as an antenna that could attract more information-carrying radio waves directly to your brain. Wireless BlueTooth headsets should be avoided.
  • Limit your exposure to WiFi routers. Find out where they are located in your work environment and stay away from them.
  • If you have any land-based (non-cellular) portable phones, do NOT use anything other than the 900 MHz phones as the Gigahertz phones stay on continuously, blasting you with information-carrying radio waves 24/7.
  • Use the speakerphone instead of putting the phone to your ear; this is probably one of the single most important steps you can take other than not using your cell phone.
  • Limit calls inside buildings.
  • Use the phone in open spaces as often as possible.
  • Limit use by children and preadolescents, or don’t let them use cell phones at all. Children’s developing nervous systems and thinner skulls are simply too vulnerable to cell phone damage.

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Community Comments ( 19 )
Comment on this Article
  
  
Jeff Byrne
[ Joined on 12/07 ] [ Posted on
January 24, 2008
]
15 Points        
   
 
Not to worry people.  I heard they are coming out with a vaccine for cell tower cancers.
NeuroGuard
or
Cellsafe
or GimmeaFngbreakasil
Mercola
  
Reesacat
[ Joined on 01/07 ] [ Posted on January 24, 2008]
4 Points        
   
  Mercola
Good one, Jeff!
Mercola
  
Pat Ormsby
[ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
       
   
  Mercola

Thx for the good news!  Let's see...that's a choice between paralyzed for life or early death from cancer.

  
  
foxtroter
[ Joined on 09/06 ] [ Posted on
January 22, 2008
]
10 Points        
   
 
Oh, things like this just happen in the UK.  This would neve have happened in America----yeah right.      Fortunately they have socialized medicine to take care of health problems like this---well. . . .
Mercola
  
Russ Bianchi
[ Joined on 09/06 ] [ Posted on January 23, 2008]
4 Points        
   
  Mercola
HillaryCare will protect you Doc.... NOT!
Mercola
  
Beccadog
[ Joined on 10/07 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
1 Points        
   
  Mercola

Socialized medicine does not prevent illnesses like this from occurring.  They may have health care, which not everyone in the USA has, but western medicine is after the fact.  What the U.K. and many European countries are doing is often using the precautionary principle, which is first do no harm.

Unfortunately, there have to be more peer reviewed studies, for this principle to often go into effect.

However, in the USA, even when it is known what causes certain cancers, and the information was (much has been removed) in the data base at the National Institutes of Health, the governing body in the White House right now does nothing to protect the life of the developing fetus, much less the parents or family.  They only protect the polluters from the rest of us; and use industry created science rather than peer-reviewed science.  

  
  
Patty D
[ Joined on 06/07 ] [ Posted on
January 22, 2008
]
8 Points        
   
 
Vodafone is working on a new longterm lease from South Gloucestershire Council. A spokesman said the company took residents' concerns "extremely seriously" and would continue to work with them and the council to provide reassurance.

Not find a solution, but provide reassurance.  That makes me sick!!!  If they took the concerns seriously the tower would be gone.  Providing "reassurance" instead of action would do nothing but make me angrier.  In another article Bridestein mentioned understanding those who hole up with guns and defy the government...  Will this kind of bull, I can see why.  Wonder what would happen if the residents got together emasse and disabled the towers?
Mercola
  
Pat Ormsby
[ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
       
   
  Mercola

If enough people get angry, we can bring down the towers using legal means.  In Britain and other countries, people have gotten angry enough to go knock them down.  The problem is that the majority in most places are said to still want the service, and this is probably true in many places.  The important thing is determining how big the demand is, then persuading people they are unhealthy (as we are doing here) and finding acceptable solutions or compromises.  The towers of doom have been stopped in many places already.

  
    
Magnolia
[ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on
January 23, 2008
]
6 Points        
   
 
Around here, they disguise cell towers as tall pine trees, among real pine trees. Hmmmm...maybe they want to keep a low profile. Gee, I wonder why?
Mercola
  
eqhealth07
 [ Posted on January 24, 2008]
1 Points        
   
  Mercola
There are palm tree versions too.  I've seen both versions in various places throughout the country.  I've also heard that there have been some installed in church steeples (probably mega corporate churches), and I bet there are other hiding places.  The companies claim it's to keep the view looking good, but I lost trust in these mega-corporations years ag o.
Mercola
  
LORENLSMITH
[ Joined on 03/07 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
       
   
  Mercola

Those are "Nada Trees" and many of our barren hills are suddenly forested. I hear the beaver and squirrels hate them as well as borer hunting woodpeckers.

Idoubt if they are lighted at night to make aircraft avoid them.

  
  
Russ Bianchi
[ Joined on 09/06 ] [ Posted on
January 22, 2008
]
1 Points        
   
 
Electronic and magnetic frequencies generated by high voltage, as the cycles for transmission and transponder boosters for most cell phones, when over exposed, just like over exposure to radiation, CAUSE CANCER and lead to premature DEATH.
Mercola
  
Pat Ormsby
[ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
       
   
  Mercola

Good for you, Russ!  (I've owed you a thank you for a while.)  There is an enormous body of evidence backing up your assertion.  Google Guinea-pigs-r-us.

  
  
Beccadog
[ Joined on 10/07 ] [ Posted on
February 7, 2008
]
       
   
 

Almost a quarter of all disease caused by environmental exposure

"16 JUNE 2006 | GENEVA -- As much as 24% of global disease is caused by environmental exposures which can be averted. Well-targeted interventions can prevent much of this environmental risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) demonstrates in a report issued today. The report further estimates that more than 33% of disease in children under the age of 5 is caused by environmental exposures. Preventing environmental risk could save as many as four million lives a year in children alone, mostly in developing countries...."

"Diseases with the largest total annual health burden from environmental factors, in terms of death, illness and disability or Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)1 (include, but are not limited to):

Lower respiratory infections (37 million DALYs per year; 41% of all cases globally) largely from air pollution, indoor and outdoor.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease (COPD) -- a slowly progressing disease characterized by a gradual loss of lung function. (COPD, 12 million DALYs per year; 42% of all cases globally) largely as a result of exposures to workplace dusts and fumes and other forms of indoor and outdoor air pollution...."

" Most of the same environmentally-triggered diseases also rank as the biggest killers outright -- although they rank somewhat differently in order of lethality. Diseases with the largest absolute number of deaths annually from modifiable environmental factors (these are all parts of the environment amenable to change using available technologies, policies, preventive and public health measure). These diseases include:

   * 2.6 million deaths annually from cardiovascular diseases

  * 1.5 million deaths annually from lower respiratory infections

   * 1.4 million deaths annually from cancers

   * 1.3 million deaths annually from chronic obstructive Pulmonary disease

http://tinyurl.com/2qqy9b

  
  
Beccadog
[ Joined on 10/07 ] [ Posted on
February 7, 2008
]
       
   
 

EMF's are not the only thing that causes brain cancer.  Vinyl chloride monomer is proven, based on the weight of evidence, to cause brain cancer.  In fact, Vinyl chloride monomer, used to manufacture PVC plastics, from which part of which our computers are made and perhaps cell phones as well, is a proven human carcinogen.

What is known via peer-reviewed studies to cause cancer in humans?  There are a number of chemicals out there known by the International Agency for the Research on Cancer, which is a division of the World Health Organization.  

monographs.iarc.fr/.../crthalllist.php

Most studies are epidemiological and may be based upon the work force on the job.  Certainly, the workers that use these products are the first to acquire disease, but I strongly believe and others more knowledgeable than I concur, that what happens to test animals, and workers, eventually happen to us from long term exposure of the products we purchase or use and the materials of which they are made.

These were documented in studies at the IARC and the National Institutes of Environmental Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in the USA.  Unfortunately, unless you know the search words, these studies are hidden from the public thanks to the powers that be in the White House and their friendly lobbyists from Dow Chemical.

  
  
MelanieF
[ Joined on 02/08 ] [ Posted on
February 7, 2008
]
       
   
 

This is "wonderful" news!  great. We were having trouble receiving our cell phone reception in the past several months as we now seem to be in a dead area although the tower is a few miles away.  So, the cell phone company suggested we get WiFi.  Now we have free minutes whenever we are connected to the WiFi, for an increase in our monthly fees.  We are not using the actual router they sent us, but the one we have always had for our land line phone and computer connection.   And router is in my home office-- which I use most of the day and evening.  Here are my questions...What is THAT doing to me?  and to my husband?  Since this is also the connection for the computer, what can be done to create a safer connection and magnetic/electrical environment?  And what about college students and others who only have a cell phone, which they carry around or have nearby ALL the time, for their phone service?  What can they do?  

  
  
Rose_5-HT
[ Joined on 12/07 ] [ Posted on
January 26, 2008
]
       
   
 
I've never had a cell phone just to be on the safe side though I was unsure if this was a real danger or just a small risk like other things in life.

But I developped slight headaches 3 years after installing a cordless phone in my house. After 3.5 years I had permanent strong headaches and could not longer sleep more than 1-2 hours per 24 hours. On Dec 27, 2007 I read the article on Mercola.com linking cordless phone use to brain cancer and decided to immediately plug off the base station. The same night I could sleep ! The next day I no longer felt headaches !

Since EMF causes brain cancer I realize my headaches were a sign of brain damage too. How many people will have to get sick with these EMF to get rid of them ? HOW MANY ????
Mercola
  
Pat Ormsby
[ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on February 7, 2008]
       
   
  Mercola

Thank you, Rose, for telling us your story!  You share the anger of many other people who were never warned of the dangers, though research demonstrating biological effects dates back more than 100 years.  A shortwave radio transmitter was decomissioned in Switzerland about a decade ago after it was demonstrated to cause insomnia, poor school performance and other effects on the local population.  But when I mention these facts in letters to editors, they are never published.  And we all saw what happened when Dr. Mercola tried to warn America!  I pray for your good health!  If you are still suffering effects, come visit us at health.groups.yahoo.com/.../emfrefugee  We are a community sharing information on how to survive the IT age.

  
    
Plainsmuse
[ Joined on 01/08 ] [ Posted on
January 24, 2008
]
       
   
 
What of the new data transmission changes, the surge in towers, and the honeybees?  It's long been believed that the bees and birds use the Earths electromagnetic fields for migration and flight.  What do our new EVDO devices do, other than provide me with the ability to watch TV on my Cell phone?  Not that I don't have enough distractions in life, as it is now.  Why do all the areas of this land require a cell phone tower within view of each other, when Satellites already provide us with coverage everywhere?  Look up Globalstar...they have an excellent network, that works.  If it weren't for the bankrupting of the Irridium network back in the early nineties, we wouldn't have needed cellular, and could have avoided much.  Why not support a better technology, with ubiquitous coverage, whose cost is nearing the same as cellular was a few years ago.  Einstein predicted that with the demise of the honeybee, the span of mankind would be 5 years.  I for one hope that we haven't inadverntantly  disposed of ourselves with some corporations profit margin requirements. 

 
Truste
 
Mercola