Mobile Phone Mast Scare Is Bullshit - Official

[Edi]

Mobile-mast danger is all in your head
'If you believe something's going to harm you, it will'
By Lewis Page
Published Wednesday 25th July 2007 15:28 GMT

Researchers investigating the health effects of mobile phone masts have found that sufferers report symptoms regardless of whether the equipment is actually on or off.

The academic investigators were led by Professor Elaine Fox of the University of Essex, and their report (pdf) was published by Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal run by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

During the study, 56 people who said they suffered adverse health effects from mobile mast transmissions were compared with 120 controls. Twelve of the professedly mast-sensitive individuals dropped out after the "open" testing, in which subjects were told whether or not a transmission was actually happening, as did five controls.

The remaining 44 mast-sensitives and 115 controls were then put through "double-blind" tests in which neither they nor the researchers knew whether the equipment was transmitting. The trials employed both GSM and UMTS transmissions.

A few of the subjects correctly guessed the answer every time, but the report authors said that was to be expected.

"Participant performance for each group did not differ from chance," they wrote.

There was an apparent correlation at first between UMTS signals and the sensitive group's reports of "arousal", but the scientists said this was caused by the fact that the random test equipment happened to generate a lot of UMTS transmissions during early stages, when the subjects were anxious.

According to the researchers, the trial results showed that "exposure from mobile phone technology is not related to levels of well-being or physical symptoms in [mast-sensitive] individuals".

"Furthermore, [mast-sensitive] individuals are unable to detect the presence of [transmissions] under double-blind conditions. It remains the case however, that [mast-sensitive] individuals present with a range of distressing and serious symptoms and often have a very poor quality of life."

It seems that the presence of mobile phone masts can indeed make people severely ill, but this has nothing to with radio waves - and probably everything to do with the fact that the sufferers expect to be harmed.

Professor Fox told the BBC that "belief is a very powerful thing .. If you really believe something is going to do you some harm, it will."

So now we only need to worry about the dangers of Wi-Fi...®

[PeZook]

Well, it's good to have a study to back up intuition. Of course, the lack of any correlation between living near a MP mast and increased cancer rates. People were going apeshit here, too, about the mast scare - ignoring the much greater problem of pollution from coal plants and chemical industry.

Fancy that. Lots of people are scared of radiation, because they cannot see it and feel it, and it makes them nervous.

[Sarevok]

I lived just one floor below an apartment with a mobile base station on the roof. So this is quite reassuring.

Does this also debunk the claim mobile handsets can cause cancers to the user ?

[andrewgpaul]

The only other thing to note is that this study hasn't tested long-term exposure. Having said that, I was never very convinced by the anit-mast crowd anyway.

[Darwin]

The only other thing to note is that this study hasn't tested long-term exposure. Having said that, I was never very convinced by the anit-mast crowd anyway.

If you're talking on your mobile 5+ hours a day, I won't discount anything as far as radiation/cancer goes. but for, you know, NORMAL, SANE people, it's simply a non-factor.

[Metatwaddle]

The only other thing to note is that this study hasn't tested long-term exposure. Having said that, I was never very convinced by the anit-mast crowd anyway.

If you're talking on your mobile 5+ hours a day, I won't discount anything as far as radiation/cancer goes. but for, you know, NORMAL, SANE people, it's simply a non-factor.

You wouldn't discount it? I would. Radio waves of the cell phone variety have very low energy. People spend much more time than 5 hours every day in the presence of much higher-energy radiation: artificial or natural light. And nobody says that's bad for you. (Well, sunlight is bad for your skin if you aren't wearing sunscreen, but that's because of UV rays, not light.)

You don't really need to worry about radiation giving you cancer until you get to the UV level.