Date published: 2006/03/05
The BBC says:
Mobile phone masts and handsets are no more dangerous than television or radio transmitters, an expert has suggested.
Communities often use health arguments to protest over their construction but Prof Anthony Barker said there was no proof they had an adverse effect.
He said TV transmitters had a similar strength field but people did not question their construction.
Residents often protest strongly over perceived health risks in positioning masts near homes and schools.
Prof Barker told an audience of students and academics at the University of Ulster: "There is no reason to expect mobile phone signals - which are essentially low-powered radio transmissions - to be bad for health."
He said that for over 80 years there have been wireless transmissions - "we have big TV and broadcast radio transmitters all around us".
He said concerns were only raised when phone masts - "which is also a radio transmitter" - were proposed.
Prof Barker has three decades experience studying the biological effects of electromagnetic fields.
He is based at the Department of Medical Physics of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Unfortunately the anti-mast hysteria is now part of the public psyche, so is unlikely to go away for many years, no matter what any study ever concludes or expert ever says. Of course it's possible there is a real health problem with all this wireless noise being transmitted everywhere, but if so it must be a pretty subtle effect. And it could depend on the frequency of transmission.
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