Cell Tower Dangers

See also: Detection | Precautions | Shielding | Nutrition

cell tower mast radiation

Summary of Mobile Phone Mast Research

The following short document, Health and Environmental Concerns Regarding Mobile Phone Base Stations (Cell Towers) summarizes the research on the health effects of cell towers.

Government Recognition of Cell Tower Hazards

On April 2, 2009, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution on "Health Concerns Associated with Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs)", 559 to 22. One of the resolutions is that the wireless telecommunications facilities should not be placed near schools, places of worship, retirement homes, and health care institutions.
In 2009, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to seek federal legislation to overturn Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which takes away local government rights to refuse cell towers for health reasons. Since then, several other local governments in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon have passed similar resolutions. See CLOUT NOW.
In 2010, an Indian government panel reports on the dangers of cell towers.

Scientific Recognition of Cell Tower Hazards

In March 2018, the Ramazzini Institute Study found increased incidence of rare malignant schwannomas of the heart in rats exposed to RF representative of a 1.8 GHz mobile phone base station.
Henry Lai and B. Blake Levitt have compiled an overview of studies in Environmental Reviews (2010) showing biological effects at levels lower than our safety standards. Our current safety standards are obsolete and far above that which is correlated to biological effects.
See also Michael Kundi and Hans-Peter Hutter's article in the Journal of Pathophysiology, "Mobile phone base stations.Effects on wellbeing and health."

Safety Concerns for Cell Towers

One of the first international conferences on mobile phone mast safety was held at Salzburg, Austria, in the year 2000. The conference suggested that the thermally-based ICNIRP safety limits were insufficient to protect public health, and recommended levels as low as achievable. A variety of nonthermal health effects were discussed, such as calcium ion activity in nervous tissues, hearing sensations, cancer, cardiac diseases, reproductive disorders, altered heart rate and blood pressure, sleep disorders, headaches, fatigue, memory decrease, altered lens of the eye, immune function, and so on. Many of these are related to the symptoms of electrohypersensitivity. Since then, the number of research studies on nonthermal radiation, and epidemiological studies showing the danger of living near mobile phone masts, especially within ~300-400 meters, has been increasing.

Example Studies Focused on Cell,Radio,TV Towers

Cell towers, also known as mobile phone base stations, or masts, are the infrastructure that makes our cell phones work. Cell towers transmit and receive wireless signals to and from cell phones. Current studies suggest both short-term and long-term health risks within 300-400 meters of a cell tower, including cancer and other symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and sleeping disorders.

Cancer studies (Cell towers/antennae)
- Naila, Germany (Eger, 2004),
- Netanya, Israel (Wolf and Wolf, 2004)
- Belo Horizonte, Brazil on neoplasia mortality rate (2011)
Increased Symptoms (Cell towers/antennae)
- Santini, 2002
- Santini, 2003
- Navarro, 2003
- Abdel-Rassoul, 2007
- Preece, 2007
- Bortkiewicz, 2004
- Roosli, 2004
- Oberfield, 2004
- Eger, Jahn, 2009
Related radio/TV tower studies:
- Vatican radio tower,
- Sutro Tower, (Cherry, 2002)
- San Francisco (Cherry, 2000),
- Sutton Coldfield Tower, Great Britain (Dolk, 1997)
- Australia TV Tower, (Bruce Hocking, 1996)

Identifying and Locating Cell Towers

To detect if there are any cell towers near you, check the cellreception (USA) and antennasearch (USA) websites, or the sitefinder (UK) website. Subsequently, a GPS lookup site can be used to pinpoint the location on a map. Since not all antennae are registered, you may want to check with a meter. Check the Detection page for a list of meters for RF measurements. Learn how to BRAG^TM RATE your school, home, or office using the antennasearch.com website.

Cell towers may be installed on the tops or sides of pre-existing structures, including buildings, water towers, electricity towers, lamp-posts, etc. (center). Some have a directional beam pattern, with sidelobes, exposing certain directions more powerfully than others. For example, the cell tower shown at left has 3 sets of antennas (Left), each covering 120 degrees. Others are disguised as trees (right). A new type of antenna system, known as Distributed Antennae System may also show up as black boxes on utility poles.