Public Comments 04-30-2015 thru 05-13-2015 (file 2 of 2)

Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center Page 4 of 6 Yet, the United States has a de facto policy of "post sales surveillance" with respect to RF radiation. Only after years of exposure, will there be studies to characterize the health consequences. It can take 3 to 10 years for health effects to show up. Citizens shouldn't be forced to act as guinea pigs in a radiation bioeffects experiment. Some adverse health effects show up immediately, but it can often take 3 to 10 years for the longer term effects of RF illness to appear, such as cancer. Many researchers, public health officials and citizens believe that consumers shouldn't be forced to act as guinea pigs in a bioeffects experiment for the next 20 years. In short, "we are the experiment", for health effects. Dr. Gerard Hyland, physicist, says existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate, since they focus only on the thermal effects of exposure.15 Hyland, twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, says existing safety guidelines "afford no protection" against the non-thermal influences. "Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly given the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests." "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate." Dr. Gerard Hyland, Physicist two-time nominee, Nobel Prize in Medicine The industry lobbied Congress with $39 million in 1996 to ensure passage of a law which essentially gives them the right to place these towers in our neighborhoods, and makes it next to impossible to oppose them based on health reasons. It is no coincidence that EPA funding was also cut in 1996 for electromagnetic radiation health studies. Citizens and communities across the country are angered, and are protesting this imposition of involuntary, 24-hour-a-day microwave exposure, without proven safety levels. As one citizen stated, "There's no place left to escape." The industry lobbied Congress with $39 million in 1996 to pass a law that took away citizen's rights to oppose cell towers based on health reasons. Also, once a cell tower is erected, it has proved very difficult to verify the radiation is within legal limits. There are no safety measures in place to ensure that the towers are not emitting higher radiation levels than legally allowed. One frustrated resident finally spent $7,000 purchasing his own equipment to test a cell phone tower near his home, and found it emitting radiation at levels 250% over the legal limit. 16 Property values have also been known to drop once a cell tower is erected, due to the perceived risk of negative health effects. Cellular phone frequencies have also seriously disrupted local emergency and law enforcement radio communications. Massachusetts lawyer Mark Berthiaume, opposing placement of a cell phone tower, said "Municipalities are being bullied every day by providers of wireless telephone service who use their financial clout and the federal (law) to intimidate the communities into allowing them to place large towers in inappropriate locations." 17 Some Questions and Answers But don't we need and depend on cell phones? Of course. No one is saying not to have cell phones and towers, but to make them safer. If Austria can have levels 10,000 times more protective, then so can we. It is just more expensive to the companies. Also, we don't have to let these cell towers go anywhere and everywhere the industry wants them. We can require that they erect the minimum number required to provide adequate coverage, and be put in the safest places possible. http://www.mountshastaecology.org/Archive/Health-Effects_from_Cell_Phone_Tower_R... 1/29/2014