Motor Neurone Disease is pretty
rare. It affects, on average, only one in every 50,000 people in the UK
each year. It’s caused by failure (death) of the motor neurones - that
is, the brain cells that control movement in the various parts of the
body. |
A very substantial number of
scientific studies into Motor Neurone Disease (MND) link death of these
brain cells to an excess of calcium around them. These studies are not
in any way related to research on electromagnetic field (EMF) effects,
they are simply attempting to find out more about MND. |
There
is a link, though,
between these findings and EMFs - particularly TETRA. Because, of
course, the major health concern about TETRA was raised by the Stewart
Report, in which a substantial number of research studies were listed
that showed increased calcium efflux (= calcium deposition) around brain
cells in the presence of EM waves amplitude modulated at around 16 Hz
(cycles per second). TETRA emissions are amplitude modulated at 17.64 Hz
(from the masts, and more so from the handsets). The
majority of research
studies on this subject have confirmed this effect, including one in
1996 and one in 1999. The most recent study, undertaken for the
Government at DSTL Porton Down by Dr. John Tattersall, appears to have
failed to take account of three factors highlighted by earlier
researchers as significant - this is probably why he has failed to
replicate their results. |
So
- direct theoretical causal link, supported by
numerous research studies: |
TETRA emissions modulated at
17.6 Hz stimulate increased calcium efflux, leading to increased calcium
deposits around motor neurones (brain cells), leading to MND. |
Drumcarrow,
near Fife in Scotland, has the dubious distinction of being one of the
first places to be blessed with a TETRA mast, part of the commercial
Dolphin TETRA network that predates the Airwave TETRA service by some
years. In a written
response to Andrew Michell MP, dated 16 September 2003, Minister
Hazel Blears points to Dolphin as a prior example of TETRA, offering it
as a ‘case study’ for health issues. |
Drumcarrow has also the
misfortune of playing host to a large number of very serious medical
conditions: various cancers, Parkinson’s Disease, ME, a variety of
thyroid disorders - and a statistically highly significant number of
cases of MND. |
MND, as stated earlier, is a
rare condition affecting only one in 50,000 people each year. In the
small sparsely-populated region of Drumcarrow,
four cases of this
rare condition have been reported in just a few years. The likelihood of
such a situation occurring by chance is so small that one could wait
thousands of
years and still have a less than evens chance of seeing it anywhere in a
population the size of the UK - i.e. four cases within such a small
group over such a short span of time. |
This is
not a case of ‘Well,
you will get four red cards in a row every so often with a random
shuffle’. Any attempt to write this off as a ‘random cluster’ is an
insult both to the suffering people of Drumcarrow and to mathematical
integrity. There may be a fifth case - yet to be confirmed - in which
case the odds against become astronomical. In case it needs saying,
there was no history of this condition in the region before the TETRA
mast. |
In short: |
The research shows it, the
medical evidence confirms it - |
When are the authorities going to act on
it?? |
|
Footnote |
The NRPB Report on TETRA (2001)
has a section entitled: |
Biological Effects of
Amplitude-Modulated RF Fields |
A couple of excerpts from this
section may be of interest. |
Para 78 |
“Calcium plays an important role
in many biological functions, especially in the function of nerve
cells”. |
Para 95 |
“Calcium efflux was not, and is
not, a standard, widely-employed, measure of nerve function: any change
in efflux is difficult to interpret, and carries no immediately obvious
health risk.” |
It appears that, not only does
the right hand not know what the left hand is doing, but that
neither hand seems to
be in contact with the real world of neurological research. |
Perhaps we should remind ourselves - this is the body that is paid to protect the health of the British people (or is it rather them that need reminding?) |