Presumptive ethics and mobile phone base stations

Despite growing awareness about harmful radiation from mobile phone base stations, Maltese policymakers still embrace ostrich policies of burying their heads in the sand.

The Maltese Department of Health Information, briefed to "analyse and disseminate health information", remains silent about emergent and newly-identified non-thermal biological health risks from electromagnetic radiation.

Without conducting a single epidemiological survey, the department presumes to inform the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) "that there are no adverse effects generated from these antennae."

In turn, Mepa chairman Austin Walker presumes that the MCA "continuously monitors emissions in line with World Health Organisation information".

The result of this ethically reprehensible presumption is that in Malta, electro-sensitive people ceaselessly endure headaches, sleep disruption, memory impairment, depression, frequency of seizures in epileptics and other conditions.

With over 2,200 antennae Malta must have the highest concentration of electromagnetic smog in Europe - 10 times the UK density.

Profit motives have led to a quasi-complete relaxation of morality. The Maltese Curia hosts 43 antennae on its property - if the "aesthetics" are right, it's no problem. The Italian Bishops' Conference rules out use of church buildings for purposes unconnected with worship. Alien to the sanctity of Catholic churches, mobile phone masts "compromise the univocality and visibility of Christian symbols" in a multicultural society.

The Church in Malta, however, seeks moral comfort in arguing that the "scientific findings are sometimes conflicting in nature" and in devoutly presuming that the local authorities follow "international guidelines approved by WHO and the European Union which sets the levels of mobile phone radiation".

WHO is aware that scientists now agree that potential health risks have intensified. Indeed its own Fact Sheet 263 evaded WHO censors, confirming that "with respect to strength-of-the-evidence based on epidemiological studies of childhood leukaemia, the IARC has concluded that electromagnetic fields are possibly carcinogenic." More recent research determined that current "safe" threshold levels for childhood leukaemia and breast cancer are near 0.1mT. This is 1,000 times below the current ICNIRP guideline.

Maltese stakeholders know that in April 2009 the European Parliament approved by an overwhelming majority - 559 against 22 - a resolution tabled by Belgian MEP Frédérique Ries on health concerns associated with electromagnetic fields (EMFs). This resolution sends strong signals to WHO, our MCA and all ostrich stakeholders to stop hiding their heads in the sand. It tasks the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies with assessing scientific integrity to "forestall cases of risk, conflict of interest, or even fraud".

Various sources have confirmed leukaemia clusters near mobile masts, radiation from which damages human DNA.

The good news is that the human body normally repairs DNA breaks. However, the December 2008 issue of Leukaemia and Lymphoma reports that researchers at the University School of Medicine in Shanghai have discovered that children who carry a defective version of a gene that would otherwise help repair damaged DNA are four times more likely to develop full-blown leukaemia if they live within 100 metres of a mobile phone base station.

Children exposed to EMFs suffer more frequent DNA breaks. Besides, those who carry this modified gene or polymorphism cannot repair the damage. Childhood leukaemia is now generally believed to be initiated by a chromosomal rearrangement in the womb, followed by some 'environmental insult' after birth. Antennae-induced DNA breaks could be this 'environmental insult'. Children carrying this polymorphism are "particularly sensitive to carcinogenic effects" of electromagnetic radiation, making them extremely susceptible to leukaemia.

One may try preventing leukaemia by eliminating exposure to EMFs. However, try doing it in Malta. There are not very many places where your child can live 100 metres from mobile phone masts. Map it out and then... relocate. Pack your bags! Move!