The Cellular Telephone Hang-Up : Companies Need to Be Good Neighbors When Locating Their Antennas
Cellular telephone transmission antennas or relay stations have become the latest source of Future Shock tension. Local planning boards regularly entertain more and more permits to build such antennas everywhere from Sylmar to Woodland Hills. Yet many folks just aren’t convinced that these transmissions are safe.
The experts have been all over the map on this. Om Gandhi, for example, said to be an expert on radio frequencies at the University of Utah, declared in a 1993 study for the National Institutes of Health that radio waves emitted by hand-held cellular phones fell well within accepted safety standards. Fine.
In August, 1994, however, we heard “Study of Cellular Phone Risks Revised: Cellular telephone users may be exposed to greater levels of potentially dangerous electromagnetic energy than previously thought.” The author of the later study, of course, was Om Gandhi.
There’s more: Research from George Washington University said that two-thirds of the cellular telephones in one study produced a strong shock in pacemakers that are used to regulate heart rates. The shock was not necessarily hazardous, the data found, but could be a problem if the pacemaker wearer was in a vulnerable situation such as “standing on a ledge.”
What this all means is that efforts to answer the question of cellular phone safety will be hung up if we wait for a resolution of the scientific issues.
The opponents have their own concerns. They don’t want to hear about how difficult it will be to get a call through if there are too few antennas. And they don’t necessarily want to hear about how vital cellular communications can be during natural disasters. Nor will scientific arguments assuage the concerns of parents who see a cell phone antenna built near school grounds. A simple “don’t worry, it’s safe,” isn’t going to wash.
And even though the federal telecommunications bill currently in conference in the Congress could include a provision that prohibits localities from barring antennas outright, based on current concerns about the environmental effects of radio frequency transmissions, a legislative solution is not the answer here.
What will work is some effort by the telephone companies to be better neighbors. We’re willing to bet that the companies will hear far fewer complaints if they avoid the most fear-provoking locations for these stations. We’re sure, for example, that the roof of the average school classroom can be avoided in most instances. Yes, this is business, but good business never involves ignoring the concerns of worried neighbors and consumers.
