W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
3 June 2010
Dear HESA Committee Members, (sent previously)
I would like to provide some information about the potential significance of this for those of you who may never have heard of Mary McBride. She has worked on many important panels and studies: Interphone Study with Daniel Krewski, Health Canada's Royal Panel to review the adequacy of Safety Code 6; Industry Canada's Antenna Siting Policy, just to name a few. Many of the studies upon which she has worked have been funded to a significant degree, if not entirely, by the telecommunication industry.
Her stance with regard to electromagnetic radiation has consistently been one in support of industry. For example, she has attended meetings at schools where parents are expressing concerns about proposed cell transmitters on or near the school. She has appeared as the lone representative, the expert, who has reassured parents that there is no known evidence of harm or danger cell transmitters . One such meeting in Surrey, BC, is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvYtXSaVV-c
Respectfully,
Sharon Noble
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis and Sharon Noble
To: McBride, Mary
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2010 3:16 PM
Subject: A word to the wise....
Under any other circumstances, I would begin by saying: "What were you thinking, Ms. Mary McBride? What in the world were you thinking?"
But knowing your many years of involvement in the academic community, I must assume that you have a perfectly reasonable explanation. I just can't imagine what it could be. So I'm asking, help me out here.
For years you have been an avid supporter of the wireless communications industry. For years that support was given an enormous amount of weight by virtue of your academic credentials. But it turns out that for years that weight, that respect, has every appearance of being undeserved. Though you have been publically identified as Dr. Mary McBride since 1997, according to the academic status attached to your publications, you are not Dr. McBride at all. Your highest academic degree is listed as a Master of Science.
I have been connected to the academic world for decades, Ms. McBride, and, as we both know, this cannot be trivialized as a mere breach of etiquette. Not only has this apparent misperception been allowed to gain credence, it's been allowed to fester and grow for well over thirteen years. Plain and simple, Ms. McBride, this is academic fraud. So this has to be accounted for.
Without an accounting, I know how this will be perceived, Ms. McBride. It will be said that it matters not at all that in your research papers your academic credentials are properly identified, if in all matters outside the parametres of those papers the perception is allowed to continue that you have an academic background that you do not. No comment will be necessary, then, about your ability as a research epidemiologist. It will be said that you have done that yourself by assuming the mantle of scholarship rather than earning it.
Without a clarification that I am sure you can provide, this perception of academic dishonesty will cast a pall on every bit of research with which you have been involved. Your colleagues will feel they deserved better. Indeed, the entire scientific community will feel it deserved better. Your every claim to scholarship, your every claim to academic status, will carry with it the admonition: "caveat emptor", let the buyer beware.
A case in point, Ms. McBride: despite your lacking a PhD, the Canadian Cancer Society alleges that you are an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. That institution denies that connection.
I'm sure you have a perfectly acceptable explanation for this confused state of affairs, Ms. McBride. Would you do me the kindness of offering it now?
Dennis Noble
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Tonight at 6:14 on CTV news, Mary McBride was "outed" for not being a doctor while being listed as such on the Canadian Cancer Society's webpage. She said that she wasn't aware of how she was listed that way - meanwhile, as recently as May 17th she was referred to as Dr. McBride on the CTV website in a print story ( which I believe was deleted today). Kudos to Sharon Noble for pursuing this! Hopefully this will air later tonight again.
Here's the story at the top of the CTV BC news page:
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip309123#clip309123
On May 31, 2010 she was introduced in a radio interview as Dr. Mary McBride - in the "8 minute interview" at the 54 second mark. Have a listen:
http://earthsky.org/health/mary-mcbride-on-whether-cell-phones-cause-cancer
And now the Canadian Cancer Society is now on the hot seat for this as well. Ms. McBride was a co-researcher on the Interphone Study.
I wonder if any of the mainstream media will ever put 2 and 2 together when they see TELUS's $1,000,000 gift to the BC Cancer Agency listed in their 2009 Annual Report and wonder if it influenced Dr. McBride's or the BC Cancer Agency's advice on cell phones and cell towers. How can they be impartial in face of over $1M in funding?
Many of you have seen this 2004? YouTube video of Sullivan Heights School fighting a cell tower and Ms. McBride saying that there was no convincing evidence that cell towers cause harm (or some version of that gobbley gook):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvYtXSaVV-c
Just love Milt Bowling's response to that!
Can you imagine parents thinking "well if a doctor from the BC Cancer Agency says cell phones are OK for kids (and cell towers) the they must be!"
Regards,
Carl
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California school launches cell tower study
Vista Del Monte Elementary school officials will launch cell tower study to address concerns about cancer.
Tue, Jun 01 2010 at 2:00 PM EST
http://www.mnn.com/family/raising-a-family/blogs/california-school-launches-cell-tower-study
Five years ago, Sprint erected an 85-foot cell phone tower in the middle of California's Vista Del Monte Elementary school. At the time, Sprint studied the tower's structural safety and an initial power reading, but since then teachers and students have become increasingly concerned about the tower's electromagnetic effect on health.
The Vista Del Monte tower is 20 feet from classroom buildings and next to the playground and lunch tables. Teachers and staff at the school, in the Victoria Park neighborhood, have expressed concerns about the number of cancer cases that have appeared at the school since the tower was installed. Janet Acker, a retired Vista Del Monte teacher, used to work in one of the classrooms closest to the tower. She has recorded nine current and former staff members who have been diagnosed with cancer. Acker has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and has spoken to the board of education about the matter in the past.
The school district receives $1,500 a month to house the Sprint cell tower and also uses it for district communication and Internet equipment. Considering the budget crunch that many school districts face each year, that kind of steady income is a big incentive to let the tower stand.
Still, school officials are listening to the concerns of staff and students. This week, school officials will launch a $15,000 independent review to study the electromagnetic waves coming from the cell tower, particularly looking for any irregular electric waves, or "dirty power."
You can bet that many school districts nationwide will be eager to hear the results.
David
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CSIR to examine radiation in metros
New Delhi/Mumbai, June 2, 2010
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/99863/India/CSIR+to+examine+radiation+in+metros.html
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has set up a team to verify the findings of a Headlines Today-Tehelka-Cogent survey on high electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in Delhi and Mumbai.
The findings of the survey sent ripples across the nation. While the CSIR team would next week verify if higher than prescribed levels of EMR was flooding Delhi, Congress MP from south Mumbai - Milind Deora - welcomed the survey and promised action.
The joint survey exposed how cell phone towers in Delhi and Mumbai were transmitting EMR that can cause serious ailments, including cancer in the long run.
"It's a welcome step to create this awareness. One arm of the government should conduct this survey. They owe this moral responsibility to the people of India to tell them whether using cell phones being close to cell phone towers is safe," Deora told Headlines Today.
The Headlines Today-Tehelka-Cogent survey had exposed how every nook and cranny of Delhi and Mumbai is suffering from EMR except in the areas where powerful politicians work and live. In fact, the level of EMR was more alarming in Mumbai than Delhi.
On Monday, the Delhi High Court had ordered the government to constitute a panel of technical and medical experts to look into the matter. Keeping at abeyance the sealing of illegal mobile phone towers in the city, the Delhi HC had ordered the central government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to form a panel and file a report by September 15 on regulation of towers.
The department of telecommunications and the MCD commissioner have to set up a committee to look into health risks caused by cell phone towers.
Robert
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Upper Dublin challenges communications tower on Twining Road
Published: Tuesday, June 01, 2010
By Linda Finarelli
Staff Writer
Signs are sprouting like newly planted flowers on lawns up and down a portion of Twining Road in Willow Grove. Sponsored by "Residents Against The Tower," the signs read "Upper Dublin — Tear Down This Tower."
The lawn-sign anger is aimed at a 195-foot communications tower now looming over Twining Road that may have been constructed under false pretenses, according to Upper Dublin Township officials.
The monopole, erected in April and viewed by some nearby Willow Manor area residents as an eyesore and potential danger, was purported to be a communications tower for the Norfolk Southern Railroad, but is now suspected to have been constructed to lease out to cell phone carriers, township officials said. The township issued a notice of violation and an enforcement notice May 7 to the railroad and CitySwitch LLC, a Norfolk Southern affiliate that applied for the permit to erect the tower.
CitySwitch, based in Atlanta, Ga., constructs towers and telecommunications infrastructure for railroad communications and signaling purposes and offers the towers for co-location to wireless carriers and municipalities, according to its website.
CitySwitch received a building permit from the township Feb. 3 to construct a railroad communication tower on Employment Center zoned property owned by Norfolk Southern on Twining Road between Welsh and Dale roads, according to documents filed with the township. The permit was issued for a 195-foot railroad communications tower on a stone pedestal with retaining walls within a 2,500-square-foot area surrounded by a 6-foot chain link fence.
According to Township Manager Paul Leonard, the Interstate Commerce Communications Termination Act of 1995 provides for the location and construction of railroad communication facilities and exempts them from local zoning requirements. Cell phone towers, on the other hand, must conform to the township's zoning ordinance.
Under the permit issued, "the only thing permitted on the pole is communication equipment for the railroad," Leonard said.
After receiving complaints from residents, township officials began to check into accusations that the tower was not constructed for the reason stated in acquiring the permit.
In an e-mail to Upper Dublin Township Ward 3 Commissioner Chet Derr, in whose district the tower was built, a resident reports a Norfolk Southern employee said the 195-foot monopole was not a communications tower for the railroad.
The resident was told railroad communication towers are 50 feet high with a single stick antenna on top, and are placed next to a switch in the tracks. The tower erected on Twining is not next to the track, there is no switch in the area where it is located and it is almost four times 50 feet in height.
About 30 Willow Manor area residents met with Derr and Leonard April 30 to discuss what the township was doing to investigate their concerns.
Twining Road resident Donna Weygand, who lives across the road from the tower, had said in an interview prior to the meeting, "if something happened [if the tower fell] it would slice my house in half."
Weygand, said she was also worried about "radiation concerns" from communications towers.
"It's an eyesore and not appropriate for where it is," Derr said. "The tower clearly will be utilized for cell phone communication. Our feeling is they misrepresented themselves when they applied for the building permit."
According to the enforcement notice, the township inspected the tower site April 28 and found "the tower and its associated ground facilities are constructed as a multi-carrier communications tower … the electric box installed at the tower site can accommodate four separate electric services."
The notice spells out the township's belief that the tower is not for railroad communications, but for cell phone use, and, therefore, violates the township's zoning regulations. CitySwitch and Norfolk Southern have 30 days to prove otherwise or remove the tower and return the site to its prior condition, it states. An occupancy certificate for the tower will not be issued until the issues raised are resolved, the notice says.
"We feel confident [the tower] is not intended solely for the use of the railroads," Derr said. The township has already received a call from a private cell phone carrier requesting information regarding co-location on the tower, he said. "We feel their intention was clearly not to build a communications tower and they are using the federal law as a loophole."
To comply with township zoning, a cell tower cannot be within 500 feet of a residential zone — the monopole is about 220 feet from a residential lot, according to township Director of Code Enforcement Richard Barton — it requires buffering and stealth technology or camouflage, Derr said, and the 195 feet is in excess of the ordinance. The applicant would need to obtain zoning relief to use it as a cell tower, which the township could deny "because it doesn't meet our ordinance," he said.
"Clearly their intent was to circumvent the system," Derr said. "Our ultimate goal is to have [the tower] removed.
"We will wait and see how they respond."
Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband contacted May 10 referred all questions to CitySwitch, which did not respond to a call for comment.
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