Official News - page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: MOBILE PHONE MAST DANGER NOT REAL

by Hazed

Researchers investigating whether there is any adverse health effect of mobile phone masts have come to the conclusion that, yes, there is - but it's not related to anything the masts themselves are doing, because sufferers report symptoms regardless of whether the equipment is actually on or off. In other words, if somebody thinks the masts will make him ill, then he is going to get ill.

The research by the University of Essex, England, focussed on 56 people who said that mobile phone masts affected their health badly, and 120 controls. First, they were all put through "open" testing, in which the subjects were told whether or not a transmission was actually happening. Some dropped out at this stage; the remaining 44 sensitives and 115 controls were then put through "double-blind" tests in which they did not know when the masts were live or not, and neither did the researchers (which made sure the subjects couldn't pick up hints from the researchers about when the equipment was switched on).

Participants were asked to say whether they thought the equipment was transmitting or not. Although a few of the subjects correctly guessed the answer every time, that's to be expected, and the results did not differ from those that would have been produced by chance.

According to the researchers, the trial results showed that "exposure from mobile phone technology is not related to levels of well-being or physical symptoms in mast-sensitive individuals. Furthermore, mast-sensitive individuals are unable to detect the presence of transmissions under double-blind conditions."

So it's all in the mind. Just goes to show the power of belief!

Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page