Sir, - Philip W. Walton (December 15th), responded to my plea for someone to let us know what mobile phone masts are doing to the health of those living in their vicinity. He offered what he termed "some assurance"
His method was to debunk the work of Roger Coghill and Neil Cherry, whilst at the same time putting forward as holy writ the findings of ICNIRP. There wasn't much reassurance in that.
Maybe Prof Walton is right about Messrs Coghill and Cherry. Or maybe he is totally wrong. And isn't it just possible that ICNIRP may eventually be found to have been wrong?
It is hard to dismiss instances where similar assurances were given about other matters of concern. Take the alarming history of BSE/Mad Cow disease and its human equivalent. CJD. Scientists, the health ministry in the UK, spokespeople, and a host of mustered experts, issued almost continuous assurances, reassurances, and denials of danger - and all the time the number of victims dying increased. The issued statements turned out to have been preludes to health disasters.
Take as another example what happened in the wake of the widespread use of the drug Thalidomide. At the time of its initial use, the public was informed that it was safe, and there was no cause for alarm, that it had been properly tested, that no danger was involved. But look what happened!
Any casual perusal of major court cases will reveal that "expertise" to boost one's case is purchasable. That is why we've had any number of occasions on which expert witnesses in such fields as psychiatry, chemistry, ballistics, the law, medicine, DNA testing, engineering and behavioural psychology have been pitted against each other, and have expressed diametrically opposite views.
What worries me about the current mobile phone masts debate is that the health of huge numbers of individuals is possibly at stake. It seems that it is being gambled with. The question is: why? Could it possibly be for the sake of chasing financial profit?
If the organisations having their mobile phone masts erected all over Ireland are truly convinced that no danger is posed by their masts, why do they not imdemnify all those living in the vicinity of the structures? - Yours, etc. Liam Nolan,
Shrewsbury Park, Dublin 4.