Health & Safety
Airwave works in much the same way as a commercial mobile phone network. It requires transmitters, normally placed on masts or similar structures, to provide radio coverage in relatively small geographic areas. Users maintain contact with these transmitters through their radio handsets.
Health concerns
It is generally recognised by the established scientific community worldwide that radio frequency (RF) emissions can be harmful to health above certain exposure levels. Airwave is therefore very aware of its responsibilities to ensure that staff, customers and the general public are not put at risk from the use of radio equipment – which is why Airwave is committed to rigorous compliance with strict safety guidelines.
Because of the potential risks from RF emissions, these guidelines are set on the basis of established scientific findings by a group of independent scientists drawn from around the world who are considered to be the leading experts in this field. This group is called the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). It is independent of both industry and government.
Safety standards
As a result of public concern in this country and elsewhere, and because scientific research is still ongoing, ICNIRP have set these standards with very wide safety margins built in to protect the public, users and those who have to maintain radio systems.
The standards which apply to exposure of the general public are, quite rightly, the most onerous. Currently, the standards are set at least 50 times below the level at which it is believed any adverse health effect can occur. Handsets and transmitters comply with these guidelines, the latter by hundreds if not thousands of times.
Pulsing
Some concerns about the technology Airwave uses (known as TErrestrial Trunked RAdio – TETRA) have focussed specifically on the 17.65Hz component of the kind of radio signal it uses. Airwave handsets pulse at this frequency, although its transmitters do not.
The origin of concern about this frequency is a reference in the Stewart report into mobile telephony in 2000, which advised precaution in relation to frequencies that were amplitude modulated at around 16Hz. The concern was these frequencies were close to those in the human brain and that some studies carried out back in the 1970s had suggested there might be an effect on brain function.
Recent attempts have been (and continue to be) made to replicate the results of these 1970s studies without success. Preliminary results of the latest research conducted by Dr John Tattersall of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (funded by the Home Office), using a TETRA signal, have shown no effects. Information on this work is available on the Home Office website.
Moreover, work by Dr Alan Preece at the University of Bristol, presented at the Bio-electromagnetics Society Conference in June 2002, found no effects on cognitive brain function. The USAF reported an attempt to replicate the 1970s studies at the Electromagnetic Fields and Human Health seminar in Russia in September 2002 which also failed to show any effect, as did some very high pulse power tests, reported at the Second International Workshop on Biological Effects of Electro Magnetic Emissions in Rhodes in October 2002.
Scientific comment
Professor Lawrie Challis, who was deputy chairman of the group that wrote the Stewart report, has said publicly that inclusion of advice on use of signals at 16Hz was not made because it was thought there was a health risk; rather it was made in recognition of the existence of the unreplicated research from the 1970s.
He adds that there is “no evidence that 17.65Hz modulation of the emission from TETRA phones would lead to any adverse health effects, nor are there any established biological mechanisms that suggest it should.”
This is echoed by Professor Colin Blakemore, also a Stewart group member. In other words, what the scientific community is saying is that, on balance, there is no evidence that the special features of the TETRA technology Airwave uses is a risk to public health.
Further research
Because concerns about mobile phone technology, and specifically TETRA, persist, an independent research programme was set up two years ago on the recommendation of the Stewart report. This programme includes studies into remaining questions about TETRA. More information is at http://www.mthr.org.uk.
In conclusion whilst Airwave is certainly not complacent about health and safety issues and is committed to engaging with all sides of the debate, recent research evidence and the consensus within the scientific community gives us great reassurance that staff, customers and the public's health are not at risk through the national rollout of this system.
We also know that the introduction of Airwave will bring significant public – and police officer – safety benefits throughout the country and help to improve policing in our communities. The system is already proving its value in areas where it has been introduced.