“Technically the state Telecommunications Ministry is supposed to give licenses to construct towers that transmit and receive signals for cell phones, but they don’t bother with it,” said one member of the group, computer science engineer and IT project management professor Mark Jones, originally from Connecticut. “The telecommunications industry insists there’s no problem.”
The professors, headed up by telecommunication and network instructor Dr. Leonardo Soto, are also working to alert the public to what they say are easily made habit changes that can reduce the risk of brain cancer.
“Texting is much less risky,” noted Jones.
“Basically, the further the phone is from the head, the better. That’s why we also recommend switching sides, using a hands-free set, limiting your time on the phone to less than 25 minutes a day and not letting kids use cell phones.”The professors group, called Remoareni (an acronym whose final letters stand for Electromagnéticas No Ionizantes), is focusing just on non-ionizing microwave frequency radiation.
“Another type — ionizing radiation — is emitted by radioactive metals like plutonium that everybody now agrees is dangerous,” Jones said. “Ionizing radiation knocks electrons in the body right out of their orbits.
“But non-ionizing radiation — it interferes with biochemical reactions and affects the operation of water in our bodies, but there’s a lot more controversy about its dangers because it’s emitted by very popular devices that are very profitable for the computer and cellular communications industry. And the industry insists there’s no harm. There’s a war between honest scientists who want to report the data as it is and these industries.”
Communications media are in the thick of this war and have not often reported true data, Jones said. “Here in Jalisco, there is a lot going on and only one or two newspapers have run articles mentioning our data.”
Jones explained that in areas such as Ciudad Granja and Ixtlahuacán del Rio (in the west and to the north of Zapopan), residents are organizing to object to cell towers under construction. In Ixtlahuacán del Rio, 300 residents signed a letter of protest in May, while town officials in favor of a proposed tower invited to a public forum only experts cherry-picked to support the tower. Remoareni members such as Dr. Soto, who led a study of electronic contamination, were not put on the agenda.
Jones explained why the licensing process is generally ignored.
“They can get away with it because Jalisco doesn’t have any public health guidelines, which would at least establish that there is a health issue here. So one of the main goals of our group is pressuring the state legislature to create such guidelines. Meanwhile, if people are unhappy about the towers, there’s nothing they can do except move.”
Another of Remoareni’s urgent goals is to pressure the Jalisco legislature to establish limits to the amount of radiation that cell towers may emit. But that issue is related to the lack of public health guidelines.
“They don’t see any point in limiting the radiation if they’re not aware of any health risks. The guidelines would establish this type of radiation as a cancer risk.”
Jones sees some progress on the issue. “In 2010, non-ionizing radiation was classified by the World Health Organization, after a lot of pressure, as carcinogenic.”
Likewise, he noted that the government of Belgium has prohibited, starting in 2014, the sale and marketing of mobile phones to some children. Jones, who is Webmaster for Remoareni, put startling images on the site showing the higher penetration of cell phone radiation into the brains of children.
“Children under eight years old have thinner skulls than adults,” Jones said, adding that Dr. Soto is recruiting medical doctors into the group, which now consists mostly of computer science engineers.
“Dr. Soto gave a talk at the Hospital Civil and one doctor said he is noticing higher levels of brain cancer in patients and it occurs on the same side as cell phone use.”