Concern about base station on Australian University building

12 May 2006

The RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia has announced the closure of part of one of its buildings to allow environmental tests to be carried out, including those on radio wave emissions from mobile phone base stations on the roof, following a number of cases of brain tumours amongst staff working there. http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=6a5wbfi9ot2e

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) has emphasised that there is no established scientific link between radio wave emissions and brain tumours, either malignant or benign. http://www.arpansa.gov.au/media/mr1_120506.htm

In addition, in a position statement the Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research (ACRBR) “cautions against any premature speculation about putative underlying causes of these brain tumours, which appear to have occurred over a considerable period of time in a small number of staff working in the building.”

The current advice from the UK Health Protection Agency's expert group on mobile phone masts and health is: "Exposure levels from living near mobile base stations are extremely low, and the overall evidence indicates that they are unlikely to pose a risk to health."

This advice is consistent with 27 other national and international scientific reviews carried out during the past five years.  These include reviews by the Health Protection Agency, the British Medical Association, the World Health Organisation, and national governments.

More than 400 random audits of base station radiowave emissions carried out during the past five years in the UK by Ofcom have confirmed that these emissions are typically small fractions of international health and safety exposure guidelines.