[SFDXA] RFI Zealot...

[Bill Marx]

Received From Bill Hellman NA2M 
- Bill W2CQ

>From Wired News
Copyright 2002, CMBE

Mendocino, CA: Microwave Hot Seat
By Julia Scheeres

2:00 a.m. Jan. 22, 2002 PST

Arthur Firstenberg moved from New York City to Mendocino, a quaint Victorian
village on California's rugged Northern Coast, to escape the radio
frequencies
he believes were making him sick.

The 51-year-old says he is "electrically sensitive," meaning he believes he
can detect, and is harmed by, the electromagnetic fields emitted by
everything
from hair dryers to power lines.

Firstenberg is one of a growing number of people around the globe who claim
they suffer from the same condition.

"The world is a minefield for people with electrical sensitivity," said
Firstenberg, the author of Microwaving Our Planet, a book that blames radio
frequencies for everything from irritability to cancer.

Firstenberg is the president of The Cellular Task Force, a national
organization of people who claim they are electrically sensitive, and a
member of Wireless Free Mendocino, a local group that -- you guessed it --
wants to
ban wireless services from Mendocino.

The group has been highly successful in achieving its goal. Wireless Free
Mendocino has been instrumental in defeating attempts to bring cell phone
and a high-speed Internet service to the town's 1,000-odd residents. Now the
group is trying to force the high school radio station to remove its antenna
from
the school roof -- a move that could sound the death knell for the
struggling
student outfit. Electrical sensitivity is not recognized by the U.S. medical
establishment, and Firstenberg refused to disclose his diagnosis, which
allows him to collect disability income. He also says he suffers from
chemical
sensitivity, a condition denounced by many doctors as quackery.

Firstenberg says he became electrically sensitive in 1982 as a pre-med
student at the University of California at Irvine, after he received more
than 40
dental X-rays. One day he collapsed on the hospital floor with heart pains
and subsequently he lost 15 pounds in two weeks. He also grew short of
breath
around electrical equipment. Finally he dropped out of med school and moved
to the "clean environment" of Mendocino.

Nowadays when Firstenberg travels, he lugs along a bevy of devices to detect
radio frequencies, including a meter that gauges electrical, magnetic and
microwave fields.

If he visits wireless-saturated San Francisco, three hours south of
Mendocino, his devices go berserk and he experiences multiple symptoms,
including an
unquenchable thirst, a pressure in his chest and behind his eyeballs,
and"buzzing sensations" in his lips.

"The reason I'm lobbying so hard to stop the expansion of wireless
facilities all over the country is because I firmly believe this is
affecting the
health of the nation," said Firstenberg, who graduated from Cornell
University with
a degree in mathematics and a minor in physics. "There has to be widespread
recognition among scientists and the public that this is a problem."

One of his targets has been the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which
prohibits local governments from banning wireless facilities based on the
"environmental effects" of the radio frequency emissions.

In 1997, a coalition of anti-wireless groups, including Firstenberg's
Cellular
Phone Taskforce, sued the FCC, alleging that the clause preempts local
governments from protecting public health and therefore violated the 10th
Amendment, which limits federal authority.

The case, which plaintiffs said represented over 2 million people, was
thrown out by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and denied review by the
Supreme
Court earlier this month.

Because anti-wireless activists are unable to challenge cell tower sitings
on health grounds, they resort to scouring municipal codes for rules that
would
preclude the towers for other reasons.

It worked in Mendocino. The village's Historical Review Board - dubbed the
Hysterical Review Board by locals since it controls everything from the
color
of housepaint to the number of lawn gnomes placed in yards -- denied a
height variance to U.S. Cellular to erect a tower in Mendocino, despite
testimony
from the Sheriff's Department that mobile phone service would increase
public safety.

Now Wireless Free Mendocino has its sights set on a couple of radio antennas
perched on the high school, which the group alleges also violate height
restrictions. One of the antennas is a transmitter used by the student radio
station, KAKX. If the station - which scrapes by on funds collected from
yard sales and donations - is forced to take down the antenna, it may not
have
enough money to build a new one, said station manager Scott Southard.

Southard, who teaches an audio class at the high school, said the wireless
controversy has torn his small community apart.

"There have been radio towers on the high school for 30 years and there were
never complaints about them until Firstenberg started his campaign of
misinformation and fear," Southard said bitterly. "You can't argue with
zealots."