WASHINGTON-The International Association of Fire Fighters, the union representing more than 85 percent of firefighters and emergency medics in United States and Canada, today formalized plans to solicit funding for a study to determine whether use of fire stations as cellular phone base stations for antennas and towers is hazardous to the health of its members.
At its annual conference in Boston last August, the IAFF called for a moratorium on new cell towers on fire stations until possible health effects can be examined.
Today, the IAFF issued a position paper that will serve as the foundation of its fundraising efforts.
“There currently is no good scientific study that determines whether or not cell towers on fire stations are hurting our members, so a study must be done,” said IAFF General President Harold A. Schaitberger. “Firefighters are already at a higher risk of injury and illness from the hazards of their job. But we will not accept our members being put in additional danger while at the station house from exposure to low-intensity radio-frequency and microwave radiation that is emanated from these cell towers and antennas.”
IAFF said it is the general belief of international governments and of the wireless telecommunications industry that no consistent increases in health risk exist from exposure to radio-frequency radiation. However, the firefighters union noted that these positions are based on non-continuous exposures to the general public to low intensity radio-frequency fields emitted from wireless telecommunications base stations.
“Critical questions concerning the health effects and safety of radio frequency microwave radiation remain,” said Schaitberger. “We want answers, not the biased opinions of cell-phone industry groups.”
