Research

Project Title:

The effect of TETRA radiofrequency fields on symptoms in police officers

Start Date:

1 July 2005

Expected Date of Completion:

1 January 2009

Cost:

£308,152.50

Principal Investigator:

Professor Simon Wessely

Contact Details:

James Rubin
MPRU
James Black Centre
125 Coldharbour Lane
Camberwell
London
SE5 9NU

Email: g.rubin@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Project Team:

Dr Anthony Cleare
Ms Rosa Nieto
Dr James Rubin
Professor Simon Wessely

Expertise:

We are a group of researchers based at King’s College London who have extensive experience in researching new and often difficult to define illnesses such as multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War illness. We have also previously published several papers concerning the possible cause and treatment of symptoms that are attributed to electromagnetic fields.

Approach:

The best way to test whether TETRA can cause adverse symptoms is to expose volunteers to TETRA signals under laboratory conditions and ask them how they feel. Essentially, that is what we will do. Volunteers from the Police Force will be asked to come to our laboratory in South East London for three afternoons. On each visit we will position a specially designed TETRA radio next to their heads. On one occasion, this will transmit a normal, pulsed, TETRA signal. On another occasion it will transmit a radio signal that is not pulsed but which still has the same power as our TETRA signal. On a third occasion the handset will divert the signal it produces to an internal load rather than transmitting it – this will act as our control or ‘sham' condition.

Each volunteer will be exposed to each of these three conditions, with the order in which they occur determined at random. Importantly, the study will also be ‘double-blind:’ that is, neither the volunteer nor anyone from our research team will be told which condition is which.

During the course of each session, volunteers will be asked to complete several short questionnaires about how they are feeling. By comparing whether officers experience more symptoms during sessions where radio signals are present than during sham sessions, we will be able to tell whether TETRA signals are directly responsible for causing adverse symptoms.

Potential Difficulties:

Most police officers do not report any adverse sensations as a result of using TETRA radios. Others report that they do often get headaches or other unpleasant sensations when they use it. We would like to test 60 officers from both of these groups, ie 120 officers in total. However, we appreciate that officers who believe that TETRA signals have an adverse effect on their health may sometimes be unwilling to take part in this form of study. Recruiting sufficient volunteers in this group represents our hardest challenge.

Importance:

If the study demonstrates that TETRA signals do cause adverse sensations in some police officers, then it may be necessary for police forces to issue guidance to any affected staff on ways to reduce their exposure. Additional research would also be needed to identify the biological mechanism underlying this effect.