Following on from the articles in previous issues about electro-sensitivity:
I trained as a teacher of the deaf in 1978–9, but in my training used only wired amplification. On and off from 1980 to the 1990s, I had to use radio hearing aids at work broadcasting to the child's hearing aid. The antenna hanging over the abdomen gave me intense abdominal pain and later diarrhoea.
Teachers of the deaf seem to have particularly high cancer rates, but no one keeps comprehensive occupational cancer statistics, and so one cannot prove a connection. Mainstream teachers are asked to wear transmitters all day although they are told that they are just microphones, not transmitters.
I became worried about the use of transmitters inside the heads of profoundly deaf growing children, as part of bionic ears (cochlear implants). At first Manchester University opposed their use on children, on human rights grounds, since they could not give informed consent, and would need another operation if they decided to have them removed when they were adults. However, this policy was abandoned which was unfortunate, as Manchester is a world leader in education of the deaf. I asked what was done to monitor the health of the children. Nothing, of course. I don't suppose anyone would keep records of leukaemia, brain tumours or salivary gland tumours in deaf children. The parents of course don't give informed consent either, as no one mentions the hazards to them.
One adult I knew had been given a cochlea implant. She
really appreciated it for her hearing, but it made her so ill that she had to have it removed.
