Today there are about 2 millions towers and antennas in the United States. One quarter of them are hidden. Some are made to look like cacti. Others are made to look like palm trees; some look like lighthouses. The companies boast of how well they simulate things. Why are so many hidden? Probable because people are becoming more aware of the dangers of these devices.
Sometimes people protest against the antennas based on the fact that they are horrible eyesores and reduce the property values in the neighborhoods where they are mounted. Although it's undoubtedly true that antennas are disgustingly ugly and do lower property values nearby, why wouldn't health concerns take priority?
UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM, TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL
Here's the problem. In 1996 then United States President Bill Clinton deregulated the telecommunications industry. The new Federal Communications Commission regulations, which completely superseded the original ones, ostensibly were supposed to do wonderful things, like increase competition, lower prices, and create more jobs. None of that happened. Instead, today monopolies abound, prices have increased substantially and jobs have been lost. That's the not-unexpected result of laissez faire capitalism a la Milton Friedman Chicago boys' school on steroids.
Since 1996, the telecom industry has spent more than 400 million dollars lobbying congress.
The Act of 1996 has a very dangerous rider, which specifically prohibits residents and local and state governments from stopping placement of antennas or having them removed based on health or environmental concerns. Such a prohibition leads me to believe that the industry was probably well aware of the dangers even back then. Otherwise, why would such a prohibition even be considered? Indeed, the tobacco industry was well aware of the harmful effects of cigarette smoking decades before the public was made aware of them. The tobacco companies published false and misleading information about their products for years. The telecom industry is doing the same today. People who work for them and whose findings don't jibe with the official line regarding the safety of their products lose their funding and are fired and discredited.
Studies are also designed to produce the results that the companies want. For example, they may deliberately exclude long-term cell-phone users from the study or people who have been living closest to the antennas for a long period of time.
There is another very serious problem as well, which severely undermines the consumer's right to protest. The FCC safety guidelines, according to independent researchers everywhere, are far too lax. Many have suggested that the acceptable levels of radiation should be 1000 times lower than the legal guidelines, which are among the weakest in the world.
The FCC safety standards are based only on heat-generated electromagnetic fields (EMFs). However, independent researchers have found that non-thermal, biological EMFs at extremely low frequency ranges, i.e., those associated with wireless communication, can cause far more harm.
The Biolnitiative Report of 2012, a comprehensive study by 29 experts from 10 different countries, had this to say: " Existing EMF-safety standards, based solely on heat-generated electromagnetic fields, do NOT adequately protect public health."
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