Court-ordered study links Vatican Radio's RF to cancer risk

Here’s an interesting story that may have ramifications for some AM stations here in the US.  This arises from the fact that due to urban sprawl, many AM transmitter sites are now surrounded by heavy residential development.

AFP reports a court-ordered study has found that electromagnetic waves beamed by Vatican Radio leave residents living near the station's antennas at a higher risk of cancer, Italian media said Wednesday.

"There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between exposure to Vatican Radio's structures and the risk of leukemia and lymphoma in children," the report said, according to the daily La Stampa.

The report also warned of "important risks" of dying of cancer for people who had resided at least 10 years within a 5.5-mile radius of the radio's giant antenna towers near Cesano, some 20 kilometres north of Rome.

The radio's director, Federico Lombardi, disputed the report, saying: "Vatican Radio is astonished to hear the news on the results of the study."

Lombardi, who is also the Vatican spokesman, added: "Vatican Radio has always observed international directives on electromagnetic emissions and since 2001 has observed more restrictive norms set by Italy to allay the concerns of the neighboring populations."

Speaking on Vatican Radio, he said: "According to international scientific literature on the matter, the existence of a causal link like the one apparently hypothesized by the report had never been established."

A Rome judge ordered the report in 2005 as part of an investigation into a complaint filed in 2001 by Cesano residents who alleged health hazards posed by the electromagnetic waves.

Vatican Radio's then-president Roberto Tucci and director Pasquale Borgomeo were among defendants in a case that was thrown out last year after the statute of limitations expired.

At the time, Lombardi said he was not satisfied with the result since he had expected an acquittal.

The Vatican spokesman said the Holy See would soon publish its own experts' conclusion in the case.

A 2001 investigation by Italy's environment ministry showed that magnetic fields in the area were six times more powerful than allowed, while Rome's Lazio region estimated that the rate of deaths from leukemia among children in the Cesano area was three times higher than in adjoining areas.

Here in the U.S. a great example to consider would be KBLA-AM (1580) in Los Angeles.  It is 50-kW (Day/Night) into a six-tower directional antenna.  In the main lobe of KBLA, the field strength is concentrated to the equivalent of 200+ kW. The site is surrounded on a couple of sides with apartments.

However, back in the 1980's, the IEEE undertook an examination of possible health effects of strong medium wave (AM Broadcast) antenna radiation, and concluded that there weren't any measurable health problems.   

Until the mid 1970's many high powered AM stations maintained engineers at their transmitters on a 24/7 basis, as they had done since the 1930's.  There's not much of any awareness of unusual cancers or alike that afflicted these engineers, many of whom lived well into their eighties after retirement. 

The signals at the Vatican Radio site are transmitted from a large shortwave and medium-wave transmission facility. The AM station at 1530 kHz consists of four 308-ft high grounded free standing towers arranged in a square, which carry wires for a medium wave aerial on horizontal crossbars.

RBR-TVBR observation: Bottom line, this facility has powerful shortwave and AM arrays which, combined, could cause some problems – and that’s all but proven here. Now, whether this translates into injury from a 50-kW station here in the US to surrounding residents remains to be seen. But this case in Rome creates precedence and that’s all that some legal teams need to get a suit rolling. There have always been claims of high-power electric lines near homes and neighborhoods, but not so much radio or TV transmitter sites – it’s usually more of the interference with phones and other home electronics.

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