They’re dotted all over urban areas – hidden within faux palm or pine trees, nestling inside church steeples, lurking on school playing fields or perched on top of office blocks.

To many, cell phone towers represent no problem at all and are simply ignored. But there are those who seem to be sensitive to the low levels of radiation emitted by the masts, particularly at night.

Meyndert Bornman, an electronic technician, said he began hearing a low droning sound coming from a cell mast, metres from his Westdene home. A few months later he went a peculiar blue colour. Then his wife, Renee, turned grey. Their bedroom, which faced the mast, began getting warmer and warmer. Wax began leaking from Meyndert’s ears onto his pillow at night. 

“It became so hot in that room that you had to lie on top of the bed in the middle of winter,” Renee says. “We became convinced it was radiation coming into our bedroom.”

Then their daughter developed hypoxia, a lack of oxygen supply to specific tissues and became paler and paler. She began sleeping all the time she was home.

 Authorities wouldn’t take the Bornmans seriously, but an independent body, the Electro-Magnetic Action Group, recommended that they move.

Spokesperson Vicky Benjamin: “We’ve discovered quite a few people who are living next to cell phone towers and experiencing physical problems… the effects are very real.”

Not only are they feeling the effects, but more and more South Africans are taking note of overseas studies, which recommend that cell masts not be put up in residential areas. Norman McFarlane is fighting the erection of one in Somerset West near Cape Town. 

“I don’t want to discover in five years’ time that I am one of the statistics that prove that there is a real health problem living in proximity to a cell phone mast. Nor do I want my wife or daughter to be. I am going to fight it tooth and nail!” 

This Tuesday, Special Assignment speaks to the myriad of people who suffer ill effects living close to cellular phone masts and base stations and finds out why health authorities won’t take them seriously.

This investigation is directed by Jessica Pitchford and was filmed by Byron Taylor.

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e-mail: truth@sabc.co.za

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