This has been a bad press week for the Vatican, and is now made worse: A new Italian court-ordered study has determined that Vatican Radio’s main broadcast tower outside Rome is increasing the neighbors’ risk of cancer.
“There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between exposure to Vatican Radio’s structures and the risk of leukaemia 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 lived for at least 10 years within a 5.5-mile radius of the radio’s giant antenna towers near Cesano, 12 miles north of Rome.
Rev. Federico Lombardi, SJ, the director of the Holy See’s Press Office, questioned the study.
“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 neighbouring 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 hypothesised by the report had never been established”….
The Vatican spokesman said the Holy See would soon publish its own experts’ conclusion in the case.
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