Written evidence submitted by Celia & Melvin Ridley (BTR0008)
On the night of Tuesday, 3rd February 2015 our son Stu went to hospital with a severe headache behind his eyes. He came home the next morning it was thought he had a migraine.
Thursday 5th February I took him back to the RVI in Newcastle with constant vomiting and a bad head.
Friday 13th February he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Thursday 19th February we were told that he had a particularly aggressive tumour, ‘Right Thalamic Anaplastic Astrocytoma’, the prognosis was 6 months.
Stay Strong Stu was set up and well over £250,000 in Stu's name has been raised so far for various charities.
As well as bringing together thousands of people showing true love and community, as well as raising many thousands of pounds for charity Stu’s illness has also helped to raise awareness of brain tumours in young people.
Our son Stu Ridley died on 14th, July 2015 aged 25years.
Countless times man has used things in the wrong way and many thousands have died before something has been found to be deadly: lead, mercury, asbestos and tobacco being examples.
Stu would use his mobile phone as an alarm clock when doing the night shift during lambing time. That was for almost two months of the year. He was a teenager before he received his first mobile as the TV was reporting the possible dangers of mobile phones and radio waves back then. After work on a night he'd play computer games in his room using Wi-Fi. At meal breaks he'd be on his phone for Facebook and texting or games and snapchat.
We have a TV mast on our fell less than a mile from our home. On that mast are Orange telephone antennae and police radio antennae. They are all allowed to emit power waves.
Two years ago a lady from Bellingham died with a brain tumour she was in her late forties. Another lady again in her early forties who lived just a couple of streets further from the mast is fighting a brain tumour at the moment. These two cases are within 2 miles of the mast. A man in his forties is also fighting a brain tumour he is within three and a half miles of the mast.
There was another death of a woman just a mile from the mast although it could be about twenty years ago. These are the cases that I know of in this very sparsely populated rural area.
There is a reason that the radiotherapy room door is about two foot thick. Radio waves are already proved to be dangerous.
In my opinion members of the medical profession are seriously concerned about the numbers of young people being diagnosed with brain tumours. Thirty new cases in one month for the rural catchment of the North of England and the Lake District are particularly scary.
Children are being given phones at younger and younger ages. Babies and young children are being given mobile phones to play with in pushchairs.
Rhya’s Story has been in our local papers too, she was fourteen and died only two weeks after diagnosis.
It is absolutely vital that more research is done into finding the cause of brain tumours and that more warnings are given out to users of mobile phones and other radio operated devices such as iPads.
If it is mobile phones and radio waves that killed our son there are many more young people out there who are living with the disease and they just don't know it yet.
In 1995 my dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. The hospital ward he was in was absolutely full of patients who had been too late in going for treatment for heartburn, the major cause. In 1998 my dad died.
It took until the winter of 2014 before there was a major advertising campaign on TV warning people that if they needed to keep taking indigestion and heartburn remedies that they needed to see a doctor.
Italy’s Supreme Court has ruled that mobile phones can cause cancer. Innocente Marcolini, 60 used a mobile phone for 6hrs a day for 12 years. (Mail Online)
Please, please get to the bottom of this brain tumour cause for the sake of all our young. Talk to the consultants and medical staff who are dealing with these cases on a daily basis. Talk to me and other people who have been through and who are going through this terrible illness.
At the very least get the message out loud that we are still unsure as to the cause of brain tumours that there isn't sufficient evidence but that it could be mobile phones and radio waves.
Nothing can bring our Stu back but he has left a fantastic legacy.
Celia & Melvin Ridley
February 2016