And what shocked and impressed me back then was when she said that the street where she lives is known as
“Widows’ Street” because so many men had died there.
And he explained this using the example of a cell tower that is practically right in their neighborhood and has
been broadcasting signals throughout the entire street.
The Viennese researcher had succeeded in convincing U.S. judges that non-thermal biological effects can damage our genes.
But why does the public want 5G? Because it’s being sold to them as something great—that it means they can watch movies faster.
And why does the public want 6G soon?
Because it's being sold to her again as something new, something even better.
And based on this understanding of biological rhythms, it was perfectly clear to me that smartphones and these technological
devices disrupt children’s biological rhythms and rob them of much of the joy of life they should actually be experiencing.
Investigative filmmaker Klaus Scheidsteger has been taking a critical look at the mobile phone industry for many years.
In his 2024 documentary “The Digital Dilemma,” renowned scientists, doctors, building
biologists, and those affected share their perspectives.
In his latest film, *Die Witwenstraße*, Scheidsteger explores, among other things, the
question: How many coincidences can a street handle?
Why the title “Die Witwenstraße”?
A cell phone tower emits radiation along the entire street, and a striking number of women on this street have become widows.
That’s how the title “Die Witwenstraße” came about.
The film depicts numerous personal stories and poses an uncomfortable question:
What happens when people notice changes in their health over the course of years but receive no explanation or answers?
“Die Witwenstraße” is a compelling report on those affected, the background of the issue, and the question of how
we deal with the potential risks of modern technologies.
On April 30, 2026, Klaus Scheidsteger’s new film was screened for the first time in Switzerland as part of a
special event in Thun, followed by a panel discussion.
The interest shown has made it clear: This issue resonates with people and affects many of them.
This report takes us to where discussions often end—to the people themselves.
There has been a cluster of serious illnesses and deaths on a residential street.
Family members are starting to ask questions.
They look for connections, talk to experts, and in doing so encounter a tension between personal
experience, scientific assessment, and public debate.
This 30-minute documentary reveals the background story behind the mobile phone study on “Athermal Biological Effects of
Long-Term Exposure to Low-Intensity Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields” (ATHEM3) and
provides insight into the scientific work.
“Die Witwenstraße” depicts this search for answers to the questions that arise—calmly,
objectively, and without jumping to conclusions.
Now watch the documentary “The Widows’ Street.”
We built a house here in Lichtenbusch 30 years ago.
My husband is a dentist, and I'm a doctor. We built up our practice, had three children over the
course of eight years, have a beautiful garden, and —things were going well for us at first.
Does it affect people? Some say yes, others say no.
Yes, and I came to the conclusion that, yes, it has a big impact on people's health.
And suddenly, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
I was wondering, why do so many people on our street have epileptic seizures?
Why Do We Have So Much Cancer?
He said, "No, I'm not going down to the basement."
I went to get my measuring device while that was happening.
The radiation level was over 20,000 again in our kitchen. Way, way, way too high.
Before that, it was at 0.02. That means it had just gone up significantly.
And my husband said, “You know, I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
At that moment, the epileptic seizure began. It was followed by a brain hemorrhage.
And the next day, he was admitted to the hospital. He didn't even realize it.
And three months later, completely paralyzed, in a vegetative state, on a ventilator, and on dialysis, he passed away.
And that's why, thanks again to all of you:
We'll keep going, because there are so many people—whose stories are about people who need to be protected.
A little over a year after Dr. Roger Krout’s death, a major mobile communications conference took place in Mainz.
An exquisite event centered on the then-emerging 5G debate, featuring the crème de
la crème of mobile communications research.
My comment at the time was: “Moving moments, the highest level of scientific expertise
from around the world, and an engaged audience.”
With a mix of lectures, panel discussions, workshops, exhibition booths, and ongoing discussions, one highlight followed another.
The Mainz Symposium, held October 4–6, 2019, at the historic Electoral Palace, brought to light the concerns of the
international scientific community in many different ways.
Ignorance and cynicism are often the order of the day, as the example of Dr. Monika Krout shows.
My own town prohibits me from making public what I see, because doing so would jeopardize property values.
And the transmission tower—we filed a lawsuit against Telekom's transmission tower while my husband was still alive.
In her ruling, the judge wrote: “Even if the plaintiff’s life is in danger, there is no illegality.”
And that was a transmission tower that hadn’t had a permit to operate at that location for 25 years, that had installed the
antennas two meters too low, that had mounted the wrong antennas, and—thanks to a building biologist who is also here in the room—I
then took additional measurements with a frequency analyzer.
More frequencies had been modeled than were permitted.
The conference in Mainz provided an ideal opportunity to exchange ideas with leading scientists from around the world.
The personal remarks made by Dr. Monika Krout, the doctor from Witwenstraße, had had an impact.
Yes, it was an event organized by the Kompetenzinitiative in Mainz on the topic of 5G mobile communications.
And Dr. Monika Krout had shared her own personal situation there—either after the event or toward the end
of it—explaining that she had recently become a widow.
And what shocked and impressed me back then was when she said that the street where she lives is called
“Widows’ Street” because so many men have died there.
And he illustrated and explained this using a cell tower that is practically in their neighborhood and has
been broadcasting signals throughout the entire street.
After the event, we met with a large group of people in a separate room and discussed this issue.
And as I thought about it, the idea began to take shape that if you were to make that claim, you’d actually have to conduct
a scientific study to find out why so many of these men died.
And so, essentially under your direction and thanks to your suggestions, the idea arose to
turn the whole thing into a research project.
Cell phones and health—a topic that has always been controversial.
So, we need to take action.
Reliable facts provided by a team of scientists made up of the best experts.
I was able to recruit cancer researcher Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Mosgöller from MedUni Vienna to serve as project director.
The new study was named ATHEM3 following the successful validation of the ATHEM1 and ATHEM2 studies conducted by Prof. Mosgöller.
The Viennese researcher succeeded in convincing U.S. judges that non-thermal biological effects can damage our genes.
ATHEM1 and ATHEM2 have passed quality control in an American class-action lawsuit, so to speak.
The ATHEM1 and ATHEM2 projects have received a positive evaluation from a U.S. federal judge on the Supreme Court in Washington.
And I think there are very few scientists who can say that about their projects.
To make a long story short: The ATHEM3 project once again brings together an interdisciplinary team
in which many specialists are doing their very best.
So we wanted to specifically eliminate any trace of amateurism , which is a recurring problem in these fields of research.
Thanks to Prof. Mosgöller's efforts, we were able to recruit cell biologist Prof. Igor Belyaev.
He is also a key witness for the prosecution in the United States.
For many years, Prof. Igor Belyaev has been calling for a revision of the current limits for consumer protection.
He is regarded worldwide as a highly respected expert.
I was a member of the EMF Working Group within the European Academy of Environmental Medicine, which developed the safety
limits for exposure to low-frequency electromagnetic fields.
The limits we have proposed are significantly lower than those accepted in most European countries.
Well, I believe that the current ICNIRP limits are too high and should be significantly lowered.
- Just as we proposed to the European Academy of Environmental Medicine.
The so-called protective agencies operate according to outdated guidelines.
The metrology technician on the team knows all about it.
Every day, people who attribute their health problems to ever-increasing radiation exposure call on him.
The number of people with health problems is clearly on the rise.
This is especially true when 5G transmitters are turned on.
And 5G technology was put into operation without first conducting a technology impact assessment regarding health issues.
Back in the 3G era, the TNO study from the Netherlands caused quite a stir when it was found that one-tenth of the
radiation intensity of UMTS was sufficient to cause the same health problems and cognitive effects as GSM .
People didn't heed the warning back then.
They then conducted a counter-experiment—of course, using different frequencies, different intensities,
and different people—so that everything was calmed down: the audience, the general public.
And then 4G came along, and once again there have been calls to actually investigate
what health effects this technology might have.
It wasn't carried out either. And with 5G, it's even more problematic because even more people are affected.
And there were, after all, many cities in Europe that initially said, “Moratorium!”—We want to find out what’s going on first.
But I think all these moratoriums have simply been "shelved" in the meantime.
There was a lobby group that simply claimed there were no health problems.
And the politicians—who, after all, aren't medical professionals, and in this case may not even be technical
experts capable of understanding it—eventually gave in, saying, "Okay, the public wants it."
But why does the public want 5G? Because they're being sold on the idea that it's a great
thing, that it means faster streaming of movies.
And why does the public want 6G soon?
Because it's being sold to her again as something new, something even better.
Once again, thanks to the efforts of the program director, Prof. Mosgöller, we were able to secure the participation of one
of the pioneers of modern heart rate variability measurement.
For many years, I was a professor of physiology at the Medical University of Graz,
specializing in chronobiology—that is, biological rhythms.
And based on this understanding of biological rhythms, it was perfectly clear to me that smartphones and these technological
devices disrupt children’s biological rhythms and rob them of much of the joy of life they should actually be experiencing.
Hiring Professor Moser was a smart move, because he has a lot to offer.
So, two of these jackets have been sent into space.
We have been working with the Russian space agency since 1991 and have conducted measurements first on an
Austrian cosmonaut and then on ten Russian cosmonauts.
In fact, this jacket is capable of measuring the very same bodily rhythms that we use in the ATHEM project.
And the jacket was used to gather comprehensive information about the cosmonaut's health.
And the exciting thing was that the Russians were very enthusiastic about the results.
Because they say that in medicine, illness is usually what’s measured, but we were focusing on health, and our measurement
methods were able to reflect the cosmonauts’ health—which is why the Russians then used
them to assess the health of these cosmonauts.
Because cosmonauts have to be healthy.
If they get sick, you can't just call a doctor, and there are very few doctors in space.
I'm sure everyone is familiar with the indomitable Gallic village and its successful “David versus Goliath” battle.
The struggle for scientific recognition also seems to be one of those cases. In the case of ATHEM3, they needed a village that,
so to speak, met the necessary neutral scientific criteria.
The challenge with ATHEM3 was to find an area—a region, a geographic region—where two comparable groups
live side by side, with one group exposed to high levels of radiation and the other to low levels.
Why is it necessary to have two comparable groups?
Clearly, we want to make sure that any difference we find is actually attributable to radiation and not, for example, to the
fact that one person lives next to a factory and is exposed to exhaust fumes, while the other lives in
a beautiful, idyllic health resort with fresh air.
That won't work. That's not how research works.
We found it. It wasn't exactly easy, but it took a while.
In the end, we were convinced: yes, this works.
The right place is in northern Bavaria.
Residents of the neighborhood where a cell tower was installed on a rooftop agreed to participate in the
necessary investigations as part of the ATHEM3 study.
A tent was set up in a private garden in the shadow of the cell tower; later, the participants would take a
concentration test there in groups of six, as a distraction from the actual measurement procedure.
In the trailer next to the garden area, all 24 test subjects were fitted with the heart rate
variability (HRV) monitor from Professor Moser’s institute.
Using electrodes attached to the chest, a 24-hour ECG and HRV were initiated.
The data from the small monitoring device would provide insight into how well the autonomic nervous system adapts to stress.
High-precision measurements of the antenna radiation complement this experimental setup.
However, to ensure that the HRV can be properly analyzed, we have a biconical antenna here that picks up cellular
signals in the 800 MHz range for UMTS, LTE 800, and GSM 900.
The entire setup is connected via an antenna cable to a Rohde & Schwarz high-frequency spectrum analyzer.
And that, in turn, is connected to my computer via a LAN cable.
And what normally appears here on the meter's display is shown here.
The current setting is "Clear Write," which means the signals are displayed exactly as they are, up and down.
And now I'm going to set this to "Max Hold," which means we now have two curves.
The yellow curve shows the signals in "Max Hold" mode—the highest values available.
And the green line shows the current value.
And when the test is underway later, the whole thing will be filmed so that you can watch those two hours of the
test phase at your leisure afterward to see what the situation was like in terms of cell phone radiation.
In order to achieve the best possible and, from a cell biology perspective, optimal laboratory results,
the study used blood samples from the test subjects.
Just seven hours after the blood was drawn, the blood transport vehicle arrived at the Cancer Research Institute of
the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, carrying four samples from each of the four participants.
The blood cell analyses, conducted anonymously and in a double-blind manner, detect DNA breaks and
chromosomal damage during metaphase—the stage of cell division when the chromosomes become clearly visible.
Here, we are examining the metaphase chromosomes.
We observe the metaphases of these chromosomes at 63x magnification.
After all the metaphases have been recorded, I export them to my computer and analyze each metaphase to determine
the degree of dicentricity and the number of rings present.
Based on the frequency of aberrations , we can determine whether damage is present or not.
One intriguing aspect of this gold standard for laboratory analysis was, of course, whether a possible
difference between the test subjects would emerge.
So, are those who live closer to transmission towers exposed to a higher health risk than
those who live farther away from the towers?
Professor Belyaev summarizes one of the most important findings of the laboratory studies as follows:
Analysis of the total number of chromosomal aberrations revealed an extremely high, statistically
significant difference between the exposed and unexposed groups:
Chromosomal aberrations occurred nearly twice as often in the cells of the exposed group as in those of the unexposed group…
These study results were first published internationally in 2024.
The chromosomal abnormalities shown are clearly evident.
This alone points to a biologically plausible mechanism and, consequently, a significantly increased risk
of cancer for people living near cell phone towers.
Essentially, these data confirmed our conclusion that the increase in chromosomal damage in the cells of
people living near cell towers is caused by exposure to downlink signals, such as GSM or LTE.
So that was our final conclusion from this project.
There is another surprising variation within the publication.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's limits for low-dose ionizing radiation were taken into account.
The protective limit here is one millisievert. This is the physical unit of radiation dose.
In the context of radioactive exposure, it was used for comparison in ATHEM3.
In fact, the physical unit sievert can be expressed in terms of chromosome damage, and vice versa.
The average chromosomal damage recorded in the ATHEM3 study corresponds to an equivalent dose of 74.6 millisieverts.
This value was divided by 10 because the participants had lived in the vicinity of the antenna for about 10 years.
What we did: The International Atomic Energy Agency has a special manual.
This shows that the dose of ionizing radiation can be determined based on measurements of chromosomal aberrations.
We applied this method and determined the dose of ionizing radiation that would produce the same effect we observed in
the group of highly exposed participants in our ATHEM3 project.
What is still being expressed here in a rather subtle way may well be a paradigm shift of the highest order.
The principal investigator of the ATHEM3 study shares this view.
There is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which issues guidelines.
And just for fun, we asked ourselves: What’s it actually like in another field of knowledge?
We went to the International Atomic Energy Agency and obtained their guidelines.
And the great thing is: The damage we see is exactly the same as what they saw.
And based on the extent of the damage, they can determine the dose.
Now let's talk about two different areas of standardization.
One is ionizing radiation, and the other is non-ionizing radiation.
It's important to understand that, technically speaking, these are two completely distinct things.
In biology, this distinction makes no sense at all.
And that is why it makes biological sense to look here: This is where DNA and chromosomal damage occurs,
and this is where DNA and chromosomal damage occurs.
Yes, for heaven's sake, how is a cell supposed to know whether the damage is caused by ionizing radiation or non-ionizing
radiation…—that's complete nonsense; the damage is there.
And depending on which set of regulations we follow, these are either violations of limit values or—if we use the standard
regulations —as is simply established in our daily practice—and if we assume non-ionizing radiation—then this is a
scientific finding where an official says: “That can’t be right; it just doesn’t fit the picture!”
The cell doesn't care.
But why is radiation from radioactive materials dangerous in the first place?
All types of this radiation affect human cells and can cause healthy cells to become cancerous or damage genetic material.
As the distance from the radioactive source increases, the radiation decreases and is
partially shielded by the materials in between.
Clearly, this is a situation just like Galileo's—he believed that the Earth wasn't flat, but round.
The establishment feels that the status quo has been disrupted, and everyone knows the rest of the story.
He then had to officially recant, but 500 years later, we know he was right all along.
And as a scientist, it’s always a good idea to practice humility.
I'm comparing myself to Galileo here.
And please forgive me for saying this, but we're talking about challenging a scientific dogma.
Many of my colleagues have already realized this.
The implications of these findings might look something like this:
It is only natural that the results of the ATHEM3 study are also being debated in scientific circles.
It is important that new findings are disseminated at all.
At the world's largest toxicology conference, which was last held in Beijing in October 2025, Professor Igor Belyaev had
the opportunity to speak before a large audience of experts.
And yet the Earth does move. — Hopefully, the authorities will soon follow suit.
It was a truly wonderful conference. An international conference on genotoxicity and toxicology.
There were over 1,000 participants.
Most came from China and Asia; not as many came from the United States, Europe, and other parts of the
world, such as Latin America, Canada, and Australia.
I was invited to give a presentation.
My presentation covered the results of our ATHEM3 study ...
We had three representatives from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection facing off against five doctors.
We shared our stories.
It was strange because we doctors were already overcome with emotion.
We've fought for our patients, including, among others, Dr. Barbara Dohmen, who does a great deal
of work in the Black Forest. You know her, Klaus.
Others, too. Barbara showed a film about people with electromagnetic hypersensitivity in the forest who have
to spend the winter in the cold; she then provides them with blankets in the winter as they flee from radiation.
And let's be honest, no one would willingly give up a warm apartment or a warm home unless
they were seriously affected by radio waves.
Well, but those people just sat there across from us, completely unmoved:
"We're taking note of what you're telling us."
The evidence presented in the U.S. court proceedings regarding brain tumors has now been supplemented by the ATHEM3 study.
The comparative approach—which posits that radioactive radiation and cellular radiation can cause similar
harm—offers a new perspective on the assessment of health risks.