Category: Commentary

Crossing the line with wireless

Kimberly Grigg, a Victoria Canada resident, practices prudent avoidance of EMF and wireless devices.  The home phone is corded, the computer is wired for internet access, and they do not use a microwave oven.

In a recent BC local news article Kimberly expresses what many of us feel when told we must have a microwave transmitter installed on our home: It crosses the line.

“I think it’s an outrage … it’s an violation of my freedom. …We are already forced to live in an environment that is totally toxic and it’s bad enough without having it attached to your house. We’ve made choices here and I don’t want (BC Hydro) to take that away from us.”

Maternal Exposure to Magnetic Fields During Pregnancy in Relation to the Risk of Asthma in Offspring

The conclusions of the Li et al paper support an association between a mother’s magnetic field (MF) exposure during pregnancy and asthma in children born to those mothers. Here are some of the conclusions of the study.

“Our findings provide new epidemiological evidence that high maternal MF levels in pregnancy may increase the risk of asthma in offspring.” Children born to mothers who had a median daily MF exposure during pregnancy between 0.3 milligauss (mG) and 2 mG had a 74% increased risk of asthma.  Children born to mothers who had a median daily EMF exposure during pregnancy over a 2 mG EMF had a 3.5-fold increased risk (a 350% increased risk) of asthma.

This study shows a statistically significant increased risk for asthma.  Every 1 mG increase of maternal EMF level was associated with a 15% increased risk of asthma in the child. 1.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04- 1.27).  A dose-response is shown for increasing maternal MF during pregnancy and asthma in the off-spring.

Comments

This study is one more that underscores the importance of limiting exposures to elevated magnetic field (EMF) during pregnancy.   There are so many studies that now document EMF exposures (using the all-inclusive EMF to cover both ELF-EMF and RF) to be potentially neurotoxic and genotoxic, we should actively be limiting indiscriminate and persistent exposure of families and their children to avoidable EMF.

Li et al previously published a study linking miscarriage to intermittent ELF-EMF exposures of 16 mG.  A few years ago, Divan et al reported that maternal use of a cell phone during pregnancy was associated with increased risk of behavioral and learning problems in children of these mothers by the time the child was in primary school. Whether it is the ELF-EMF component, or the RF component of cell phone exposures isn’t known (it may be one or both). Whether it is a function of the exposure level on the fetus in-utero, or something about the mothers’ immune status as affected by the cell phone emissions is not known either. Johansson has published extensively on EMF/RF effects on the immune system.

Sage and Johansson published a paper in Bioelectromagnetics showing that cell phones and PDAs can produce excessively high ELF-EMF exposures when worn in the ON mode (on a belt, in a pocket, close to the body). These exposures were on the order of tens to hundreds of milligauss.  Since the study did not discriminate between magnetic field exposure (EMF) and the possible presence of ‘dirty electricity’, (which Sam Milham and Magda Havas have reported to be associated with asthma in children), dirty electricity’ may be an important but unmeasured factor here. Future studies really need to address the ‘dirty electricity’ component of EMF.

Both ELF-EMF and RF are now classified as possible human carcinogens by the WHO IARC.

People need better information on EMF and health risks, so they can make educated choices about limiting exposures, if they wish to.  People also need better informed decision-makers when it comes to new technologies that emit ELF and RF on a persistent and repetitive basis, so entire communities are not exposed to involuntary EMF exposures in daily life. There is more than sufficient evidence now to actively review where such exposures come from, what the alternatives are, and commonsense ways to improve the living environment (homes, schools, offices, healthcare facilities, etc) by making more informed choices.

Cindy Sage

[Cindy Sage, MA is the Science and Public Policy Advisor for the EMF Safety Network, Co-Editor Bioinitiative Report

Oh, say can you see

By Howard Glasser

I grew up in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The America we grew up in doesn’t exist anymore except in our hopes and prayers. We watched it vanish before our eyes and we’re responsible for that. America is as good as we make it. If America isn’t functioning, we’re not functioning in it.

Apathy is the single greatest killer of democracy. When people stop caring, stop writing, stop holding their government responsible and accountable, democracy is stolen by the power brokers that would have our representative system of government replaced by lobbyists and private interests who finance political campaigns and work for global corporations that couldn’t care less about what happens to America.

Big business is in bed with government and this infidelity is being committed on mattresses we bought and pillows stuffed with our hopes and dreams and hard earned money that thanks to them, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

That brings me to the preposterous sale made by multi-national companies purporting to be “green” called the Smart Grid. This is the greatest heist of the 21st century. It’s what happens when monopolistic corporations take control of basic needs such as gas and electricity and turn the delivery of power to the consumer into the world’s biggest casino. It’s what we’re left with when the people who work for an industry are appointed by government to regulate it. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know what SmartMeters are about and you don’t need a CPA to follow the money. It’s pretty simple.  They got the P.O.

This is high treason and every American within the reach of my words should feel called upon to oppose it. Through manipulation of our Constitutional rights and the judicial process, corporations managed to seize control of our nation’s natural resources and hold us hostage. Local government was forced to surrender its power to higher business controlled authority and the average citizen was left with no one to protect or defend them. This was a takeover of unprecedented magnitude.

What PG&E is doing is monstrous and the fact that the California Public Utilities Commission is allowing it to get away with it is criminal. SmartMeter installations in California resulted in thousands of customer complaints statewide ranging from exorbitant billing to onsets of cancer and other life threatening disorders linked to the EMF radiation emitted by wireless meters to wide-scale environmental health impact to safety issues like residential and business fires and explosions to Big Brother violations of privacy to breaches in security.

While we sit and wait, SmartMeters are being installed in our neighborhoods, cities and towns and we’ve been told that there is nothing we can do about it. How did this happen? Organized crime took over and for a price, they got everything they wanted. From that moment on when democracy became a commodity like any other that could be sold to the highest bidder, those that could profit took the money and turned the other way. They turned their back on the America we grew up in; the America we knew; the America we believed in and fought for.

The few idealists who remained in office after the takeover were silenced. The rest were scared. The nation of nations was brought to its knees and the global, military-industrial banking republic was sworn in. At last, the corporation was a person and that individual stood hundreds of feet above everyone and walked around like Godzilla in Legoland.

As we speak, our fearless leaders are preparing for civil disobedience with strangely enough, weapons developed by the military to be deployed for crowd control using microwave beams that heat the skin.

The program is known as ADS, the Active Denial System. Tests run on U.S. soldiers resulted in them being hospitalized with severe burns. It is believed that the U.S. military intention is to develop the technology so that it can be used on crowds from aircraft above as well as on the ground. With political and economic unrest in many countries, the development of novel weapons against crowds is being heavily funded to deter potential activist demonstrations. A weapon of this nature could be employed against protestors or picket lines or anyone else who the established order might consider non-compliant.

“Brave New World?” “1984?” How about “2011?” That’s even scarier.

Original published in the Lake County Record Bee on July 15, 2011

Save the Humans

Save the Humans

Standing up against Smart Meters

By Sonoma County Citizens Against Wireless Radiation

What an interesting idea! We have “Save the Dolphins, Whales, Planet, Ecosystem, Animals,” and many other such groups. How is it possible that we are willing to care for salamanders but not for our fellow human beings, whose health is being compromised by society’s obsession with the personal conveniences of wireless, radiation-emitting technology?

Smart meters and other wireless, radiation-emitting technologies are causing many of us, at least 3 to 15 percent of the population, according to California Department of Health’s statistics, to develop electromagnetic hypersensitivity—or worse. Why are people being marginalized, made sick and forced to become environmental refugees? Many have had to leave their homes in search of a new place to live without wireless radiation. This has become almost impossible with the advent of smart meters.

There is mounting evidence from the US Army, scientists and physicians going back to the 1950s showing the effects of wireless electromagnetic radiation on the human body at a cellular level. In May, the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans based on an increased risk for gliomas, which are malignant types of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use. Mobile phone use is listed in the same “carcinogenic hazard” category as DDT, lead, engine exhaust and chloroform. Cell towers, wi-fi, smart meters, DECT phones, cordless phones and other wireless devices emit the same non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones.

Some of the other adverse health effects include depression, cardiovascular disorders, sterility, autism, neurodegenerative diseases, leukemia, strokes, breast cancer, brain cancer, acoustical neuromas, breathing dysfunctions, confusion, ear pain, tinnitus, headaches and many other symptoms.

We are calling on you, “the People,” to help protect the health of all members of our communities from the exponentially increasing danger of electromagnetic radiation. Write to your state and federal legislators, the California Public Utilities Commission and the governor, asking them to stop the smart meter program and adopt the precautionary principle toward all forms of wireless radiation.

Sonoma County Citizens Against Wireless Radiation is a group of retired teachers, parents, grandparents and concerned citizens.

This article was published in the Open Mic feature of the Bohemian- a Sonoma County CA publication on July 13, 2011

Empowering choices

According to PG&E over 16,000 people have signed up to opt out of Smart Meters. Thousands more have posted signs, built cages or locked up their analog meters.  Then there are thousands of people stuck with a Smart Meter who want it removed, and neither the utilities nor the utility regulators will help them.  In some situations customers have had to make extreme, but empowering choices because they have been abandoned by the system.

After two months of heart attack symptoms and trips to the hospital, a utility customer took matters into his own hands.  He bought an analog meter from a supply store, hired an electrician and replaced the Smart Meter with the analog.  After all, neither PG&E nor the CPUC was listening, and this was a matter of life or death.

Another woman could no longer live in her home after a Smart Meter was installed.  She experienced headaches, sleep and neurological problems.  Unlike others, in similar situations who were forced to moved, she also purchased an analog, hired an electrician, and replaced the Smart Meter with the analog. She writes, ” I bought the “AC Killowatt-Hour Meter” from Real Goods (707) 472-2407.  My electrician was hesitant, so I used a former Wellington employee who once installed Smart Meters.  Then I locked up my new analog meter as shown on the picture.  The chain goes around the meter, and around the pipe above and below the meter.”

Update October 9, 2011.

Earlier I wrote “Tampering with a utility meter is a crime , but isn’t it also criminal that serious Smart Meter health complaints are continuing to be ignored and people are suffering from these meters which are not only a health threat, but for some a daily nightmare.”

My mistake. Tampering is a crime, but we needed to define tampering.  The EMF Safety Network has retained a lawyer and learned more about tampering laws. Please see Tampering defined.

In addition Christoper Myers, PG&E representative has asked us to include safety information about swapping meters, including that PG&E personnel are trained, and follow specific safety procedures when removing meters. They wear hard hats, goggles and fire retardant clothing. If you have any questions about the safety of meter removal PG&E asks you to contact them directly at 1-800-743-5000.

WHO’s Statement is a Game Changer

By Joshua Hart, Director StopSmartMeters.Org
June 2nd 2011

Make no mistake.   The decision by the World Health Organization on Tuesday to classify non-ionizing radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” is an absolute game changer for our movement. This seemingly cautious statement by the world’s pre-eminent health organization should ring loud alarm bells around the world.  Despite backroom industry influence and widespread conservatism, the slow-to-react beast was finally forced to act- as the walls of wireless damage closed in.

Wireless technology is something most of us have taken for granted for quite a while now.  Someone said the other day, “I don’t even remember when they introduced cell phones.  All of a sudden everyone was just using them.”  Therein lies the crux.  We just took the phone we were handed.  We didn’t ask questions.  We trusted that any authority that would allow this product to be sold would not do so without reasonable assurances of safety.  It is now clear that that misplaced trust has been betrayed, and people are dying because of it.

The truth is that our government allowed (even promoted) a technology whose effects on biological living systems we really knew very little about. There’s capitalism for you.  Life really isn’t that important.  It’s all about the money.  You are expendable. So- apparently- is the planet.

The WHO’s decision, and the large number of studies that led to it are suddenly opening up a whole new set of questions about how we use wireless- questions that people wouldn’t have dared to whisper- even last week.

Continue here:

http://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/06/02/whos-statement-is-a-game-changer/