FCC seeks comments on wireless risks

FCCThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) oversees the “safety guidelines” for public exposure to radio frequency (RF) radiation (wireless) from a myriad of common devices now in use in many homes and communities.  Industry routinely points to these guidelines as proof of safety, however they were only designed to protect from thermal harm, and only for thirty minutes of exposure.

A majority of wireless devices, (cordless phones, cell phones, cell towers, wi-fi routers, baby monitors, smart meters and more) constantly emit RF radiation, 24/7.

The FCC says it’s now taking another look at their guidelines, (See FCC proposal) These guidelines were created in 1996 and they have not been reassessed since then. They also state they “have confidence in the current exposure limits and notes that more recent international standards have a similar basis.”

Phillip Janquart of Courthouse News Service recently wrote an article on this issue and he recognized the BioInitiative 2012 Report, “with over 1800 new scientific studies, indicating current guidelines are inadequate to protect the public from physical harm, which warns that cell phone users, pregnant women and young children are at particular risk.”  He further noted the following:

“There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumor) and acoustic neuroma (a tumor near the ear) with use of mobile and cordless phones. Epidemiological evidence shows that radiofrequency should be classified as a human carcinogen,” Dr. Lennart Hardell, of Orebro University in Sweden.

New studies also purportedly link phone radiation to sperm damage, according to the BioInitiative report.

“Even a cell phone in the pocket or on a belt may harm sperm DNA, result in misshapen sperm, and impair fertility in men. Laptop computers with wireless Internet connections can damage DNA in sperm,” according to the BioInitiative report.

The report added there is “strong evidence” that EMFs can increase the risk for autism and alter brain development of fetuses.

“This has been linked to both animal and human studies to hyperactivity, learning and behavior problems,” according to the BioInitiative report.

Dr. David O. Carpenter, co-author of the BioInitiative report, said “there is now much more evidence of risks to health affecting billions of people world-wide. The status quo is not acceptable in light of the evidence for harm.”

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The FCC does not want to impose an “undue burden on industry”, but is seeking comments on whether the limits should be “more restrictive, less restrictive or remain the same,” but purely as a matter of “good government.”

The EMF Safety Network will be submitting comments on this proposal which are are due by Sept. 3, 2013.  More on this subject later…

Mass tort lawsuit filed over smart meter health injuries

gavel-judgementAttorneys David Kyle and Paul Overett have filed a mass tort lawsuit against two California utilities:  Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for health damages from exposure to smart meters, and or smart grid.  Also named in the lawsuit are smart meter installer companies, Corix and Wellington and smart meter manufacturers, Itron and Landis and Gyr, with possibly more defendants to be added as the lawsuit progresses.

Attorney David Kyle has previously won a small claims lawsuit against SCE over smart meter installation, and  settled with PG&E in a wrongful death suit involving an alleged smart meter fire.

Sixteen plaintiffs, ten SCE customers and six PG&E customers allege they suffered health effects ranging from headaches, insomnia, chronic fatigue, ringing in the ears, dizziness, heart palpitations, to heart attacks and medical implant interference from exposure to smart meters.

The suit alleges the defendants withheld important safety information associated with the use of smart meters as well as multiple violations of CA laws, including California Civil Code section 1710 which defines deceit as an untrue assertion or suppression of a fact so as to mislead.

Plaintiffs allege negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud and deceit, and products liability.

Elizabeth Barris, organizer for the lawsuit invites customers from other California utilities, including municipally run utilities, whose health has been effected by smart meters or smart grid to join the lawsuit. Elizabeth can be contacted at 310-281-9639 or email: contact@thepeoplesinitiative.org

“For all these technologies we’re actually further apart, you know what I’m saying… Hello?

“Excuse me sir could you please put your phone down. You’re not walkin’ straight, your stumblin’ around. You’re in public man, you’re being kind of rude. Your text messages are not that important dude!”

“Excuse me lady, could you put your phone down. Your talking too loud like nobody’s around. I’m sure your friend can wait to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to know that much about your day…”

From the creators of “Whole Foods Parking Lot” and “Yoga Girl”. DJ Dave “goes dumb” on smart phones in this public service announcement to those among us who are emotionally, physically or surgically tied to our “pieces”. In today’s world of technology driven hyper-communication, its good to exercise your interpersonal skills, lest they atrophy. Here’s Put Your Phone Down:

Where the public gets burned and corporations get rate increases

Earlier this month California state legislators grilled the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on it’s lax safety oversight and financial problems. President Michael Peevey was caught by a TV investigative reporter at a winery conference, instead of answering questions at a senate hearing in Sacramento: Peeveys Priority: Senate Hearing or Napa Winery?  Legislators voted to wipe out the CPUC’s $1.4 billion budget to “force the regulatory agency to justify how it spends its money.”

On Thursday May 23, PG&E customers continue to demand safe utility oversight from the CPUC. President Peevey started off the CPUC business meeting by saying since everyone had been there before he’d skip the safety instructions for the building.

Garril Page, of Marin County was one of a group of PG&E customers who spoke at their business meeting during public comments.  She said this:

“Lax oversight and failure to regulate too-cozy utilities… How often does this require restatement before there is corrective action? 

It is not Jack Hagan’s military mind we need, but a surgical strike at the head of the CPUC,  to stop unsafe, unreliable conditions, abuse of funds and fiscal improprieties.  

The public is threatened by deferred maintenance of utility infrastructure,  improperly regulated,  radiation-spewing devices,  overburdened power poles loaded with snooping, profit-producing,  data collectors that topple and burn. 

The CPUC used bureaucratic box-checking to conceal the number of exploding underground vaults. How will the truth about power pole fires be hidden?

The truth about Smart Meters is being revealed despite the CPUC’s apparent indifference to scientific research and aversion to public testimony. 

No amount of a carcinogen is safe, radiation effects are cumulative, the damage is irreversible, and for the privilege of toxic exposure we are charged opt-out  fees.

The California Public Utilities Commission: where the public gets burned and corporations get rate increases.”

Bravo Garril! There were many other terrific speakers too.

Reject the Fox (Wheeler) to guard the hen house (FCC)

https://www.change.org/petitions/reject-president-obama-s-nomination-of-thomas-wheeler-to-head-the-fcc

President Obama could not have picked a worse nominee than Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  Wheeler has obvious industry ties and conflicts of interest:

  • Wheeler chaired the CTIA, the Wireless Association, which includes Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile;
  • Wheeler chaired the National Cable Television Association, which includes Comcast, Time Warner, and others;
  • Wheeler is the director of Core Capital Partners LP, a venture capital firm that manages $350 million in the high-growth technology sector- they rely on friendly regulation at the FCC;
  • Wheeler raised millions of dollars for Obama’s presidential campaign;
  • Wheeler is listed on Fierce Wireless’ top ten list of people who helped shape the wireless industry.

The FCC regulates the nation’s airwaves and all communications plus its accompanying infrastructure. The FCC sets the “safety” standards for radio frequency radiation (RF) used in all wireless devices. The standards are inadequate and obsolete because they do not address long term health effects, and they were created before cell towers, cell phones, wi-fi and “smart” meters.

Importantly, the FCC is set to update these RF “safety” standards soon. With trillions of wireless products in use today, babies, children, adults, animals, the environment, and future generations are all at risk from chronic exposure to wireless radiation based on inadequate safety standards.

With a wireless industry leader as the head of the FCC there’s little chance for safe oversight. These crucial decisions will threaten us for decades to come.

MORE INFO:

Cindy Sage Challenges the “Smart” in LADWP’s “Smart” Grid

LADWP project manager guarantees “smart” meters are optional!

Last week at a Woodland Hills City Council meeting, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) presented information about their Smart Meter deployment plans, while environmental consultant Cindy Sage, co-editor of the BioInitiative Report, presented information warning of the deployment risks.

Marcelo Di Paolo, manager of the LADWP Smart Grid project said they received a $60 million dollar federal grant and that the research institutes of USC, UCLA and Cal Tech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) doubled the project funding for a total of $120 million dollars.  Hmmm… what does a Jet Propulsion Lab have to do with smart meters?Hmmmmmm.....

Di Paolo stated this is a demonstration project and would be in three areas around UCLA, USC, and Chatsworth.  LADWP is planning to deploy 52,000 Itron smart meters.  Hmmm, 52,000 meters is a demonstration project?

He also said the meters only transmit 3 times a day!  Hmmm….Haven’t we heard that before?  PG&E used to say their meters only transmitted 6 times a day. Then they admitted up to 190,000 times a day, per meter.

Di Paolo also said that the project is “purely a volunteer optional program” and that the community can “pick and actually choose whether or not to participate.”

In stark contrast to Di Paolo’s optimism was Cindy Sage who warned about the evidence for health problems from the  pulsed radiation Smart Meters emit.  She stated,  “Those wireless impacts are biologically very similar to the impacts you would have from a cell tower.”  She wisely urged them to learn from the mistakes the Investor Owned Utilities have made.  She asks, “Is this a smart business model, to provide a device for energy conservation…if there are going to be unintended consequences in terms of health impacts for people?”

Di Paolo said the deployment would start in a couple weeks, but two LADWP customers  said they already had Smart Meters on their home, that they were sick from the exposure and that when they complained, LADWP refused to remove it!

Meanwhile, although the manager claims LADWP sent out letters stating at the bottom of the letter that participation was voluntary, nowhere in the Smart Grid L.A. Letter  does it say the meters are optional. At the end of the meeting Di Paolo guaranteed the meters were optional and provided his direct line for people to call: 213-367-1388.

PastedGraphic-1-9Deploying Smart Meters at a time when multitudes of people worldwide are complaining about the health and safety impacts is beyond super dumb, and reckless endangerment of innocent lives.  Our children are the most vulnerable.  Chronic exposure to pulsed radiation is harming everyone’s health.

Thanks to Ecological Options Network for providing the videos of the event. Here’s Part 2 of the meeting:

Smart Meter Harm in Port St. Lucie Florida

Shari Anker begins her comments to the Port St. Lucie Florida city council by stating,  “In the book, Diary of Anne Frank, is Anne’s famous entry that reads, Despite everything I still believe that people are good in their hearts.”  Not long after that she was killed in a concentration camp.  Anne Frank was right that at least some people have good hearts.  But for her, at that time and in that place there weren’t enough good people in her life.”

Shari states, “The pulsed modulated radiation emissions from the Neptune R900 water meters the city is installing causes injuries to my health. I need a zone of safety around my home where I am free of these emissions.”  Sheri’s letters and requests to the city are ignored. She asks,  “WHY NO RESPONSE?”

Lisa Lacoparra had a seizure 3 weeks after the “smart” water meter was installed by the City of Port St Lucie Utility Dept this year.  She also had a seizure last year one week after Florida Power and Light (FPL) installed smart meters on her neighbors homes.  Although FPL removed the smart meters from Lisa neighbors’ homes the Cities “smart” water meters for neighbors, at the end of her driveway are making her very ill.

Lisa’s doctor is requesting for all transmitting meters to be removed within a 300-600 m radius of her home. The City and the utility dept are refusing — even though it is a life threatening situation.

Call to demand that the city remove the transmitting radiation meters and provide a zone of safety for Lisa, and Sheri and everyone who requests it!

CALL TO ACTION: Reject Obama’s Wheeler to head the FCC

Last week, President Obama nominated Tom Wheeler, the founder of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), the wireless lobbyist group to head the FCC.  Wheeler is also a venture capitalist and a fund-raiser in Obama’s presidential campaign.

Authors of the BioInitiative Report signed a letter to US Senators urging them to reject Wheeler stating,

“Mr. Wheeler should not be in charge of the nation’s safety standards and deployment for a technology he promotes without regard to public health and safety, the integrity of the national electric grid or homeland security.

The FCC has recently announced a review of radiofrequency health and safety limits. This process must not be carried out under a new chairman who has shown antipathy toward public safety, and who puts industry economic considerations ahead of the protection of children and pregnant women.”

Blake Levitt, award-winning medical/science journalist writes in Counterpunch.org, “Why the Senate Should Reject Tom Wheeler- Another Industry Crony at the FCC?

“President Obama’s nomination of Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the height of cynical cronyism and industry-pandering. He should not be confirmed. Obama, in fact, could not have found a worse nominee than Tom Wheeler to head this most significant regulatory agency – one with long tentacles into all our lives whether we know it or not. Wheeler is the last person who should have his hands on the levers of the FCC, though he’s been aching to do just that for decades.”

“Wheeler has far too many conflicts of interest and industry biases to head the FCC. The FCC, regulates the nation’s airwaves and all communications plus its accompanying infrastructure, including all broadcasters, cable companies, telephone-service providers both wired and wireless, satellite communications and the Internet. FCC is at a crucial juncture regarding decisions on new airwave auctions, further media consolidation, net neutrality, and most importantly the updating of the nation’s obsolete exposure standards for radiofrequency radiation. The stakes are high. These decisions will affect all U.S. citizens for decades to come in ways great and small….”

Read the full article at Counterpunch.org