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www.hese-project.org/en/
h.e.s.e.-UK News
[DANGER]
TO
Children in an electromagnetic
environment
It is an inescapable fact that the
planet today is a complete cacophony of man-made
electromagnetic fields and signals. It is as if a wild
party is going on in what used to be a quiet open space.
Maybe it seems that many of us can stand the noise and
are resilient to the fields, and particularly to the
structures within modern digital communications signals
that lie within the range of frequencies that our bodies
use for normal healthy well-being.
All living things on Earth evolved
over many millions of years through a wildly changing
environment, surviving many changes, such as an
oxygen-rich environment, which once were completely
toxic to most of life, but became essential for our form
of life. Slow adaptation over such prolonged periods
changed the nature of organisms; life itself survived
but few life forms did. We need therefore to be very
aware that the electromagnetic environment today is
grossly out or proportion to that we evolved within,
filtered by natural magnetic fields and our ionosphere.
If survival of the fittest is an
acceptable price for modern conveniences, we should be
aware that the ‘less fit’ includes our children, whose
development in this changed environment may affect their
whole-life chances. In this context, a home where
everyone uses a mobile phone, uses DECT phones and
wireless routers and accepts everything wireless is
easier, better and without consequence, has become a
blind spot of natural precaution. At one very obvious
end of the spectrum is the hard sell of mobile phones to
toddlers. Part of the sell is that no-one is safe
without one. Not true of course, but it sounds
persuasive. Perhaps, rather, no-one is safe with
one. Certainly, clamping a microwave transmitter of
highly structured signals onto your head is not a good
idea, if you do it very often, or for very long. And a
very bad idea for a young child. Some countries are
becoming more precautionary at this level, advising
against it (even the UK, though it is not
government-endorsed action).
So what about wireless games? These
too are an addition to the electromagnetic burden in the
home, and despite the sell (again) that games improve
the mind or the body, they too are an unwise addition
for a growing child. Music, books and exercise with a
ball will achieve the same healthy outcomes, but of
course make rather less money. The social context is
another aspect: children’s lives are more complex, more
difficult, and according to recent research reports,
probably less happy (though more entertained) than they
used to be. We, the adult world, the parents, are
responsible for being duped by eternal consumerism and
pursuit of wealth and possessions, and it is we who are
imposing an increasingly dangerous electromagnetic
environment on this planet – and our children.
Do you think that the wealth of
research showing that life interacts with the
environment elctromagnetically, leaves us immune to the
enormous changes we have made? Like man-made climate
change, we are not too small and insignificant to alter
the well-being of our planet and our species. Can you
recommend these developments?:
BioInitiative Report
A Rationale for a
Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard for
Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF)
An international working group of
scientists, researchers and public health policy
professionals (The BioInitiative Working Group) has
released its report on electromagnetic fields (EMF) and
health. They document serious scientific concerns about
current limits regulating how much EMF is allowable from
power lines, cell phones, and many other sources of EMF
exposure in daily life.
The report concludes the existing
standards for public safety are inadequate to protect
public health.
[After you have watched
this interview you will be directed to:
Go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZDor-_co0
You will hear that ONLY
the USA GOVERNMENT has refused to even consider the
dangers and that in 2006 it proposed to lower its then
low standards further. This appears to support the
accusations by others who say that they are using the
technology for sinister purposes such as mind control
and disabling those citizens who are a threat to THEM or
even to reduce the POPULATION.]
*
Europe-wide survey of public
perceptions about mobile phone and mast radiation
Two in three believe radiation from phones damaged their
health according to a European survey reported in
the Independent on Sunday, 8 July 2007.
‘Two-thirds of Britons believe
radiation from mobile phones and their masts has
affected their health, a startling official survey
shows. And huge majorities are dissatisfied with
government assurances about the potential threat.’
The EU Eurobarometer survey
polled more than 27,000 people across the continent,
1,375 of them in Britain. Chair of the Health Protection
Agency, Sir William Stewart appears not to have the
support of the Agency’s Radiation Protection Division.
Whilst their statements remain questionable and
unconvincing (eg, about wi-fi,
Sir William recently said on BBC Panorama, ‘I
believe that there is a need for a review of the Wi-Fi
and other areas ... I think it’s timely for it to be
done now.’
I believe mobile
phones / masts have affected my health
|
mobile
phones |
phone
masts |
UK |
65%
|
71%
|
Europe |
73%
|
76%
|
EU, 2002 |
55%
|
58%
|
Source: EU
Eurobarometer
PART 2
The survey reveals great
dissatisfaction with the information they are given by
officials and government, and some scientists, with
nearly three-quarters in the UK saying they are ‘not
very well’ or ‘not at all’ informed about the official
protection framework against the potential health risks
from the radiation.
To find out more about recent research
on mobile phones or masts and health, see our
research pages.
Studies on masts are harder to do in a way that is
unequivocal about the environmental factors but the
trend on mobile phones and health reveal what amounts to
a ten year watershed after which there is a
significantly increased risk of tumours in the head.
However, the sheer number of global reports from people
living around masts, of ‘sensitivity’ or degrees of
unwellness relating to nausea, headaches and sleep
disruption suggest that there is something serious here
too.
Interview with the
Radiologist Professor Dr Eckel from the
Bundesärztekammer (equivalent to the BMA in the UK)
The interview given below was
published by the Schwabischen Post on 7
December 2006.
In Hüttlingen, a community near to
Ellwangen, the residents are, just as in other
places, fighting against a planned mobile
telecommunications transmitter.
Dr-Ing. Frank Ermisch
Diplom-Physiker, Ellwangen
The cell nucleus is
mutating
Professor Dr Heyo Eckel is a radiation
expert. He is a radiologist, lecturer at Göttingen
University, vice chairman of the Health and Environment
Committee of the German Medical Association [Ausschusses
Gesundheit und Umwelt der Bundesärztekammer], Chairman
of the Niedersachsen province charity
Children of Chernobyl. And because he also still has
family connections in Hüttlingen, we spoke with him
about electromagnetic radiation.
by Markus Lehmann Hüttlingen/Göttingen
For radiologists there are two areas:
the scientific-formal-legal and the emotional.
His scientific conclusion:
electromagnetic, pulsed waves from transmitter masts and
mobile phones affect and deform the cell nucleus. The
effects are comparable with those of X-rays. As long as
the harmlessness of mobile telecommunications is not
proven, everything must be done to protect the
population against potential health damage.
Are electromagnetic waves dangerous
for humans?
These waves deform and damage the cell
nucleus. That is proven and has resulted in experiments
‘in vitro’ (in laboratory studies). The cell nucleus can
also mutate as a result of natural occurrences. However,
one has no control over that. But changes due to the
influence from electromagnetic waves are definitely
documented.
And this technology is deployed across
the country?
According to the present state of
scientific knowledge there is no alarming health risk.
Out of the many thousand of reports, there are only 400
to 500, which comply with purely scientific protocol and
thus must be taken seriously. But one must consider: the
mobile telecommunications technology is still relatively
new, but yet it is now deployed across the whole
country. Consequential damage is hard to ascertain, not
yet and maybe only after years. Like in bygone days with
X-Ray radiation.
You are also involved in the
Tschernobyl problem ...
Yes. And the injuries that result from
radioactive radiation are identical with the effects of
electromagnetic radiation. The damages are so similar
that they are hard to differentiate.
So you are saying, that there is a
potential or suspected danger. What is your suggestion?
One must act politically. The
politicians refer constantly to safe limits. There must
be an agreement with the industry on a minimum distance
from base stations, as in Switzerland. Above all there
must be further research on how these electromagnetic
waves effect humans. This radiation does not taste, it
does not smell. And one does not hear it. It is not
discernable through our senses. And, that’s why people
are afraid of it.
What do you advise citizens who have
fears about a transmitter in their vicinity?
Legally, one cannot do much. One can
advise, that people unite together. In order to exert
pressure – moral pressure – on the local politicians,
the provincial and federal government politicians.
Because they have a duty of care to avert presumed or
perceived damage to citizens.
Mobiles: Could these be the
cigarettes of the 21st century? . . . ‘Absolutely’
What is the issue? There is at the
very least a hint that using a mobile phone frequently
over ten years causes head tumours. The latency for
these is between 10 and 20 years. We had better find
out, because most people use mobiles, started using them
frequently at around the same time (within about 5 to 10
years), and so if there is a problem it could be a very
big one and emerge suddenly.
In January 2007 two new studies were
set out for the 3rd round of the Mobile
Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme:
In context, yet another study
published Jan 2007 points to increased intracranial
tumours after 10 years use, on the side mobiles are
used. And this study once again defined ‘regular use’ as
once a week for six months:
Every announcement of results from EMF
studies closes with the phrase ‘but more research is
needed’. Here is more research. No-one would dare to be
conclusive. But similarly it is difficult to imagine
what amount of research would be enough to stimulate an
adequate response.
This has two simultaneous effects.
First, it buys time for an industry that already knows
there is a problem, by perpetuating uncertainty (as with
tobacco, asbestos, dioxins, GM, CO 2
and climate change). Second, it delays action for those
most at risk, or already in trouble. Five years for an
industry to mitigate damage to business is five years
during which children are using mobile phones, and
people are increasingly dependent on them, without any
strong advice on protecting themselves from what is
still described as a very minimal risk.
Professor Lawrie Challis, interviewed
in The Times is surprisingly cautious, and
advises:
-
no mobiles at all for children
under 12
-
use of hands-free with ferrite RF
traps
-
children to text, not speak
-
no wireless laptops on laps
-
keep mobiles away from the body.
These are not unlike the
Russian guidelines already, advice by
Austrian doctors, and indeed are familiar to the
IEGMP ‘Stewart Report’.
In the light of analyses such a the
Danish Interphone study, and the
King’s College Psychosomatic Medicine work for MTHR,
it is increasingly difficult to dare to come out with
anything to the contrary; explaining the results has
considerable impact on the global economy. Who wants to
act first? It is the same argument as that of economic
damage in responding to climate change. We need a ‘Stern
Report’ on the global economic impact of health and
mobile phones in 10 to 20 years time.
Thought experiment
A definitive piece of research
unequivocally shows that EM fields at surprisingly
low levels can cause neurological and immunological
disorders, even cancer. Further, the study is itself
a true replication, verifying an earlier study. It
is decided, for once, that ‘further research’ is not
required for action to be taken, even if the
biological mechanism is not fully understood.
This is announced on national
media. What happens next?
-
industry denial or industry
acceptance?
-
government denial or
acceptance?
-
people stop using mobiles?
-
employers reduce, phase out or
withdraw mobiles, DECT phones and wireless
communications?
-
stringent guidelines on use of
digital microwave communications equipment?
-
unions take a hard line on
behalf of ‘required users’ such as all emergency
services, salespeople, site contractors etc.?
-
class actions by people with
brain tumours because the research findings have
been known for a long time?
-
insurance companies raise
premiums for users, and pull indeminity from
manufacturers, and even operators of, and
landlords for, the transmitters?
-
pension funders warn of
massive losses from both plummetting sector
shares, and wider impact to share values of lost
productivity and reinvestment?
-
developing countries take no
immediate notice (compare the transfer of
tobacco markets), introducing a short-term
economic and competitive disadvantage to the UK?
You decide. A lot is at stake. Is
it just a matter of being careful with a mobile
phone? Or is it comparable to facing climate change
by swapping our lightbulbs?
More on the MTHR programme
Professor Lawrie Challis chairs the
MTHR (Mobile Telecommunciation and Health Research)
programme in the UK. It is co-funded by government and
the telecomms industry. Set up in 2003 in the light of
the
IEGMP
findings, funding was quickly swallowed up, including
programmes on communicating risk so that people do not
get concerned. Here is not the place to criticise that
programme, but some critical provocation studies
(subjects in double blind trials of various states of EM
exposure), such as that by King’s College (mobile
phones) and Essex University (mast signals) have been
commented upon heavily with regards to methodology and
assumptions. The most significant feature of these
studies has to be the quality and meaning of a ‘sham’
signal situation where certain thresholds of sensitivity
are assumed.
Unfortunately, the MTHR programme has
been unable to maintain its own website, and whilst some
research has been completed and published, much remains
inaccesible to many, in academic journals.
News coverage on the new MTHR mobile
phone study
Dead birds ‘rain down’
It sounds like pages from the pages of
Exodus, but thousands of dead birds rained down in
Esperance, Australia.
And on two streets in Austin Texas.
Both up to 8 January 2007.
Coincidences happen, but what could
have been the cause?
The Australian event (latitude 34
degrees south) took place over several weeks
in
Esperance, a coastal town. The end came when no
birds were left. The birds showed no common injury,
detectable toxins, or cause of death. 24 degrees
longitude away, the Texan event (latitude 30 degrees
north) took place in
Austin, and appears to have been more localised and
sudden. Again, autopsies of dead birds revealed no
cause.
Speculation has abounded and been
related on blogs and news forums, focusing on the
bizarre and the unlikely. Let’s just consider the
possibilities more methodically, based on the fact that
these are birds dying in flight, across several species,
as highly localised events not trends:
-
the birds died elsewhere but were
deposited by freak weather conditions
-
they flew into highly localised
severe weather conditions (turbulence, downdraught)
-
they flew into some form of toxic
cloud
-
the birds ingested toxins
-
the birds has some kind of virus
or bacterial infection
-
they encountered aircraft they
could not avoid.
T his
seems to be a different class of event from attested
showers of frogs or fish that would appear to result
from tornadoes or weather incidents. There have not been
weather reports to support the first two points, and the
birds were local and were not bedraggled.
On the third point, if an airborne
toxin was involved (poison gas cloud), how was it
confined by weather conditions in sufficient
concentration for sustained slaughter in a small area?
If death is slower with dispersed toxin, then there
should be a very wide spread of fewer deaths
considerably further afield. Also, presumably the toxin
would be detectable, but has failed to show up.
The question that should be asked for
the fourth possibility, is why multiple species of
birds, why a confined location, and why not also larger
insects too, or terrestrial animals that may feed on the
carrion (the Esperance event was over several days).
Have foxes or cats died eating a dead bird? If a food
toxin is supposed, do all these species share the same
diet? No toxin has been identified after autopsies in
either location. Finally, if true, a large number of
birds would also begin to be too unwell to fly, and
deaths on the ground near roosts would be apparent.
Is disease a clue? Bird flu has been
ruled out, but could several species become
simultaneously infected, display a very close response
to it, be able to fly and then suddenly die together on
the wing? These events are also dissimilar to mass
deaths of waterfowl, where periods of death can be
related to infection or water contamination.
The sixth point has no real
significance in terms of collision, or the birds would
be severely injured, and aircraft damaged.
Another possibility?
Is there any other possibility?
Perhaps: there could be short-lived electromagnetic
concentrations at certain locations and altitudes,
resulting (for example) from military experiments, where
high energies (eg the HAARP series of transmitters) or
experimental vectored intersections, interfere with
avian bioelectromagnetics such as nervous or cardiac
regulatory systems. Let’s not stray into conspiracy
theories (plenty of opther sites do that!). However, we
do know that powerful electromagnetic disturbances are
caused by military equipment, and there is plenty of
evidence that long-range effects from EM beams and
energies are not only of strategic interest, but in
various stages of development around the world.
When two streets are involved, and
ground-level effects are not exhibited (affecting
anaimals, ground birds and people), this is not an
environmental toxin indicator, but a temporal- and
spatial-specific impact on life systems at altitude.
Perhaps this indicates either a
‘useful experiment’ or an accident.
How the events were
variously reported in the news:
What else do we know about birds and
electromagnetic fields?
(We will leave you to find out about
HAARP and scalar waves and weapons.)
Investigations on birds and man-made
EM fields centre mainly around bird navigation, but
anecdotal evidence is strong that birds, while they may
perch on power lines and mobile phone masts, dislike
these environments for roosting and rearing.
Homing pigeons have in recent years
become lost en masse, birds have fled and gardens become
silent as mobile phone masts and TETRA have been
installed (especially songbirds), gulls have left
longstanding nest sites, and the decline of sparrows in
cities has been associated with the spread of mobile
communications.
Climate change has coincided to some
degree with losses of sparrows and songbirds, but people
sensitive to EM fields, who themselves physically feel
mobile phone masts or power lines, have observed adverse
bird behaviour at times of change (new installations
etc.).
It may appear inconclusive: is natural
geomagnetic navigation by birds being interfered with
(either the natural fields, or the birds’ magnetic
sensors)? Are lights on masts at night disorienting? Are
air ions around masts disturbed, making birds
uncomfortable?
Whatever the case, birds are sensitive
to EM fields, and we have changed the natural EM
environment beyond comparison with ‘weak’ transmissions,
as well as strong (eg HAARP). Here the parallel of
powerful extreme low frequency (ELF) submarine sonar and
cetaceans might be made:
More on birds and electromagnetic
fields
Across the world: masts, money and
medics
In Beer Sheva and in Sutton Coldfield
the sentiments and fears are the same. The research they
have read and cite is the same, as is the insistence
that their living environment must not be determined by
coporate interest and profit. The difference appears to
lie in doctors’ acceptance in Beer Sheva that mobile
phone antenna above your living space are an explanation
of headaches.
Here is a useful case study of why it
is wrong to simply ascribe the psychosomatic/group
hysteria theory to health problems around masts, and a
Swiss survey among general practitioners:
So the question remains: is this empty
fears and scaremongering, resulting in psychosomatic
response or group hysteria? Is it rational to suppose
that there are connections between short-term onset of
headaches and long-term incidence of cancer? Yes; visit
our
health research pages to find out more.
Here is an example of a completely
misguided approach.
Apparently: ‘The test involved
generating signals identical to those output by WCDMA
(wideband code division multiple access) base stations.
WCDMA is the most common 3G cell phone technology and is
already in use in Japan and many other countries. The
signals were up to 10 times more powerful than the
maximum limit allowed in Japan and even so they had no
harmful effects on cell samples put in their way.’ Three
profound issues stand in the way of this study meaning
anything at all:
-
Were the generated signals fully
characterised as transmitted in exactly the same way
as a base station? Control channel frequencies are
highly significant, as is the actual behaviour of
base stations in use.
-
Much more to the point is the
assumption that 10 times the power means a
direct relation to the strength of effect. This
implies a dosimetric model that does not exist [see
dosimetry]
and that power density is the controlling factor.
The use of cell samples is quite
inadequate. The effect on living organisms in all
likelihood is systemic (whole, operating,
communicating) at the macro level, as much as it is
purely electrodynamic at the cellular level.
This four-year study may not have been
deliberately engineered to ‘prove’ transmitters are
harmless to living things, but it was certainly an
over-simplification of the known issues.
Danish mobile phone study motivation
exposed
Launched simultaneously on the world’s
media on 6 December 2006, with headlines such as ‘After
21 years, scientists say mobiles don’t cause cancer:
common fear of link is debunked’, a study from the
Danish Institute of Cancer Epidemiology found ‘no
evidence’ of a link between cancers and mobile phones.
The population sample of 420,000 show apparently that
using a mobile phone slightly reduces the chances of
head cancers – the researchers say this might be because
if you could afford an early mobile you probably smoked
and drank less (?!). The study looked at records of
users between 1982 and 1995, and their health up to
2002, and does not take into account any sharp rise in
use of mobile phones in the past 5 to 8 years. However,
it compared these users with users of phones since 1995.
It was published in the
Journal of the National
Cancer Institute.
Here is some of the news reporting:
But perhaps all is not as well as it
seems?
Information from Dr George Carlo
I have some very unique personal
insight that I would like to share on this new Danish
study. I will have a formal analysis and Safe Wireless
Alert out on this by the end of the week. But, here is
important background.
Indeed, John Boice and his colleagues
have been on the cell phone industry payroll, and for
big money, since the late 1990s. The money laundering
vehicle is the International Epidemiology Institute –
the name sounds like a non-profit by design, but make no
mistake, this is a big for-profit enterprise. When I ran
the Wireless Technology Research (WTR) Group, the
International Epidemiology Institute, with Boice and a
fellow named Joe McLaughlin, applied for funding to do
this exact epidemiology study that was released this
week. After much discussion within the WTR, they were
refused funding because I felt they were blatantly
biased and had overtly given us the notion that they
would always create findings that were favorable to the
industry. They thought that is what we wanted in the WTR
– they thought they were playing to the audience. But,
they were wrong. When we refused to give them funding to
do work, they went directly to the industry with the
same pitch, and were hired. They were able to make good
on their pitch of being able to put ‘put all of this
under the radar’ by further laundering the industry
support money through the Danish Cancer Registry. This
is the pitch that was given to me personally and
directly. I still have their proposal.
The study released this week is the
second such study with the same ‘spin on the findings’
from this group of investigators. In 2001, they also had
‘one of the largest studies to date’, and Boice went on
a bit of a television tour – paid directly by the
industry – to blunt the effects of my Cell Phones:
Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age book tour. I
faced off with him a couple of times on T.V. most
notabley on John Gibson’s news show on MSNBC. It is
interesting that MSNBC is also asleep at the switch on
this one.
Interestingly, the other person quoted
in the news reports on this study – and I am certain his
name was given in the press package released by the
industry for the study as that is common practice to
make sure there is ‘independent corroboration’ – is
Joshua Muscat. Muscat worked for me under the WTR.
Muscat blatantly changed his data after his studies were
completed under pressure from the industry.
Specifically, Muscat’s work – peer reviewed and
completed according to a specific protocol under the WTR
– identified a near tripling in the risk neuroepithelial
tumors and a correlation between the side of the head
where the phones were used and the side of the head
where the tumor was located that were both statistically
significant. I speak of these findings in my Cell
Phones book because they were the findings in the
final peer-reviewed report of the data. The findings of
a statistically signifi cant increase in neuroepithelial
tumors and significant tumor laterality concordance were
the official findings of the WTR. However, the industry
hired an epidemiologist named Linda Erdreich to
participate in the peer review. Under her influence,
Muscat’s data ‘mysteriously’ changed – not once, but
twice. First, in the report Muscat gave at the Second
State of the Science Colloquium – and published in the
book that contains all of the papers presented at the
Long Beach Colloquium in June 1999 – the statistically
significant correlation between side of the head where
tumors were and side of the head where phones were used
disappeared. Then, yet again, in the paper that he
submitted to the Journal of the American Medical
Association, the data were further altered so that
the statistically significant increase in tumor risk
disappeared as well. Both of these alterations in the
data were flagrant breaches of the peer-reviewed
scientific protocols that were intended to guide that
research. In a letter to the editor of JAMA
before the study was published, I pointed these
inconcistencies out and indicated that I was the funder
of the study. The journal ignored the letter and went
forward with the publication. Clearly, the industry
carefully orchestrated the Muscat fraud so that the data
that were ‘published’ in JAMA carried no
statistical significance. The press release for that
study carried the ‘no statistical findings’ heading. Of
course, all of these data manipulations are evident in
published papers, but no one has chosen to raise the
issue in the media.
Interestingly, when the Muscat JAMA
study was released in January 2001, there was another
‘high credibility’ companion paper released in the
industry package along with it to support the ‘no cancer
from cell phones’ spin. That study, done by Inskip et
al., was realeased two weeks early at the request of the
industry, so that there would appear to be two leading
journals debunking the cell phone-cancer hypothesis at
the same time. They were all bundled into one package
that was sprung on me one night when I was being
interviewed by Dan Rather of CBS News. In that paper,
Inskip himself pointed out that the study did not any
tumors that were within the range of exposure to the
cell phone near field plume. However, even with the
admitted shortcoming that the data were only marginally
relevant to actual cell phone induced radiation
exposures, it was lauded as another cell phone safety
harbinger in the press package. And, who was that Jo
urnal who agreed to release the study early under
pressure from the cell phone industry? You guessed it,
the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. And, who
had just left the payroll of the National Cancer
Institute who runs the journal at the time? You guessed
it -- John Boice.
Finally, also now circulating in the
press package as part of this latest study are comments
from Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society. He is
using this as an entre to get in the news to raise some
money for ACS. His take – the studies show no risk. Of
course, what people don’t know is that in 2002,
scientists from the American Cancer Society testified in
brain cancer litigation in Federal Court in Baltimore,
Maryland on behalf of the cell phone industry. They
would want you to believe that no one was paid for that
testimony. However, shortly after that, a report was
released by the American Cancer Society that included
cells phones as one of the greatest cancer myths. So
blatant was this connection between the American Cancer
Society and the cell phone industry, that last year,
when Sanjay Gupta of CNN ran a story about the belief of
Johnnie Cochran’s surgeon that his fatal brain tumor was
due to his cell phone use, the indust ry did not even
reply in the story. Instead, they simply referred to and
quoted the American Cancer Society’s report on cell
phones being one of the cancer myths. Thus, they used
the American Cancer Society paper as a public relations
shield.
Everything I say here is fully
documented by publicly available information. But, it is
so diffuse that it is difficult for folks to connect the
dots. Inexplicably, there remains a peculiar absence of
investigative journalists who are working on uncovering
the full breadth and depth of the industry’s
orchestrated manipulation program. Where are Woodward
and Bernstein when you need them?
Am I callling out some very
prestigious groups and openly showing their conspicuous
unethical behavior, questionable integrity and disregard
for public health? You bet I am. The Danish Cancer
Registry, John Boice, Joshua Muscat, Michael Thun, Linda
Erdreich, the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute, the Journal of the American Medical
Association and the American Cancer Society have
ties to the telecommuncations industry that compromise
their ability to provide meaningful information on this
important public health issue. As sad as it is, this is
a ‘follow the money’ exercise that is yet another
example of public health being compromised by industry
subterfuge.
Dr George L Carlo
Science and Public Policy Institute
1101 Pennsylvania Ave. NW – 7th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20004
www.sppionline.org
202-756-7744
Are there alternatives to microwave
communications?
A requirement to avoid the harm caused
by digital microwave radiation and ‘electrosmog’, is to
either reduce EM field level or migrate to EM
frequencies that are not harmful.
Two concepts present themselves:
-
get nearer to every mobile device
with the transmission/receiving antenna, and connect
these with high capacity land lines (eg fibre optic)
-
make local wireless links wherever
possible non-microwave (eg infra red or visible
light)
The Visible Light Communications
Consortium has some ideas:
See also the work of Dr Stefan
Spaarman:
Do mobile phones cost the Earth?
Nearly a billion mobile phones are
sold each year. Obsolesence is built in, with many
service options in the UK offering an upgrade every
year. Reliability is still very patchy too. It is ironic
that even as the operators are pushing the latest
services such as TV on your phone, or gambling, or
Internet access or a better camera, the majority of
users just want to talk or send a text.
What happens to the old phones? Many
are still in drawers or cupboards, but millions escape
any notion of recycling (ie re-use in other parts of the
world: faulty ones can’t realistically be repaired) and
enter landfill or incineration. And they are not made
from 100 per cent friendly materials!
Ever considered the carbon footprint
of a little mobile phone – times several billion? Every
new one comes with a new charger too, and many of those
chargers are left on all the time.
Mobiles and all the other little
digital gadgets are causing a big problem. Manufacturers
are increasingly aware of course, but for many parts of
our modern gadgets, toxic waste is inevitable, and the
sheer volume of manufacture inescapable. Even recycling
takes energy.
There is of discussion avaiable about
phone chargers, and it’s the billions, not the one, that
matter. But ‘standby Britain’ is in only a small part
due to phone chargers (there are lots of other similar
chargers for other appliances like rechargeable
mini-vacs, that are probably always on, cameras etc.
And there are other costs, more human,
to our passion for electronic gadgets:
Mobile technology convergence: just
where is it taking us?
At the same time as school WiFi was
being discussed in the news recently (see item below),
the use of near-field communication was announced, to
enable mobile phones to become ‘smart wallets’, speeding
commercial transactions, but also facilitating marketing
and tracking. People keep valuable things in their
wallets that are not just credit cards or money: such as
identification, and it is not unreasonable to suppose
that smart wallets may be a future replacement for ID
cards.
With the UK having the most
surveillance cameras per head in the world, with all our
roadside cameras equipped for number plate recognition,
with sensitive microphones proposed to accompany cameras
in cities, and loudspeakers to remind people to pick up
litter as they are watched dropping it; with all our
personal details and records, movements, phone calls,
emails, Internet movements, available and increasingly
integrated, and with ID cards around the corner – where
is our privacy going? Or is privacy a luxury to be
dispensed with in the interests of social order, crime
and terrrorism prevention?
Before you shout ‘Luddite!’ and
‘paranoia!’ perhaps we should pause and look ahead and
ask what outcomes are most likely from current social
trends. After all, we’re on a roll, aren’t we?
Technology is the solution to all our future problems
... Maybe.
Convergence is the matter of bringing
technologies together: and why not have a single device
for all our information access and communication needs,
especially as miniaturisation continues, rather than
many?
WiFi in the news
In August 2007 the German government
[Bundesregierung] recommended that the use of wireless
(WiFi) networks (WLAN) in the workplace or at home
should be avoided, if possible.
Here is the translation of the German
document:
Here is the BBC Panorama 21 May 2007
(30 mins)
‘That’s interesting
about the Wi-Fi – I got a wireless setup at home
about four months ago and have had to stop using it
because after about 20 minutes it gives me
headaches, and after that I get pins and needles in
my feet and hands and I start to feel really light
headed and sick. I’ve gone back to a wired
connection. I could feel when it was on or off, even
when not in the same room.
‘The headache feels like there’s a
sort of electrical thing going on between my ears,
and it’s very painful between the eyes, like there’s
pressure building there. It’s actually very similar
to a problem a friend of mine had a few years ago
with a Nokia phone, she had the same headaches and
also a metallic taste in her mouth, when she changed
phones it was OK again.
‘It’s a very strange thing because
it’s not all Wi-Fi that does this to me, I can sit
in a [public] hot spot and feel fine, but my home
setup is really unpleasant, maybe because it’s at
such close range. I do also get the same symptoms if
I visit [local] Sainsbury’s so maybe there’s some
kind of Wi-Fi thing going on up there too – I went
there a few months ago for the first time in a about
a year and had to leave sharpish.
‘When I can feel it, it’s like the
air is heavy and thick, and I find it hard to think
clearly, it’s quite hard to put into words. I heard
on the news today that some expert is recommending
that children don’t hold Wi-Fi devices on their lap,
there’s definitely something very wrong with Wi-Fi.’
resident, West Sussex, UK
In 2007 wireless networks have been in
the news a lot, as the use in schools has been revealed
to be so widespread. For convenience over wiring
buildings up, this doesn’t sound unreasonable. But when
field strengths in school computer suites with say 20
wireless laptops is compared with those from mobile
phone use, the concerns start to seem much more valid
[see figures at
Powerwatch].
The primary issue is whether the
combination of what people report and what the science
suggest, should bring about a change in policy,
especially if regular prolonged exposure by teachers and
children is damaging to either health or academic
performance. For the difference in cost between wired
network points and wireless networks, how valid is this
official statement by the UK’s Health Protection
Agency (in red below)?
There is no
evidence to date that exposure to the RF signals
from WiFi and WLANs adversely affect the health of
the general population.
There can be no laboratory
evidence that human health is affected by wireless
networks because the necessary experiments have not
been done, nor have studies been made of chronic
exposure of individuals to the radiation from
mobile phones. However, several
international studies suggest that they pose a
significant threat to health.
Also, a number of individuals have
presented credible accounts of how they have been
personally affected by the introduction of wireless
networks and these cannot be ignored.
Any assertion that wireless
networks (WLAN) must be safe because not everyone
shows obvious physical symptoms, ignores the
well-being of those that do. Also, these symptoms
could be an early indicator of underlying damage
that may eventually affect the remainder of the
population.
The signals from WiFi
are very low power, typically 0.1 watt (100
milliwatts) in both the computer and the mast (or
router) and resulting exposures should be well
within internationally accepted guidelines.
Also, the
international guidelines are not appropriate.
Only acute short-term exposures to unmodulated
microwaves are covered. This clearly does not apply
to chronic exposure to low-level digital
communications as used in wireless networks.
It is also an undeclared
assumption in this statement that the only harmful
effects of non-ionising radiation are due to
heating. Frequency, waveform and quantum effects are
completely ignored, even though these are
established features of normal bio-electromagnetic
responses in living organisms such as humans.
The frequencies used
are broadly the same as those from ‘traditional’ RF
applications.
‘Traditional’ has no meaning:
tradition is a subjective comparison without
content, and the assumption is that carrier
frequencies are the only relevant parameter. WiFi is
indeed part of the IEE 802.11 standard, and the
carrier frequencies are similar to those used by
mobile phones. The comparison is clearly intended to
suggest that everything else has a clean bill of
health, and this is not the case.
The frequencies and signals used
by WiFi are similar to those used by mobile
phones, and recent studies have shown these to be
genotoxic, and are associated with an
increased risk of cancer and a loss of fertility
[see also our EM fields
health lists.].
Based on current
knowledge, RF exposures from WiFi are likely to be
lower than those from mobile phones.
Again this statement is imprecise
at best. Current knowledge is not so poor that we do
not know what a classroom exposure regime is like.
Nor is it a valid comparison to set wireless
networks against mobile phones. The comparison is
intended to suggest that even if there is a doubt
about excessive mobile phone use, there can
therefore be no doubt about wireless networks. If
there is a doubt about phones (and there is
substantial doubt) the underlying assumption is that
they can only be harmful on the scale of energy
absorption. This is an unwarranted assumption given
findings from research into modulation frequency and
waveform effects on living organisms.
On the basis of
current scientific information WiFi equipment
satisfies international guidelines. There is no
consistent evidence of health effects from RF
exposures below guideline levels and therefore no
reason why schools and others should not use WiFi
equipment.
It does not take much scientific
information to see that the international guidelines
for exposure greatly exceed any likely exposure in a
classroom. But as shown above, the issue of the
relevance of those guidelines must be in
considerable doubt.
The ‘consistency of evidence’ is a
function of the underlying assumption of
experimental conditions (ie, which parameters
matter), and of what constitutes a ‘health effect’,
not just a physiological response (HPA always cites
sight as a harmless EMF bio-response). ‘RF exposures
below guidelines’ is an uninformative broad
generalisation of what factors have been examined.
Some studies do indeed show a highly consistent
effect on specific cell physiology, for example, in
cases where that effect is highly significant for
health effects.
This statement therefore appears
to acknowledge that indeed evidence does exist of
adverse health effects, somewhat in contradiction of
the first point in the HPA statement.
It is a complete non sequitur
that there is ‘therefore no reason’ for schools to
avoid wireless networks.
h.e.s.e.-UK conclusion:
The evidence is there, the
consistency in research is there, the inadequacy of
exposure guidelines is clear. And in the face of all
this, it is deemed wise to chronically expose
children and teachers while discussions continue,
and while a perfectly acceptable alternative (wired
network points) exists.
If a new drug were to be
discovered that caused similar symptoms in even a
minority of patients, it would probably be taken off
the market and certainly not used for regular mass
medication. On this basis, the case for the safe
universal use of WiFi in schools has not yet been
made and it would be wise to withdraw it pending
further independent laboratory trials.
Failure to do this might call into
question the mandate of the Health Protection Agency
as a truly ‘independent body that protects the
health and well-being of the population’.
(h.e.s.e.-UK is represented at the
HPA EMF Discussion Group: minutes
here.)
Addendum: Since the
Panorama programme elicited such a response,
including a substantial number of people removing
domestic wireless networking, the following was
added by the HPA to their statement:
‘However with any new technology
it is a sensible precautionary approach, as happened
with mobile phones, to keep the situation under
ongoing review so that parents and others can have
as much reassurance as possible. That is why our
Chairman, Sir William Stewart, has stated it would
be timely to carry out further studies as this new
technology is rolled out. The Health Protection
Agency is discussing this with relevant parties.’
[h.e.s.e.-UK remains unclear as to what kind of
precautionary approach at all has been adopted with
regard to mobile phones.]
During November 2006 controversy
emerged in the UK news, especially about WiFi in
schools. Young people are presumably more vulnerable,
and clusters of computers all connecting with WiFi
points certainly raise EMF levels beyond what could be
called minimal. MPs and scientists called for
re-examination and avoidance of WiFi in schools, and
industry and engineers dismissed the idea of any risk.
Here is some of the press coverage on
WiFi and schools:
Hot on the heels of this was the issue
of mobile phone picocells for the home. Why not connect
your GSM phone to your broadband connection? Why have a
DECT phone, or a landline, when the mobile will connect
you, pretty much for free, even for international calls?
Hutchison 3 has a deal with Skype for just this. The
competition for domestic airwaves is in tune with a need
to connect every person to central communications at
very low cost, whilst introducing infrastructures that
don’t need contentious macrocell base stations.
Inevitably many discussions and blogs
have followed, mostly discrediting any idea that any
harm might come from such low energy level devices. For
people able to sense, or who suffer from, small
microwave transmitters, the case is unequivocal. For
those majority who have no physical awareness, the issue
seems equally unequivocal: people aren’t falling down
all over, so how can this possibly be a problem?
However, blogs and lots of people talking does not mean
balanced or informative discourse, or discovery of the
facts.
Community WiFi
In the UK ‘The Cloud’ has been
descending on our cities providing Internet access on
the move (how did we manage without it?). This is a
significant addition to the environmental microwave
burden and many people are finding their city centres
no-go areas except for the briefest visits, because they
are made unwell to varying degrees. But it is not just
the UK. Here is an account of ‘Wireless Oakland’,
Michigan.
MTHR mobile phones provocation study
King’s College department of
psychosomatic medicine undertook a study for the Mobile
Telecommunication and Health Research programme (MTHR)
in 2005. Their results are widely cited as ‘proof’ that
electrosensitive people are deluded as to the cause of
their condition, and that it can be cured by psychiatric
approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
Here are links relating to the study:
Rubin’s team concluded that since the
sensitive people reacted to everything equally but
differently from the control group, their equivalent
response to ‘sham’ shows it’s all psychological in
origin.
What they assumed was that the
standard MTHR mobile phone dummy fields were too low in
‘sham’ condition. The mobile unit in fact produces equal
signals in all modes, it just runs to a ‘load’ rather
than the external antenna.
There is a fundamental point here. The
MTHR study clearly shows that the electro-sensitive
subjects experienced symptoms massively more than the
control subjects (people who did not rate themselves as
sensitive to EM fields). The interpretation is that all
the subjects experiencing headaches were nocebo-induced
sensitivities. Why? Because of the lack of
differentiation between the sensitive subjects’
reactions to the MTHR ‘phone’ modes of GSM and sham.
This is interpreted as proving that the people, rather
than the experimental conditions, determined the
outcome, based solely on the assumption that the actual
radiated signal in sham mode was ‘too low’ to affect
anyone. There is no dosimetric basis for this: if there
was, this experiment would not have been necessary!
Lack of cross-disciplinary
understanding
Three people out on a
walk stumble over a sharp stone. One of them (a
builder) picks it up, and says: ‘This is out of a
wall, I recognise the shaping. I come across this
when doing repairs.’
The second (an archaeologist)
takes it excitedly and says: ‘No, this is a
prehistoric hand-axe. I recognise where it fits the
palm and the sharp edge has been created for
scraping.’
The third (a geologist) then takes
the stone and says casually: ‘I don’t know what
you’re all talking about, this is just a piece of
flint from the chalk strata around here; there’s
lots of it, and weather damage and erosion sometimes
makes it look like it’s been worked or used.’
Then the farmer, who has been
listening from a distance, approaches and laughs:
‘That’s a piece of local flint alright, made into a
hand axe and reused in that wall over there at some
time. The way the local geology has been utilised
for thousands of years is really interesting, but we
have to make walls from what’s there!’
We all interpret the world with
what we know best, not with what we do not know.
There is a real and fundamental
problem in the business of EM radiation and health,
because almost certainly there is physics at work in
biology here, and biophysicists and
bioelectromagneticists are few and far between in the
UK. If your specialism is engineering you will not
understand quantum effects well. If you are a
psychologist you may well assume your explanation of
neurology is superior to one where endogenous
electromagnetics have a part to play and may be
susceptible to external influences.
Too few researchers in this area have
much appreciation of the role of electromagnetics in
physiology, and by writing it out, ignore what is
outside their field of knowledge. This is equally true
in studies of CFS and ME, multiple chemical sensitivity
and so on. A sweeping description of ‘idiopathic
environmental intolerance’ with connotations of a solely
mentally-induced condition, will not do as objective
science.
Consultation, Scientific Committee on
Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR)
opinion on ‘Possible effects of Electromagnetic Fields
(EMF) on Human Health’
In October, the EU asked for reports
from people suffering from electrosensitivity (ES).
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DG Health and Consumer Protection
B-1049 BRUSSELS
Mobile phone risk
The following are some interesting
analyses by Lloyd Morgan on the Hardell studies of
phones and the comparison between their research and the
Interphone studies. Particularly telling are the scatter
graphs in the second entry, showing a very graphical
representation of the results compared against each
other.
(Source: Lloyd Morgan, at Powerwatch)
© 2009 The h.e.s.e. Project : Human
Ecological Social Economic
Source URL:
www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/niemr/news.php?content_type=&style=print
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