EMF Journal

http://thecoastnews.com/view/full_story/9109533/article-Local-doctor-shares-his-views-on-dangers-from-electromagnetic-field-radiation?instance=coast_more_news

by Lillian Cox

Dr. Dan Harper, M.D., was among the first to arrive at the Encinitas City Council meeting the evening of July 21. Carrying a 12-inch stack of medical journal articles about the health risks of electromagnetic field, or EMF, radiation, he was there to speak on behalf of his patient, Michael Schwaebe.

Schwaebe was appealing the placement of WiMAX towers on the site of the former Cabo Grill at Coast Highway 101 and La Costa Avenue. WiMAX is often referred to as “a cell tower on steroids.”

Harper directed his initial remarks to the Sprint Clearwire representatives in attendance when he quoted author Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding.”

Harper said he was frustrated, but not surprised, that he was unable to complete his presentation.

It would have been illegal.

The wireless industry is protected by Article 704 of the Telecommunications Act signed by President Clinton in 1996 which prohibits arguments of potential health risks from communications towers to be made at public hearings, even if they are legitimate.

Consequently, Schwaebe and his fellow presenters were forced to fall back on a secondary argument, declining property values as a result of placement of the WiMAX towers.

Had Dr. Harper been able to complete his speech, following are points he would have made.

Today, there is an indisputable parallel between the wireless and the tobacco industry, which was not required to post warning labels on cigarette packaging and in advertising until 1965 — after generations of families suffered from respiratory illnesses, cancers and even death due to smoking.

“It took 50 years to get warning labels and they are still selling the product,” Harper wrote in his notes.

In addition, he would have cited studies since the 1970s that show an increase in many cancers of those living within 300 meters of power lines. “Despite being a class 1B carcinogen, they are still building schools and houses on cheap land under power lines,” his notes read.

He would have made the argument that if we post the addresses of sexual predators, why then can’t the location of concealed or stealth cell tower antennaes also be posted.

Harper is a proponent of the need to develop safe neighborhoods for chemically sensitive and EMF-sensitive individuals such Michael Schwaebe by burying powerlines, having no wi-fi in a minimum of a half-mile radius, and no cell towers or pesticides or herbicides sprays in the area.

Finally, Harper would have made an argument that the EMF radiation controversy should actually be a state’s rights issue.

“Even though the FCC has said to ignore the potential health risks to humans and have a 150-day limit on the request to locate their wireless units, you are the wall of protection,” he wrote in his comments to City Council. “This is a federation of states with the states regulating the insurance, medical, dental and mortuary industries. The sheriff of this county has more rights of executive power than the FBI since the sheriff is elected and accountable to the voters.”

So, is he a whack job? Who is Dr. Dan Harper?

He graduated magna cum laud from Baylor College of Medicine, which today ranks No. 13 in research behind Stanford and before UCLA according to www.MedSchool100.com.

He is board certified in holistic medicine and family medicine; and board eligible in emergency medicine with more than 35,000 hours of ER experience.

Before moving to San Diego five years ago he was licensed in Oregon, Wyoming, Montana and Texas. Currently he’s licensed in California and Arizona.

It was changes he noticed in his own system and in his patients in his Solana Beach medical practice that prompted him to investigate environmental factors that impact health here on the coast.

“I did not have problems in Montana since no cell phone towers were there at the time,” he said. “I got here and things were blazin’ hot and people were ill due to the EMFs. There was catatonic schizophrenia, depression, autism, arrhythmias of heart, seizures — all related to EMF exposure. I hit pubmed.com (National Institutes of Health research website) and the Internet to find out why.”

He also took several courses on EMFs offered through the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and studied under Dr. William J. Rea, who is considered one of the fathers of environmental medicine.

Harper learned that San Diego is the second-highest radiated city in the nation, behind Washington, D.C.

“There is 10 million times the background radiation in San Diego compared to 1970,” he said. “It is caused by technology such as cell towers and high-powered transformer lines; military telecommunications; Doppler radar and sonograms shot into earthquake faults. It is also generated by wi-fi communications for computers and games, SDG&E smart meters and transformers on poles and on the ground of local neighborhoods (camouflaged) as green boxes.”

Harper warns that EMF radiation even interferes with meditation at the Self Realization Fellowship.

Ultimately, he says this is leading to a generation of older Americans with pre-senile dementia being cared for by a younger generation with a disproportionate amount of brain cancer.

Beyond our own world, he warns that extremely low frequency, or ELF, radiation used to communicate with submarines is impacting ocean life.

“They interfere with the vestibular apparatus of the brains of the whales,” Harper said. “It messes up their navigation and seems to impair cognition.”

Frustrated, Dr. Harper walked out of the council meeting on July 21 after a woman representing the wireless industry said she had no closing remarks except to say that the city of Encinitas had no legal leg to stand on.

“My heart sank as I saw big business once again put the FCC knife to the throats of the City Council and tell them they would have to sit and watch as they raped and ravaged the community and there was nothing they could do,” he said. “Every citizen is being blasted at a cellular level by this radiation. It may take two or three decades to manifest the cancer or dementia, but it is adversely affecting us all.”

He said that 3 percent of the population is severely and rapidly affected with symptoms such as headaches, confusion, tachycardia, anxiety, skin burning and hives.

“Sixteen percent will only feel the fatigue, insomnia, ‘brain farts’ and memory issues, and the other 81 percent will look at that 19 percent and recommend a good psychiatrist until 30 or 40 years down the road (medical) articles will begin to report that cell phones and wi-fi are more dangerous than cigarettes, asbestos and leaded gasoline put together,” he said.

After members of the Encinitas City Council explained that they had no choice but to deny the appeal, for fear of losing money in legal bills in a futile battle with the federal government, Deputy Mayor Maggie Houlihan called on citizens to write their congressmen and senators to demand that Article 704 be repealed.

The Coast News contacted Rep. Brian Bilbray and his opponent Francine Busby to ask if they would lead such a movement to repeal Article 704. To date, only Bilbray’s office had responded.

Following is the statement from Bilbray’s office: “Congressman Bilbray holds health and safety standards in the highest regard. The standards used in the 1996 Telecom Act to support Article 704 were, at the time, the most stringent health standards available in the United States. A review of these standards has been scheduled by the Federal Communications Commission and Congressman Bilbray will make a determination on further action upon completion of the review.”

Dr. Dan’s Advice

Dr. Dan Harper offers a few tips on how to protect yourself from EMFs:

1. Purchase a Trifield Meter to measure EMF radiation in your home. The price is about $125 online.
2. In homes, make sure the grounding is done correctly at the junction box of the circuit breaker and of the switch box inside that grounds to the hot water. EMF-sensitive patients have to have a 3-foot section of nonmetallic pipe between their water meter and the house, or all the grounded negative energy comes from neighboring homes into their house and onto them when they shower or do dishes.
3. Keep children more than 4 to 5 feet from the front of the TV and away from any alternating current devices such as air filters, computers and stereos.
4. Use a large computer monitor, with a corded mouse and key pad that can be set 3 to 4 feet away from the monitor and tower to prevent the strong EMFs from entering your body. Stay away from laptops.
5. Turn off electrical equipment at the surge protector when not in use. Turn off routers on wi-fi and computers so EMF radiation is not shot through the house and neighborhood.
6. Don’t use a cordless phone. Get a speaker phone or land line.
7. Limit cell phone texting and talking, turning off the phone when not in use. If it is kept turned on, it is broadcasting microwaves into the tissues of the person carrying it and those around them. Second-hand radiation is more dangerous than second-hand cigarette smoke in my opinion. The further one gets from the cell tower, the stronger the cell phone blasts into the tissues trying to reach the tower. The closer one gets to the tower, the more the tower blasts the person there, whether they have a phone on or not.
8. Bluetooth phones triple the amount of negative energy entering your body.
9. Finally, don’t live near a cell tower unless you have your life insurance policy and your medical insurance covers cancer, autoimmunity, dementia (including Alzheimer’s and presenile dementia), heart disease, diabetes, and a large number of so called chronic diseases that have been shown to increase in the presence of harmful EMFs at low doses.