Radiation from phone masts
LETTERS: Radiation from phone masts
Wednesday October 14 2009
http://www.kerryman.ie/news/letters-radiation-from-phone-masts-1912644.html
Sir, I would like to respond to Dr Nolan’s letter on safety issues with mobile phone masts, published in The Kerryman of October 7.
Dr Nolan is wrong when he says that non-ionising radiation cannot affect living things if it is too weak to generate significant heat. The most obvious examples are the effects of visible light, which is of course non-ionising. Were it not for its effects on chlorophyll, plants would not be able to photosynthesise and, were it not for its effects on our visual pigments, we would not be able to see.
Non-ionising radio frequencies can affect other important pigments; for example, Ritz and co-workers (Nature, Vol. 429, 13th May 2004) showed that they affect the normal functioning of cryptochrome. Birds, bees and other animals use cryptochrome to sense the direction of the earth’s magnetic field for navigation, and radio waves can interfere with this. In fact, the cryptochromes are a family of pigments, present in virtually all animal and plant cells, where they also form a vital part of the biological clock that senses time. In animals that use the sun for navigation, an accurate sense of time is important because it enables them to compensate for its changing position throughout the day.
In the case of the bees, which can use either magnetic or solar navigation, radio waves from mobile phone masts will leave them with little or no sense of direction. This is probably the main contributory factor to the so-called colony collapse disorder in which foraging bees simply do not return to the hive. The bees clearly do not like this sort of radiation since, if you place a DECT cordless phone base station (a surrogate mobile phone mast) next to a hive, the bees leave and do not return. These effects now threaten the very survival of the bee population, which in turn threatens us because many of our crops depend on them for pollination.
However, we humans also use cryptochrome in our own biological clocks, and this may be responsible for the poor sleep patterns often reported in people living near mobile phone masts. They suffer fatigue during the day and interrupted sleep at night, just as if their biological clocks had ceased to function normally. This sort of disruption is like a permanent jet-lag and is associated with a damaged immune system (which works best at night), and increases the risk of getting cancer and other diseases. The increased risk of cancer, including breast and colorectal cancers, is well established in people whose rhythms have been disrupted by shift working and is now becoming increasingly reported as cancer clusters around mobile phone masts and radio and television transmitters.
However, the most serious biological effect of non-ionising radiation is its ability to disrupt cell membranes. This has been known since the work of Suzanne Bawin and her coworkers in 1975 (Ann NY Acad Sci Vol 247, pp 74-81). They discovered that amplitude-modulated radio-waves, where the signal strength rises and falls (as it does in mobile phones), could remove structurally important calcium ions from cell membranes at levels far too low to generate significant heat.
This makes them leak, which can give a whole range of biological effects that are similar to those of ionising radiation, which also makes cell membranes leak. The mechanism is, however different. Ionising radiation generates highly reactive free radicals, which destroy the fatty components of cell membranes to make permanent holes, whereas non-ionising radiation makes temporary holes as the components of the weakened membrane pull apart from time to time. Nevertheless, the effect is the same; the membranes leak.
In either case, the most serious effect is on the membranes of the lysosomes. These are structures in living cells that contain digestive enzymes and are normally used to digest waste for recycling. When these leak, they can release their enzymes and do serious damage to the rest of the cell, including to its DNA (bacteria, which have no lysosomes, are about a thousand times more resistant to radiation than higher organisms, which do have them).
The effects of non-ionising radiation are slower than ionising radiation. For example, it takes several hours for exposure to mobile phone radiation to do serious damage to the DNA in living cells (see www.bioinitiative.org ), but the effects are qualitatively the same.
The result is an increased risk for heavy mobile phone users of getting brain and other head cancers in later life. There has also been a mysterious increase in cancers of the thyroid gland (which is in the neck, close to where you hold your mobile phone), and a permanent reduction in thyroid function has been reported in rats exposed for more than three months to power line frequencies. In humans, this would be expected to lead to obesity and other symptoms of hypothyroidism. About one third of the population is currently overweight or clinically obese.
There is also a reduction in fertility in people using mobile phones for more than about four hours a day as sperm, and possibly also the eggs, are damaged. Another effect of DNA damage is the disruption of cell division in the bone marrow, which affects the production of healthy white blood cells and can lead to a reduced immunity to disease.
Yet another serious effect of leakage is on the blood-brain barrier. This is a layer of cells, where the gaps between them are sealed to prevent unwanted materials entering the brain from the bloodstream. It has been shown that mobile phone radiation makes this barrier leak, which results in the death of neurons, and is likely to lead to early dementia. There are similar barriers covering all of our body surfaces, both inside and out.
Leakage in the skin barrier allows the easier penetration of allergens, and is probably responsible for the recent rise in multiple allergies. Leakage in the nasal barrier will increase the risk of asthma. Leakage in the gut barrier has been linked to autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease, type-1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, as undigested food enters the bloodstream and damages other cells, which are then destroyed by the immune system. More information on much of this, together with references to the appropriate
scientific journals, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/5ru6e6.
I’m afraid that Dr Nolan (who is an electronics engineer but not a biologist) is seriously and dangerously incorrect in his claim that weak non-ionising radiation can have no harmful biological effects.
Sincerely,
Andrew Goldsworthy BSc PhD
Lecturer in Biology (retired) Imperial College London.
Special thank you to Angela Flynn for making this available.
Electrohypersensitivity (EHS) Mechanisms audio
submitted by Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy via Angela Flynn
Hello all:
I gave a talk on the mechanisms by which electro hyper-sensitivity symptoms occur, at a meeting of about 100 EHS sufferers last Saturday.
It was held at the Head Office of Samworth Bros (Makers of Ginster’s pies and many supermarket own-brand ready-meals) whose CEO has severe EHS and had a special EMF-free room constructed for the purpose.
A recording of it can be found at http://electrosensitivityuk.podbean.com/ . Please feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think may be interested.
Best wishes
Andrew (Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy)
Secret Link Between Cigarettes and Cell Phones?
Secret Link Between Cigarettes and Cell Phones?
Cell phones are used by an estimated 275 million people in the United States and 4 billion worldwide.
A recent review of studies assessed whether there was epidemiologic evidence for an association between long-term cell phone usage and the risk of developing a brain tumor.
In order to be included in the analysis, studies were required to have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, included participants who had used cell phone for 10 or more years, and analyzed the side of the brain tumor relative to the side of the head preferred for cell phone usage. Eleven long-term epidemiologic studies fit the criteria.
The results indicated that using a cell phone for 10 or more years approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use.
Iowa senator Tom Harkin, newly empowered to investigate health matters as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has promised to probe deeply into any potential links between cell phone use and cancer.
Harkin, who took over the committee after the death of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, said he was concerned no one has been able to prove cell phones do not cause cancer. A staffer said the senator became concerned by a report from the Environmental Working Group showing that radio wave emissions vary from one cell phone brand and model to another, as well as some reports suggesting there might be a link.
Sources:
Surgical Neurology September 2009;72(3):205-14According to Reuters, an estimated 4 billion people worldwide now use cell phones, up from about 3 billion around this time just last year.
Dangers Known for a Decade
Cell phones use radio waves to transmit voice data, and the dangers of consistent exposure to information-carrying radio waves have been known since at least 1998. Yet few have been willing to accept the evidence, and the cellular industry has followed in the footsteps of the tobacco industry, vehemently denying any risks.
It’s worth remembering that the telecommunication industry is even BIGGER than Big Pharma, and they have far more influence than the drug companies.
My belief is that this exponential increase in this type of radiation exposure is far more serious a threat than tobacco ever was.
To get a better understanding of the physics and biological impact of information-carrying radio waves and the electromagnetic fields emitted from your cell phone, please review the article, “If Mobile Phones Were a Type of Food, They Simply Would Not be Licensed.”
The first major indication that cell phones might be a health hazard came out of a massive, $28 million research project funded by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA). To the industry’s surprise and dismay, the results of the study came to the opposite conclusion from the one they were hoping for.
The study’s results included findings of:
- A nearly 300 percent increase in the incidence of genetic damage when human blood cells were exposed to radiation in the cellular frequency band
- A significant increase in cell phone users’ risk of brain tumors at the brain’s outer edge, on whichever side the cell phone was held most often
- A 60 percent greater chance of acoustic neuromas, a tumor affecting the nerve that controls hearing, among people who had used cell phones for six years or more
- A higher rate of brain cancer deaths among handheld mobile phone users than among car phone users (car phones are mounted on the dashboard rather than held next to your head)
Prior to this, Alfred Gilman and Martin Rodbell had won the Nobel Prize (1994) for their research showing your body’s cells communicate with each other by subtle low electromagnetic signals. These signals carry all the vital information that are then translated into biochemical and physiological processes.
The following year, researchers discovered that animals exposed to cell phone radiation suffered double-strand DNA breakage – the type of genetic alterations that can lead to cancer, cell death and mutagenic problems.
Since then, many more scientists confirmed all of the above findings.
The Latest Findings Confirm Long-Held Concerns
The latest meta-analysis looks at the epidemiological evidence of cell phone usage and your risk of developing a brain tumor. In order to be included, the studies had to meet certain criteria:
- Publication in a peer-reviewed journal
- Inclusion of participants using cell phones for a minimum of 10 years (to include potential latent effects
- Incorporation of a “laterality” analysis of long-term users (i.e., analysis of the side of the brain tumor relative to the side of the head preferred for cell phone usage)
Eleven long-term epidemiologic studies were included, which led to the following findings:
“The results indicate that using a cell phone for > or = 10 years approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same (“ipsilateral”) side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use.
The data achieve statistical significance for glioma and acoustic neuroma but not for meningioma.
The authors conclude that there is adequate epidemiologic evidence to suggest a link between prolonged cell phone usage and the development of an ipsilateral brain tumor.”
Other Health Hazards Linked to Cell Phone Use
So far, in addition to the widespread concern about brain cancer, scientists have found that information-carrying radio waves transmitted by cell phones and other wireless devices can:
- Harm your blood cells and cause cellular changes
- Damage your DNA
- Cause nerve-cell damage
- Accelerate and contribute to onset of autism , and trigger Alzheimer’s disease
- Damage your eyes
- Cause sleep disruptions, fatigue and headaches
I have been warning of the dangers of cell phones for over a decade now, watching for and reporting on new findings along the way. Fortunately, as the supporting evidence mounts, scientists, medical professionals, and government agencies around the world are starting to caution against cell phone use as well.
Health Authorities and Government Officials Speak Out
Last year, tumor immunologist Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), was one of the authorities who finally elected to speak out publicly about the potential dangers of cell phones. He also spoke to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy about the connection between cell phone use and the increased risk of brain cancer.
Prior to that, The BioInitiative Report, published August 31, 2007, by an international working group of scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals offered a serious warning to the public.
The report documents serious scientific concerns about the current limits regulating how much radiation is allowable from power lines, cell phones, and many other sources of exposure to radiofrequencies and electromagnetic fields in daily life. They concluded that the existing standards for public safety do not protect your health.
The report also includes studies showing evidence for:
- Effects on Gene and Protein Expression (Transcriptomic and Proteomic Research)
- Genotoxic Effects – RFR and ELF DNA Damage
- Stress Response (Stress Proteins)
- Effects on Immune Function
- Effects on Neurology and Behavior
- Brain Tumors and Acoustic Neuromas
- Childhood Cancers (Leukemia)
- Magnetic Field Exposure: Melatonin Production; Alzheimer’s Disease; Breast Cancer
- Breast Cancer Promotion (Melatonin links in laboratory and cell studies)
- Disruption by the Modulating Signal
Another noted brain cancer authority who voiced his concerns last year was Australian Dr Vini Gautam Khurana. His paper titled: Mobile Phones and Brain Tumors was the result of reviewing more than 100 sources of recent medical and scientific literature on this topic.
Iowa senator Tom Harkin, now chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has recently vowed to investigate any potential links between cell phone use and cancer, noting that the Senate Health committee does have jurisdiction over both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
On September 14th, he called a hearing of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education to start looking into the many questions surrounding this issue. He also stated he will get the National Institutes of Health (NIH) involved.
“I’m reminded of this nation’s experience with cigarettes,” Harkin said.
“Decades passed between the first warnings about smoking tobacco and the final definitive conclusion that cigarettes cause lung cancer.”
Protect Yourself and Your Children
Remember, the damage from cell phone exposure will take many years to surface, and there are rarely any initial symptoms, just like smoking and lung cancer.
At this point, you cannot completely avoid wireless radiation from all sources since they’re so pervasive. Getting rid of your cell phone altogether can help protect you. But even if you don’t want to take that step, you can still minimize your exposure and reduce your risks by following these common sense guidelines:
Children Should Never Use Cell Phones: Barring a life-threatening emergency, children should not use a cell phone, or a wireless device of any type. Children are far more vulnerable to cell phone radiation than adults, because of their thinner skull bones.
Reduce Your Cell Phone Use: Turn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters.
Use a Land Line at Home and at Work: Although more and more people are switching to using cell phones as their exclusive phone contact, it is a dangerous trend and you can choose to opt out of the madness.
Reduce or Eliminate Your Use of Other Wireless Devices: You would be wise to cut down your use of these devices. Just as with cell phones, it is important to ask yourself whether or not you really need to use them every single time. If you must use a portable home phone, use the older kind that operates at 900 MHz. They are no safer during calls, but at least they do not broadcast constantly even when no call is being made.Use Your Cell Phone Only Where Reception is Good: The weaker the reception, the more power your phone must use to transmit, and the more power it uses, the more radiation it emits, and the deeper the dangerous radio waves penetrate into your body. Ideally, you should only use your phone with full bars and good reception. Also seek to avoid carrying your phone on your body as that merely maximizes any potential exposure. Ideally put it in your purse or carrying bag.
Turn Your Cell Phone Off When Not in Use: As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call.Keep Your Cell Phone Away From Your Body When it is On: The most dangerous place to be, in terms of radiation exposure, is within about six inches of the emitting antenna. You do not want any part of your body within that area.
Use Safer Headset Technology: Wired headsets will certainly allow you to keep the cell phone farther away from your body. However, if a wired headset is not well-shielded — and most of them are not — the wire itself acts as an antenna attracting ambient information carrying radio waves and transmitting radiation directly to your brain.
Make sure that the wire used to transmit the signal to your ear is shielded.
The best kind of headset to use is a combination shielded wire and air-tube headset. These operate like a stethoscope, transmitting the information to your head as an actual sound wave; although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.
The FCC sets lower Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for cellphones
The FCC sets lower Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), at 1.6 Watts per kilogram than the 2.0 W/kg, that many countries have adopted based on recommendations by the International Commission on Non-ioni zing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP.)
So, the FCC SAR is only marginally lower. THE IEEE revised exposure guidelines recommend 2.0 W/kg and the concerned scientists are opposed to raising it to that level.
But there are concerns that the basis for setting the SAR is not relevant to the exposure condition it supposedly protective of. The SAR is based on avoiding a “heating effect” and includes a lower safety threshold below that effect to add a protective layer.
However, there are studies demonstrating biological mechanisms of effect and adverse health consequences such as headaches, memory and concentration problems, and, brain, eye, salivary gland and ear canal nerve tumors that can occur at much lower intensity and that are not caused by heat.
Some scientists have for over a decade pointed to the need to study the amplitude and frequency modulation of the wave form at different frequencies, but particularly at those to which the general population is now constantly exposed, such as 60 hertz for electricity from different sources and 2.4-3.8 Ghz for 3G phones, WIFI networks and WIMAX. There are other wave form characteristics that could be biologically active and need to be taken into account in setting biologically based standards. A paper by Dr. Carl Blackman in the August issue of the the Journal on Pathophysiology, referenced at the end of the Porto Alegre Resolution, goes into the details.
So, using a cell phone that has a lower SAR is better and the FCC sets a stricter standard than ICNIRP countries but the assumptions underlying the SAR may still not be protective enough. Remember those “low tar” cigarettes?
Elizabeth Kelley
provided by:
Angela Flynn
Wireless Radiation Alert Network
WRAN
301-229-0282
FAX 301-229-4752
More facts disclosed on brain damage from mobile phones
A collaborative team of international EMF activists has released a report detailing eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study.
The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:
- There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use
- Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors
- Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors
The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumors, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a ‘systemic-skew’, greatly underestimating brain tumor risk.
The design flaws include categorizing subjects who used portable phones (which emit the same microwave radiation as cell phones,) as ‘unexposed’; exclusion of many types of brain tumors; exclusion of people who had died, or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumor; and exclusion of children and young adults, who are more vulnerable.
Ronald B. Herberman, MD, Director Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has stated,
“Based on substantial evidence, especially from industry-independent studies that long term exposure to radiofrequency radiation may lead to increased risk for brain tumors, I issued a precautionary advisory last year to faculty and staff of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
Since then, my particular concern about exposure of children to radiofrequency has been supported by a report from Dr. Lennart Hardell. Some of my scientific colleagues have expressed skepticism about the reported biological effects, especially DNA0A damage by radiofequency radiation, because of the absence of a demonstrated underlying molecular mechanism.
However, based on the precautionary principle, I believe it is more prudent to take seriously the reports by multiple investigators that radiofrequency can damage DNA and increase the risk for brain tumors, and for industry-independent agencies to provide needed funding for detailed research to ascertain the molecular basis for such effects.”
Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says,
“Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled.
Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cell phones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia.
The public must be informed.”
Sources:
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Dr. Mercola’s Comments: |
After a break in the media about the dangers of cell phones, the issue will likely regain momentum with the release of this brand new report.
An International Expert Conference on Cell Phones and Health is scheduled to take place on September 13-15 in Washington D.C., and a yet to be formally announced Senate hearing on cell phone safety is also in the works by Senator Arlen Specter, according to Microwave News.
With the ever-increasing, widespread use of wireless communications, it is imperative to understand the risks inherent in the use of the technology, yet the government has been very slow to respond, no doubt in large part due to industry pressure. (In fact, the cell phone industry is expected to boycott the upcoming conference.)
Ever growing scientific research corroborates the suspicion that information-carrying radio waves transmitted by cell phones and other wireless devices can:
- Cause brain tumors
- Harm blood cells and cause cellular changes
- Damage your DNA
- Cause nerve-cell damage
- Accelerate and contribute to the onset of autism , and trigger Alzheimer’s disease
- Damage your eyes
- Cause sleep disruptions, fatigue and headaches
A quote from Chris Woollams, one of the endorsers of the new report, sums up the issue well:
“In a world where a drug cannot be launched without proof that it is safe, where the use of herbs and natural compounds available to all since early Egyptian times are now questioned, their safety subjected to the deepest scrutiny, where a new food cannot be launched without prior approval, the idea that we use mobile telephony, including masts, and introduce WiFi and mobile phones without restrictions around our 5 year olds is double-standards gone mad.
I speak, not just as an editor and scientist that has looked in depth at all the research, but as a father that lost his beloved daughter to a brain tumor.”
Researchers Keep Finding Links Between Cell Phone Use, Brain Damage and Cancer
Last year, a well-circulated Swedish study found that people using cell phones doubled their risk of developing brain cancer and acoustic neuroma (a tumor that damages your hearing nerve).
The study also showed that people who started using cell phones before the age of 20 were more than five times as likely to develop brain cancer.
The European Parliament responded by voting 522 to 16 to urge ministers across Europe to impose stricter limits for exposure to radiation from mobile and cordless phones, wi-fi and other radiation-generating devices — in part because children are particularly vulnerable to the risk.
Dr. Gerd Oberfeld, M.D., the Speaker for Environmental Medicine for the Austrian Medical Association in Vienna, Austria says:
“The scientific data show, with a high degree of confidence, that mobile phone exposure is associated with an increased brain tumor risk.
The age group below 20 years is facing the greatest risk, which for malignant (deadly) brain tumors is about 400 percent, compared to non-exposed.
When we take the long latency period of up to some decades into account, and the fact that large parts of our society, and especially more and more teenagers and even children are using mobile phones on a daily basis, we may well expect a brain tumor epidemic.
From a public health perspective there is an urgent need not only for a wake-up call for our society, but for measures that are able to combat this public health threat effectively, now.”
The cell phone industry’s standard comment has been that “the peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a public health risk.”
This report exposes that statement for the lie that it is.
In fact, there’s no shortage of evidence showing that cell phone use (and other wireless devices) can be dangerous to your health, and to your child in particular.
As this new report points out, even some of the industry’s own research found that cell phones caused brain tumors, and subsequent industry-funded studies from 2000 to 2002 also showed an elevated risk of brain cancer.
One such study reportedly found a 20 percent increased risk of brain tumor for every year of cell phone use!
And, if you remove the Telecom industry funded research, then the weight of the evidence overwhelmingly shows that cell phones cause health problems, including, but not limited to:
- Brain tumors
- Eye cancer
- Testicular cancer
- Salivary gland tumors
- Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- Leukemia
Fortunately more and more people are beginning to take the warning signs seriously.
In 2005, the British-based National Radiological Protection Board suggested children younger than age 8 should not be given a cell phone as it risks exposing their young bodies to harmful radiation. Last year Toronto’s department of public health followed suit, warning that because of possible side effects from radio frequency radiation, children under 8 should only use a cell phone in emergencies, and teenagers should limit calls to less than 10 minutes.
The U.K., Belgium, Germany, France and Russia have also introduced precautionary policies regarding cell phone usage due to potential health risks.
Few people realize this, but brain cancer has surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children, and many scientists believe this is directly linked to the exponential increase in cell phone use and other wireless devices.
Australia has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade. This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years.
These statistics are consistent with many of the scientific research findings.
Another example is the 2003 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives (the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences). They found that rats exhibited serious neuronal brain damage following exposure to radiation from a cell phone, at levels comparable to what you would experience during normal use.
The nerve cell damage was observed in several places within the rats’ brains, including the cortex, hippocampus and basal ganglia.
The authors concluded,
“Intense use of mobile phones by youngsters is a serious consideration. A neuronal damage of the kind described here may not have immediate, demonstrable consequences, even if repeated. In the long run, however, it may result in reduced brain reserve capacity that might be unveiled by other later neuronal disease or even the wear and tear of aging.”
What Can You Do?
Remember, the damage from cell phone exposure can take many years to surface. There are rarely any initial symptoms, just like smoking and lung cancer. Are you really willing to risk the chance of developing brain cancer because you don’t want to sacrifice the minor inconvenience of using your cell’s speaker phone, or using a safe headset?
This should be of particular concern if you have children, since, just like smoking, WiFi does not discriminate between user and bystander.
I have written more in-depth about how to reduce the risk to your child before, and as a refresher, I strongly urge you to review some of that information now.
For a review of HOW cell phones and other wireless technology can cause the type of damage just discussed, I recommend reading this previous article.
In addition, the eye-opening DVD Public Exposure covers this serious health issue in even greater depth. But for immediate recommendations on how to protect yourself and your family from the dangers of cell phone radiation, please review the guidelines included in my previous article, Now Half the World Has a Cell Phone – - Why That is a Brain Tumor Epidemic Waiting to Happen.
Senator Arlen Specter Said To Hold a Cell Phone Hearing
August 18… Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) will hold a hearing on cell phones and health on September 14. So says Devra Davis, an activist scientist at the University of Pittsburgh. If Specter follows through, it would be the centerpiece of a conference she is organizing that week in Washington, as well as a triumph for Davis herself. She is on a mission to make cell phones a more visible public health issue in the U.S. and to secure funding for a major research program. It would be the first time in more than 30 years that the U.S. Senate has addressed RF/microwave health risks.
“I have spoken and met with Senator Specter and his senior staffers,” Davis told Microwave News. “They are planning to hold a hearing on this important topic.” Among those who will be invited to testify, she said, are Frank Barnes of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the FDA, Dariusz Leszczynski of Finland’s radiation protection agency (STUK), Israeli epidemiologist Siegal Sadetzki, a member of the Interphone group, as well as Davis herself. Barnes served as the chairman of the committee that prepared the 2008 National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council report on research needs on potential impacts of wireless radiation. Leszczynski is helping to organize the conference and Sadetzki is on its steering committee.
Davis is confident enough to have included the Specter hearing in the draft agenda of the conference, which she has posted on the Web site of the Environmental Health Trust, an offshoot of the Devra Lee Davis Charitable Foundation. The Expert Conference on Cell Phones and Public Policy Questions will be held September 13-15 at the Credit Union House, which is strategically located “within walking distance of the Senate.”
Davis said that the official invitations for the meeting have not yet been sent out due to “press of health care issues.” She cautioned, “Of course, the timing of events in Washington are difficult to predict.” Specter is deeply involved in the health care reform debate and is facing a tough reelection campaign. A picture of him being confronted by an angry constituent at a town hall meeting was on the front-page of the New York Times last week with a story headlined, “Senator Goes Face to Face with Dissent.” Specter is a brain tumor survivor; he is also fighting Hodgkin’s disease.
John Myers, a Specter legislative aide, did not respond to a request for confirmation that the hearing will be held on September 14. Davis assured Microwave News that the Senator’s staff is fully engaged in preparing for the hearing, even though no formal announcement has yet been made.
The cell phone industry is largely boycotting the conference. The only industry participant on the latest version of the agenda is Jack Rowley of the GSM Association. He is listed as “invited.” Rowley is on vacation this week and was unavailable for comment. Davis said that he is still “mulling it over.” Motorola’s C.K. Chou declined to come because he felt the list of invited speakers is not balanced. The current program does favor the side of the cell phone debate that favors precaution. The only possible source of disagreement among the speakers would likely come from Om Gandhi of the University of Utah and Niels Kuster of IT’IS Foundation who have been feuding for over a decade over the potential risks to children.
Davis sees the meeting as a first step towards establishing an RF health research program in the U.S. For the last 25 years, the federal government has funded very few studies. To that end, Specter’s support is key.
Over the last year, Davis has worked hard to raise the visibility of cell phone health risks. Last July, Ronald Herberman, the then director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, issued a call for precaution in the use of cell phones —a move she encouraged (see our posts of July 23, 25 & 28, 2008). While the initiative prompted a good amount of press coverage, it was badly received by the cancer establishment, some members of which have been critical of her 2007 book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer. Davis no longer has a position at the cancer center. She said she resigned. Davis remains a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. She said that she would continue to have an appointment at the school through the 2009-2010 academic year. At the same time she has moved her office to Washington.
In September 2008, not long after he issued his appeal, Herberman testified at a Congressional hearing called by Rep. Denis Kucinich (D-OH). He said that, looking at government statistics, he had been “struck” by the fact that the incidence of brain cancer has been increasing over the last ten years, particularly among 20-29 year-olds. (See our “Are Brain Cancer Rates Rising Among Young Adults?“) The peer-reviewed paper with those results will appear soon, Davis said. She and Herberman and Melissa Bondy of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are all coauthors of the forthcoming paper. Bondy will also be at the conference.
Kucinich and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) have been invited to participate at a round-table discussion on September 15 at the close of the conference.
Part of the money for the meeting has come from a grant to the University of Pittsburgh from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Chris Portier, an associate director of the institute, is a member of the conference steering committee. On July 31, the Competence Initiative for the Protection of Humanity, Environment and Democracy in Germany issued an “Appeal to Support the Conference.” It stated, in part, “If the conference in Washington fails for financial reasons, this would mean to miss a great chance that independent research is heard in the political field.”
Money seems to be in short enough supply that Davis is planning to ask reporters (Microwave News included) to pay the $100 registration fee she is asking from all attendees except invited speakers. That may hamper press coverage. One long-time Washington journalist was skeptical. “No one from the press will come,” he predicted.
$25,000 RF Safety Case
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2009/db0603/DA-09-1208A1.pdf
Adopted: May 28, 2009 Released: June 3, 2009
By the Regional Director, Northeast Region, Enforcement Bureau:
I. INTRODUCTION
1. In this Forfeiture Order (“Order”), we issue a monetary forfeiture in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) to Minority Business & Housing Development, Inc. (“MBHD”), licensee of FM radio station WYGG in Asbury Park, New Jersey, for willfully and repeatedly violating Section 1.1310 of the Commission’s Rules (“Rules), by failing to comply with radio frequency radiation (“RFR”) maximum permissible exposure (“MPE”) limits applicable to facilities, operations, or transmitters; 1 Section 73.1350(a) of the Rules, by operating with an excessive antenna height from an unauthorized location; 2 and Section 73.3527(a) of the Rules, by failing to maintain a public inspection.
After identifying the station’s location, the FCC agent then entered the building located at 601 Bangs Avenue and identified himself to the front desk clerk. The clerk indicated that he had a key to the roof and contacted the building manager, who escorted the agent to the roof. To access the roof, it was necessary to unlock a padlocked door that led into a poorly illuminated elevator equipment room, which was followed by an unlocked door leading outside to the lower level of the roof. The roof had an upper level, which could only be accessed by climbing a ladder mounted on the side wall. The agent observed WYGG’s transmitting antenna approximately 8 feet above the upper roof level mounted on a pole approximately 3 feet away from the top of the ladder. The agent also observed a set of cellular antennas mounted on the side wall around the edges of the upper roof, and a set of 8 thick cables laid across the upper roof within several feet of WYGG’s antenna. Using a personal RF safety monitor, the agent determined that there was an area near the top of the ladder leading to the upper roof that met or exceeded the general population RFR MPE limits. There were no warning signs or barriers on the rooftop to prevent access to the area in question. In response to questions, the building manager stated that workers routinely gain access to the roof by obtaining a key from the front desk or the office on the 11th floor and that workers recently accessed the roof to work on the cellular equipment. She also stated that she was unaware of any RFR hazards on the roof. the agents observed two small, inconspicuous signs near the unlocked door that led to the rooftop. One was a small RFR sign posted to the left of the door by a wireless service provider indicating that the RFR levels may exceed FCC Standards for general public exposure. The sign did not indicate which areas on the roof exceeded the public or general population limits. The second was a small white paper sign glued to the right of the access door advising of a “radio frequency hazard” and that “anyone who has to climb the ladder to the top out of this door please contact the radio station on 7th floor suite 705.” Two phone numbers for the station were listed on the sign. Neither warning sign was clearly visible because the elevator equipment room was not illuminated. The view of the small white sign to the right of the access door was blocked by a large piece of electrical equipment.
The agents then proceeded to the upper rooftop to conduct RFR measurements. There were still no warning signs or barriers on the rooftop to prevent access to hazardous areas. Using a calibrated RFR meter, the agents determined that the occupational and general population limits were exceeded in an area about 5 feet around WYGG’s antenna support pole. The agents made a total of 12 spatially averaged measurements one foot from WYGG’s antenna support pole at a single location where the highest RFR levels were detected. The measurements showed that the RFR level was 158% of RFR MPE occupational limit, and 790% of the general population RFR MPE limit, or 1.58 mW/cm2
7. Immediately after making the RFR measurements, an agent contacted the station manager at one of the numbers listed on the warning sign. The agent stated to the station manager that workers were about to go on the roof and asked the manager if there were any hazards for persons working on the upper level roof (note: without RF safety training). The manager indicated that there were no hazards on the roof but that the workers should not go too close to the antenna. The agent repeatedly informed the manager that men would be working near the antenna on the upper roof and asked if there would be a problem. The manager stated that the antenna has been up there for 5 or 6 years and that people had worked on the roof before and nothing happened. The agent called the manager back about 10 minutes later, explained that he was still concerned about RFR from the antenna, and asked if it would be possible to temporarily turn off the power to the station so that the men could work safely on the roof. The manager said that he would ask the station operators to turn off the station. A few minutes later, the manager called the agent back and said he was going to the station himself to turn off the station. Shortly thereafter, the manager called the agent again, stating that he was at the studio and was turning off the station for 30 minutes. The agent asked the manager if it would be safe for the men to go to the upper roof, and the manager said that it would. The agents then observed that the radio transmitter for station WYGG was still operating.
8. Several minutes later, the station manager came to the rooftop. When agents asked why the power to the station was not turned off after he agreed to do so, the manager explained that he thought that turning off the audio to the radio station was sufficient. The agents explained that the transmitter itself must be turned off in order to eliminate the RFR emanating from the antenna. After the WYGG transmitter was turned off, the agents conducted additional RFR measurements in the same location under WYGG’s antenna with the calibrated RFR meter. No RFR emissions were detected when station WYGG was off the air, which indicated that WYGG was responsible for 100% of the emissions measured earlier. Therefore, the RFR emissions from WYGG were 158% of RFR MPE occupational limit, and 790% of the general population RFR MPE limit, or 1.58 mW/cm2. The agents explained to the manager that the RFR levels due to WYGG’s transmission exceeded the occupational and general population MPE limits, creating an RFR hazard, and that the problem should be addressed as soon as possible. The agents also advised the manager that, in addition to the RFR violations, the station was still in violation for operating at an unauthorized location and height.
Forfeiture Amount
We (The FCC) find that MBHD’s request for a “significant reduction” in the forfeiture amount is without merit. First, we decline to reduce the forfeiture amount based on MBHD’s claim that it did not intend to violate the rules. The Commission has long held that violations resulting from inadvertent error or failure to become familiar with the FCC’s requirements are willful violations and that “willful” does not require a finding that the rule violation was intentional.20 Rather, the term “willful” means that the violator knew that it was taking (or not taking) the action in question, irrespective of any intent to violate the rules. In any event, because we find here that MBHD’s violations of Section 1.1310, Section 73.1350(a), and Section 73.3527(a) were repeated, we do not also need to make a determination that they were willful.21 We likewise decline to take into consideration the “ongoing efforts that WYGG has made to become FCC compliant.” The Commission has consistently held that a licensee is expected to correct errors when they are brought to the licensee’s attention and that such correction is not grounds for a downward adjustment in the forfeiture.22
18. In sum, we have examined MBHD’s response to the NAL pursuant to the statutory factors above, and in conjunction with the Forfeiture Policy Statement. As a result of our review, we conclude that MBHD willfully and repeatedly violated Section 1.1310, Section 73.1350(a), and Section 73.3527(a) of the Rules and that the $25,000 forfeiture proposed in the NAL is warranted.
Sign Petition – MCS / EMF / EMS
READ THIS
National Petition 101 | Mitigate America Dr. Rhoda Zione Alale, Founder
Tax Credits for those who mitigate their homes, schools, offices, public space, public transportation vehicles, airplanes, trains, buses, trucks , subway systems, etc.
Testing and Mitigation of all Real Estate Properties before they can be leased, sold, or occupied.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/national-petition-101-mitigate-america
Decades of warnings via documented harmful effects
Decades of documentation identifying the danger and harmful effects. Have we learned?
The following link takes you to a 7 page report released six years ago. Let’s get with the times, ignorance does not resolve!
Chronic Exposures to Low-Level, Non-ionizing Radiation A Literature Review Compiled by Roger Mattson
Low-Level Exposure Literature
4/30/03
A. Critics of Standards that Do Not Account for Chronic, Low-Level Exposures
These are organizations from around the world that have expressed concern that small doses of nonionizing radiation accumulating over a long period of time will eventually lead to harmful effects. Note that the Federal Communications Commission of the United States is one of those organizations.
1. US National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (1986)
2. US Environmental Protection Agency (1993,1996, 1999)
3. Swedish National Board of Occupational Safety and Health; National Board of Housing, Building and Planning; National Electric Safety Board; National Board of Health and Welfare; and Radiation Protection Institute (The Precautionary Principle for Low Frequency Electrical and Magnetic Fields 1996)
4. US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIEHS Working Group Report, August 1998)
5. Switzerland Agency for Public Health (For “prudent avoidance” adopted 2 W/cm2 for the frequency range 10-400 MHz, 1999)
6. US Federal Radiofrequency Interagency Working Group (Guidelines Statement, June 1999)
• National Institute of Occupational Safety
• Federal Communications Commission
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Telecommunication and Information Agency
• Food and Drug Administration
7. US Food and Drug Administration (Epidemiology, Owen, March 2000)
8. US National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program (Recommendation from FDA, February 2000)
9. Colorado Department of Health (Testimony of Dr. Hoffman to Jefferson County Commissioners, 1999)
10. Independent Expert Group of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Stewart Report, May 2000)
11. Scottish Parliament Inquiry on Telecommunications Development (Guidelines, 2000)
12. World Health Organization, International Agency on Research for Cancer International Electromagnetic Fields Project, 2001)
13. Italian Institute for Prevention and Work Safety, International Conference on State of Research on Electromagnetic Fields (2002)
14. California EMF Risk Evaluation (2002)
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