Sunday, October 31, 2010

WRAN Calls for Moratorium on Cellular Antennas and WiFi in Santa Cruz County

Not One More
WRAN Calls for Moratorium on Cellular Antennas and WiFi in Santa Cruz County
by Angela Flynn
Saturday Jan 5th, 2008 6:06 PM

The Wireless Radiation Alert Network (WRAN) educates our community on the adverse health effects related to Electro Magnetic Frequency (EMF) exposure in the extremely-low frequency (ELF) and radiofrequency (RF) band of the electromagnetic spectrum (1-300GHz). Energies of these frequencies, called non-ionizing, are used in electrical transmission, distribution and electrical use by the public, by radio and tv broadcasts, cellular transmissions, wireless internet access and more.

There are more than 210,000 cellular sites and about 20,000 telecom central offices in the U.S., according to industry statistics. There are 37 cellular sites in the City of Santa Cruz (as of 7/07) and 118 in the County of Santa Cruz (as of 6/07). These sites have multiple antennas. There is not a database of how many antennas are at each site.

Some actions we advocate for:

Promote alternatives to wireless communication systems, e.g., use of fiber optics and coaxial cables and to preserve existing landline phone networks.

Enact a 1,500' setback on the siting of cellular antennas from homes, schools and businesses. Require shielding from the electromagnetic radiation emitted from cellular towers for homes, schools and businesses.

Ban wireless internet on all public property.

Advise people to limit wireless calls and use a landline for long conversations.

Limit cell phone and cordless phone use by children and teenagers.

Design cellular phones to radiate away from the head and require hand free kits with all cellular and cordless phones.

Immediate Action Needed:

Please call, write and/or attend the Santa Cruz County Planning Commission Hearing on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, at 7:00pm.

701 Ocean Street, 5th Floor, Santa Cruz

Cell tower installation is planned by Metro PCS near Shoreline Middle School, Simpkins Family Swim Center and Schwann Lake Park on Ledyard Co. property, 1005 17th Ave, Santa Cruz. – There is an existing cell tower at Brommer & 17th.

Planning Department and Commission Clerk: Lani Freeman, 454-3132, pln412 [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us
Project Planner: Cathy Graves, 454-3141, pln810 [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us
Address comments to the Planning Commission at http://www.sccoplanning.com/

* Owner: Ledyard Company (462-4400)
*Applicant: Jennifer Estes, head of Peacock Associates, who represents Metro PCS (510.420.5701 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              510.420.5701      end_of_the_skype_highlighting)
*Applicant: Evan Shepherd Reiff of Peacock Associates, who represents Metro PCS, (345-2245)
* SC Board of Supervisors (454-2200), jan.beautz [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us , neal.coonerty [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us, tony.campos [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us, mark.stone [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us, ellen.pirie [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us

Item 11. 06-0701; APN: 026-311-65 [This is a] proposal to construct a new wireless communications facility…. [It] includes… three antennas within a 50-foot tall "flagpole" monopole with power and telco services to the equipment, and a GPS antenna. [The proposal] requires…a waiver of the requirement that the tower be set back 300-feet from residentially zoned parcels...

Wireless emissions affect everyone. There are no people in our community who “should not” testify on a particular site. i.e. those who do not live or work in the immediate area. The overall health of our community must be protected and it is our public officials who have the responsibility of placing our health over profits and convenience.

Santa Cruz County, CA, U.S.A. Zoning regulation 13.10.664 requires a post-construction NIER (non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation) measurement and report within 90 days of commencement of facility operation. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in the initiation of permit revocation proceedings by the County, and/or shall be grounds for review of the use permit or other entitlement and other remedy provisions.

As of December 4, 2007, approximately 80% of the required post-construction RF monitoring reports have NOT been done. Planning Department had contacted cellular service providers, informing them that they had until November 15th, 2007 to submit the post-construction RF emission monitoring reports for all their WCFs in the unincorporated area approved since June 2001, or be subject to possible permit enforcement actions. At the December 4th Board of Supervisors meeting the Planning Department reported that the only company doing the monitoring, Hammet & Edison has a back log and may complete the testing in a couple of months. The Planning Department said they may or may not take action to enforce the county ordinance.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 violates the 1st, 5th and 10th amendments.

The 1st amendment was violated in that wireless companies argue that people cannot talk about health effects and that local governments may not consider health effects when siting cell phone tower antennas. The wireless companies did try to get legislation preventing people from discussing health effects at hearings, but they were not successful. They still continue to argue that health effects cannot be mentioned.

The harm caused by wireless emissions is a matter of proven science, which indicates a wide variety of harm to many animal and plant species, including to humans. Peer-reviewed studies submitted onto the public record of this case may not legally be disregarded, as they fulfill the Supreme Court criteria for admissibility under the Daubert Rule. As these studies show harm, there is no justification for any further installation of cell phone infrastructural transmitters in Santa Cruz. Moreover, the industry has not proven "need" because it cannot. Therefore, under the Telecommunications Act itself, lack of proven need requires the application be denied.

There is an overwhelming amount of studies illustrating the ill health effects from emr. In particular the wavelength from cell phone tower antennas is closer to microwave oven emissions than it is to radio or tv emissions on the electromagnetic spectrum. These emissions are pulsed which seems to add to the deleterious effects.

The BioInitiative Report is a review of 2000 studies of bioeffects and adverse health effects of non-ionizing radiation. The conclusion is that public exposure guidelines for emissions from cellular antennas, wifi and other mobile /wireless devises are set too high to protect public health.

The Report offers evidence that a very large range of illnesses and other adverse health effects are linked to mobile phone technology. (http://www.bioinitiative.org/)

Any scientist who declares that there exists no evidence of non-thermal effects of microwave radiation at intensities below present safety norms is unaware of important research in the field.

The FCC has set a limit for thermal effects for electromagnetic radiation. They deferred the setting of biological non-thermal limits to the nations health agencies. At the same time they cut the funding of research into these health effects to zero.

Norbert Hankin, of the Radiation Protection Division of the EPA says:

"The FCCs current exposure guidelines…are thermally based, and do not apply to chronic, non-thermal exposure situations… Therefore, the generalization that the guidelines protect human beings from harm by any or all mechanisms is not justified."

In 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a comprehensive review of available EMF studies and published a report recommendation that power line EMRs be classified as a Class B carcinogen -- -a "probable human carcinogen and joined the ranks of formaldehyde, DDT, dioxins and PCBs. The White house and the Air Force declared that the report should not be published on grounds of national security and that it would alarm the public. The report was put on hold until the administration of the EPA changed the conclusions to say that there was no proven effect and the EPA
has never officially released the report in its final form.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., in the "The Biology of Belief", explains that electromagnetic radiation causes the electrons to flip in our cells proteins. This interferes with our entire biological processes as the receptors in the cell's membranes are not able to function properly. He says:

"… proteins are the most important single component for living organisms…The final shape…of a protein molecule reflects a balanced state among its electromagnetic charges. However, if the protein's positive and negative charges are altered the protein backbone will dynamically twist and adjust itself to accommodate the new distribution of charges. The distribution of electromagnetic charge within a protein can be selectively altered by a number of processes including…interference from electromagnetic fields such as those emanating from cell phones. [Tsong 1989]"

Dr. Henry Lai of the University of Washington has shown that the effects appear to be cumulative and can affect DNA. Leukemia, cancer, sleeplessness and depression are just a few of the effects. Dr. Lai also points out that current US guidelines for electromagnetic radiation exposure are not up-to-date and are based on research data only up to 1985. Dr. Lai has said he would not live next to a cell tower.

And, Dr. Andrew Weil, MD., says that "Electromagnetic pollution may be the most significant form of pollution human activity has produced in this century!"

Many people on this planet, est. 2 – 3% with extreme and 30% with some symptoms, have Electro-Hyper-Sensitivity (EHS). This makes them extremely sensitive to microwave frequency radiation.

Recent studies confirm that cell and cordless phone microwave can:

Cause headaches and induce extreme fatigue; Cause memory loss and mental confusion; Precipitate cataracts, retina damage and eye cancer; Create burning sensation and rash on the skin; Damage nerves in the scalp; Induce ringing in the ears, impair sense of smell; Create joint pain, muscle spasms and tremors; Cause digestive problems and raise bad cholesterol levels; Alter the brain's electrical activity during sleep; Open the blood-brain barrier to viruses and toxins; Cause blood cells to leak hemoglobin; Reduce the number and efficiency of white blood cells; Stimulate asthma by producing histamine in mast cells; and, Stress the endocrine system, especially pancreas, thyroid, ovaries, and testes.

This radiation is beaming at us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is particularly dangerous for children and for people while sleeping, as children are more susceptible to electromagnetic radiation and the body needs to be able to repair itself while asleep.

The 5th Amendment was violated in that some wireless facilities result in a taking of property rights. These companies are sending their emissions into the homes, schools and businesses of people who do not want them. The antenna owners are not providing shielding from the emissions as they should be required to do.

As there is no known safe level of exposure for the non-thermal effects to radio frequency radiation all unwanted exposure is a violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 3 - the right to bodily security.

The 10th amendment was violated because the federal government does not have jurisdiction over local governments on such matters. The rights granted to the wireless companies by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 were not granted to it by the constitution and the local governments did not give up those rights.

###

If you would like more information about this topic or to schedule an interview with Angela Flynn please call 831-469-4399 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              831-469-4399      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email angelaflynn [at] skyhighway.com. Contact Marilyn Garrett at 831-688-4603 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              831-688-4603      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Here are some recent articles and websites regarding the issue of wireless emissions:

1. The International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety (ICEMS) held an international conference entitled “The Precautionary EMF Approach: Rationale, Legislation and Implementation”, hosted by the City of Benevento, Italy, on February 22, 23 & 24, 2006
http://www.icems.eu/index.htm

2. The Freiburger Appeal
http://www.emrnetwork.org/news/IGUMED_english.pdf

3. Thailand and Vietnam require shielding from emr.
http://www.radiationresearch.org/newsletter170606.htm

4. Letter from the EPA (7/16/02) stating that the FCCs guidelines are not adequate.
http://www.emrnetwork.org/position/noi_response/noi_epa_response.pdf

5. Dr. Andrew Weil, MD:
"Electromagnetic pollution (EMF) may be the most significant form of pollution human activity has produced in this century!”
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA26193

6. French Health Minister Warns Against Excessive Cell Phone Use
Posted Jan 4th 2008 10:29AM by Tom Samiljan
http://www.switched.com/2008/01/04/french-health-minister-warns-against-excessive-cell-phone-use/?ncid=NWS00010000000001

7. WiFi in public libraries in Paris : Moratorium
http://www.next-up.org/pdf/France2WiFiInPu...ium30112007.pdf

Here is the link to the article in Le Monde:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-...6-991086,0.html

8. Lakehead University Bans WiFi on Campus
http://policies.lakeheadu.ca/policy.php?pid=178

9. As little as 10 minutes on a cell phone can trigger changes in brain cells linked to cell division and cancer, suggests a new study conducted by researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and published in the Biochemical Journal.
http://www.NewsTarget.com/022429.html

10. ICMR study confirms health risks from mobile phones
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/243721.html

11. Israeli study says regular mobile use increases tumour risk
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=07...;show_article=1

12. Israeli Arabs, Police Clash Over Antenna
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jBHZInV...H6DNEQD8SJKUBO0

13. Laboratory studies suggest that electric and magnetic field exposure may affect heart rate and heart rate variability.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/...act/149/2/135-a

14. Central News Agency TaiwanNews Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
NCC confident in achieving goal of dismantling 1,500 base stations
http://www.next-up.org/pdf/TaiwanInfoTaiwa...questWHOvUk.pdf

15. Link Between Long-Term Cell Phone Use and Brain Tumors
http://www.cancerpage.com/news/article.asp?id=11389

16. The Brain Tumor Society reports:
http://www.tbts.org/itemDetail.asp?categor...mp;itemID=16535

Brain tumors are the leading cause of solid tumor cancer death in children under the age of 20, now surpassing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They are the second leading cause of cancer death in male adults ages 20-29 and the fifth leading cause of cancer death in female adults ages 20-39.

17. Archive back to 2003, with science reports and news reports from all over the world. It's invaluable for those who want to understand microwave sickness that now afflicts millions of us:
http://www.buergerwelle.com/english_start.html

18. Web site which has developed quite a few links related to the legal aspects of radiating the population.
http://www.emrnetwork.org/

19. The Urban Decline of the House Sparrow: A Possible Link to Electromagnetic Radiation.
http://www.livingplanet.be/Balmori_and_Hallberg_EBM_2007.pdf

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/05/18470275.php

Friday, October 29, 2010

Is the Reason for Bees Dying in Colony Collapse Disorder Finally Solved?

The Cell Phone Connection: Are EMFs Killing Bees?

Despite the research pointing to a virus, a fungus or a pesticide as the most likely suspects in CCD, it's hard to ignore the research from at least two studies that point to cell phones and electromagnetic fields (EMF) as major threats.
When cellular phones were placed near hives, the radiation generated by them (900-1,800 MHz) was enough to prevent bees from returning to them, according to a study conducted at Landau University.
Scientists believe the radiation produced by cellular phones may be enough to interfere with the way bees communicate with their hives. Cellular phones may create a resonance effect that interferes with the movement patterns bees use as a kind of language.
Most recently, experiments by Sainuddeen Pattazhy, a researcher and dean in the department of zoology at SN College, Punalur, Kerala, also found that microwaves from mobile phones appear to interfere with worker bees' navigation skills.
When Pattazhy placed mobile phones near beehives, the hives collapsed completely in five to 10 days. The worker bees failed to return home and vanished, never to be found. Adding to the mystery, parasites, wildlife and other bees, which would normally raid the abandoned hives, would not go near the collapsed colonies. Pattazhy said in The Pioneer:
"The navigation skill of the worker bees is dependent on the earth's magnetic properties. The electro-magnetic waves emitted by the mobile phones and relay towers interfere with the earth's magnetism, resulting in the loss of the navigation capacity of the bee. Then it fails to come back.
Also, the radiation causes damage to the nervous system of the bee and it becomes unable to fly."
So cell phones appear to be another likely threat to bees around the globe, and there may be a cumulative effect going on that is making it more and more difficult for bees to survive, let alone thrive.
To read full article go to:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/29/is-the-reason-for-bees-dying-in-colony-collapse-disorder-finally-solved.aspx 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Radiation Poisoning of America

From the September 2007 Idaho Observer:


The radiation poisoning of America
Prior to 1996, the wireless age was not coming online fast enough, primarily because communities had the authority to block the siting of cell towers. But the Federal Communications Act (1996) made it virtually impossible for communities to stop construction of cell towers —even if they pose threats to public health and the environment. Since the decision to enter the age of wireless convenience was politically determined for us, we have forgotten well-documented safety and environmental concerns and, with a devil-may-care zeal that is lethally short-sighted, we have incorporated into our lives every wireless toy that comes on the market as quickly as it becomes available. We behave as if we are addicted to radiation. Our addiction to cell phones has led to harder "drugs" like wireless Internet. And now we are bathing in the radiation that our wireless enthusiasm has financed. The addicted, uninformed, corporately biased and politically-influenced may dismiss our scientifically-sound concerns about the apocalyptic hazards of wireless radiation. But we must not. Instead, we must sound the alarm.

By Amy Worthington
Illa Garcia wore jewelry the first day she went back to work as a fire lookout for the state of California in the summer of 2002. The intense radiation from dozens of RF/microwave antennas surrounding the lookout heated the metals on her body enough to burn her skin. "I still have those scars," she says. "I never wore jewelry to work after that."

Likely Mountain Lookout, on U.S. Forest Service land with a spectacular view of Mount Shasta, is one of thousands of RF/microwave "hot spots" across the nation. A newly-erected cellular communications tower was only 30 feet from the lookout. "One antenna on that tower was even with our heads," recalls Garcia. "We could hear high-pitched buzzing. There were also three state communications antennas mounted on the lookout, only 6 feet from where we walked. We climbed past them every day."

Motorola company manuals for management of communications sites confirm that high frequency radiation from these antennas is nasty stuff. Safety regulations mandate warning signs, EMF awareness training, protective gear, even transmitter deactivation for personnel working that close to antennas. Garcia and co-worker Mary Jasso were never warned about the hazards which, they say, demonstrates extreme malfeasance on the part of agencies and commercial companies responsible for their exposure.

By the end of fire season, Garcia and Jasso were so ill they were forced to retire and the lookout was closed to state personnel. Garcia, 52, is now severely disabled with fibromyalgia, auto-immune thyroiditis and acute nerve degeneration. Medical tests confirmed broken DNA strands in her blood and abnormal tissue death in her brain.

Dr. Gunner Heuser, a medical specialist in neurotoxicity, states that Garcia’s disorders are a result of chronic electromagnetic field exposure in the microwave range and that "she has become totally disabled as a result." Dr. Heuser said, "In my experience patients develop multisystem complaints after EMF exposure just as they do after toxic chemical exposure."

Jasso, who worked the lookout for 11 seasons, is now disabled with brain and lung damage, partial left side paralysis, muscle tremors, bone pain and DNA damage. Jasso discovered that all lookouts who worked Likely Mountain since 1989 are disabled. At only 61 years of age, she has lost so much memory that she cannot remember back to when her first three children were born. She fears that communications radiation may be a major factor in the nation’s phenomenal epidemics of dementia and autism.

Both women say they have been unjustly denied worker’s comp and medical benefits. Their pleas for help to state and federal agencies have been fruitless. Between them they have racked up over $150,000 in medical bills, although there is no effective treatment for radiation sickness.

Twenty-two other members of Garcia and Jasso’s two families received Likely Mountain radiation exposure. All suffer serious and expensive illnesses, including tumors, blood abnormalities, stomach problems, lung damage, bone pain, muscle spasms, extreme fatigue, tremors, numbness, impaired motor skills, cataracts, memory loss, spine degeneration, sleep problems, low immunity to infection, hearing and vision problems, hair loss and allergies.

Jasso’s husband, who often stayed at the lookout, has a rare soft tissue sarcoma known to be radiation related. Garcia’s husband, who spent little time at the lookout, has systemic cancer that started with sarcoma of the colon. Garcia’s daughter Teresa was at the lookout for a total of two hours during her first pregnancy. Her daughter was born with slight brain damage and immunity problems. "That baby was always sick," says Garcia. Teresa spent only three days at the lookout during her second pregnancy. Her son was born with autism.

Garcia and Jasso also have a terminal condition known as "toxic encephalopathy," involving brain damage to frontal and temporal lobes. This was confirmed by SPECT brain scans. Twelve others in the two-family group who also had the scans were diagnosed with the affliction. "All of us with this condition have been told that we’re dying," says Garcia. "Our mutated cells will reproduce new mutated cells until the body finally shuts down."

Nuclear bombs on a pole

Painful conditions endured by the families of Garcia and Jasso are identical to those suffered by Japanese victims of gamma wave radiation after nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Five decades of studies confirm that non-ionizing communications radiation in the RF/microwave spectrum has the same effect on human health as ionizing gamma wave radiation from nuclear reactions. Leading German radiation expert Dr. Heyo Eckel, an official of the German Medical Association, stated, "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."1

Understanding what happened at Likely Mountain is critical to understanding the public health threat posed by radiation in the United States. The families of Garcia and Jasso, plus previous lookout workers and multitudes of tourists who visited Likely Mountain for camping and sightseeing, were beamed by the same kind of high frequency radiation that blasts from tens of thousands of neighborhood cell towers and rooftop antennas erected across America for wireless communications. The city of San Francisco, with an area of only seven square miles, has over 2,500 licensed cell phone antennas positioned at 530 locations throughout the city. In practical terms, this city, like thousands of others, is being wave-nuked 24 hours a day.

The identical damage resulting from both radioactive gamma waves and high frequency microwaves is a pathological condition in which the nuclei of irradiated human cells splinter into fragments called micronuclei. Micronuclei are a definitive pre-cursor of cancer. During the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster at Chernobyl in Russia, the ionizing radiation released was equivalent to 400 atomic bombs, with an estimated ultimate human toll of 10,000 deaths. Exposed Russians quickly developed blood cell micronuclei, leaving them at high risk for cancer.

What they wouldn’t tell us

RF/microwaves from cell phones and cell tower transmitters also cause micronuclei damage in blood cells. This was reported a decade ago by Drs. Henry Lai and Narendrah Singh, biomedical researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Singh is famous for refining comet assay techniques used to identify DNA damage. Lai and Singh demonstrated in numerous animal studies that mobile phone radiation quickly causes DNA single and double strand breaks at levels well below the current federal "safe" exposure standards.2
 
The telecommunications industry knows this thanks to its own six-year, wireless technology research (WTR) study program mandated by Congress and completed in 1999. Gathering a team of over 200 doctors, scientists and experts in the field, WTR research showed that human blood exposed to cell phone radiation had a 300-percent increase in genetic damage in the form of micronuclei.3 Dr. George Carlo, a public health expert who coordinated the WTR studies, confirms that exposure to communications radiation from wireless technology is "potentially the biggest health insult" this nation has ever seen. Dr. Carlo believes RF/microwave radiation is a greater threat than cigarette smoking and asbestos.


In 2000, European communications giant T-Mobile commissioned the German ECOLOG Institute to review all available scientific evidence in regard to health risks for wireless telecommunications. ECOLOG found over 220 peer-reviewed, published papers documenting the cancer-initiating and cancer-promoting effects of the high frequency radiation employed by wireless technology.4 Many corroborating studies have been published since.

By 2004, 12 research groups from seven European countries cooperating in the REFLEX study project confirmed that microwaves from wireless communications devices cause significant single and double strand DNA breaks in both human and animal cells under laboratory conditions.5 In 2005, a Chinese medical study confirmed statistically significant DNA damage from pulsed microwaves at cell phone levels.6 That same year, University of Chicago researchers described how pulsed communications microwaves alter gene expression in human cells at non-thermal exposure levels.7

Because gamma waves and RF/microwave radiation are identically carcinogenic and genotoxic to the cellular roots of life, the safe dose of either kind of radiation is zero. No study has proven that any level of exposure from cell-damaging radiation is safe for humans. Dr. Carlo confirms that cell damage is not dose dependant because any exposure level can trigger damage response by cell mechanisms.8
 
Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health closely reviewed the damning results of WTR studies, which also revealed microwave damage to the blood brain barrier, but have chosen to downplay, obfuscate and even deny the irrepressible science of the day. Raking in $billions from selling spectrum licenses, the feds have allowed the telecom industry to unleash demonstrably dangerous technology which induces millions of people to become brain-intimate with improperly tested wireless devices9 and which saturates the nation with carcinogenic waves to service those devices. Dr. Carlo says that even the American Cancer Society is in bed with the communications industry, which infuses the Society with substantial contributions.10
 
Two ways to die

Medical science illustrates that there are two ways to die from radiation poisoning: Fast burn and slow burn. Nuclear flash-burned Japanese had parts of their flesh melt off before they died in agony within hours or days. People have also quickly died after walking through powerful radar beams, which can microwave-cook internal organs within seconds of exposure.

Slow-burn radiation mechanisms are cumulative, progressive, ongoing and continual. Thousands of Japanese nuke bomb victims died painfully years after exposure. The slow burn process of RF/microwave exposure is manifested by cancer clusters commonly found in communities irradiated by cell tower transmitters. Recent Swedish epidemiological studies confirm that, after 2,000 hours of cellular phone exposure, or a latency period of about 10 years, brain cancer risk rises by 240 percent.11
 
Communications antennas blast the human habitat with many different electromagnetic frequencies simultaneously. Human DNA hears this energetic cacophony loud and clear, reacting like the human ear would to high volume country music, R&B plus rock and roll screaming from the same speaker simultaneously. Irradiated cells struggle to protect themselves against this destructive dissonance by hardening their membranes. They cease to receive nourishment, stop releasing toxins, die prematurely and spill micronuclei fragments into a sort of "tumor bank account."


Nuking the crew

The constant roaming pain is intense for 32-year-old Kenneth Hurtado of Southern California. He’s been to hell and back, starting with a seven-pound tumor on a kidney, diagnosed in 2002. The cancer spread to his brain. His first brain tumor was removed by craniotomy, the second by the cyber knife. In 2005, cancer nodes were found in his lungs. By 2006, the cancer had metastasized to his legs. This year he is battling three excruciating tumors on his spinal cord. Hurtado hates his seizures. His last one came on while he was driving. "It’s like the devil taking over your body," he says.

Now unable to work, Hurtado says he was relatively healthy in 1998 when he began a career as an installer for a large international corporation manufacturing electronics equipment for wireless providers. At the base of cell towers there is an equipment "hut" where installers assemble the radios, amplifiers and filters which generate man-made microwave frequencies and route them up to transmitter antennas through huge cables. Mounted on sector supports aptly named alpha, beta and gamma, the antennas send and receive these carcinogenic radio waves and their pulsed data packets at the speed of light.

Posted on locked fences around the huts are "danger" warning signs. Hurtado says, "You look around these sites and you find many dead birds on the gravel. They can’t take the radiation and they’ll just die. You don’t have to ponder that too long to figure it’s bad."
Hurtado doesn’t know how much radiation he got on the job. He says there are at least four connection spots inside the hut where radiation can leak. He could not avoid the "heat" when he turned the radios on for testing and he wonders if his cancer is the result. "When I first got hired, we had safety meetings, but they pretty much minimized the hazards," he remembers. He was issued no electromagnetic safety clothing and it was not until 2002 that he got a radiation meter to wear. "The meter is supposed to warn you if you are getting too much radiation," he said, "but I put mine on a stick and placed it next to antennas and the alarm never went off."

A medical report in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health confirms that workers exposed to high levels of RF/microwave radiation routinely have astronomical cancer rates.12 The report notes that, for these workers, the latency period between high radiation exposure and illness is short compared to less exposed populations.

Hurtado said there are many industry workers who are dangerously over-exposed. "I’ve talked to guys on power crews who have to climb around the antennas and they’ve told me that before a work day is half over, they start feeling really sick." He added, "In my mind they are getting cooked."
Hurtado suspects that, since the early days of the wireless buildout, there has been illegal activity related to public exposure from transmission sites. "I’m pretty sure," he says, "that some of the carriers are exceeding FCC exposure limits. They can turn the radios and amplifiers up to get a bigger footprint and they don’t care if the alarms go on once the installers are gone." Regulatory inspectors could identify violators because channels can be spectrum analyzed. "But," he says, "there is just no one to check and I believe that the public is getting way too much radiation now."

Regulators asleep at the wheel

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the single agency with authority to regulate the communications industry, has neither money, manpower nor motive to properly monitor radiation output from hundreds of thousands of commercial wireless installations spewing carcinogenic waves across the nation. The FCC admits that physical testing to verify compliance with emissions guidelines is relatively rare.
Critics say that FCC appointees, with virtually no medical or public health expertise, represent an old-boy network and a cheering squad for the telecommunications and broadcast industries. The Center for Public Integrity found that FCC officials have been bribed by the industries with such perks as expensive trips to Las Vegas.13
 
Dr. Carlo confirms that there is no regulatory accountability. He says, "You have to go to those base stations and independently measure what is coming out of them because we have had many instances where you have an antenna that is allowed by law to transmit at 100 watts and we have seen up to 900 to 1000 watts. You can turn things up when nobody is looking."14
 
Neighborhood groups monitoring the broadcast/communications antenna farm on Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colorado, have consistently found that, despite protests to the FCC over nine years, radiation on the mountain has been measured at up to 125 percent of exposure levels permitted by federal law.15
 
Lethal exposure guidelines

Even if there were reliable compliance monitoring, experts say that FCC public exposure guidelines for RF/microwave radiation are deadly because they are based on the obsolete and unfounded theory that only power density hot enough to flash-cook tissues is harmful. This puts FCC at odds with current scientific evidence regarding the minimum exposure level at which harm to living cells begins.

Myriad symptoms of radiation poisoning can be induced at exposure levels hundreds, even thousands of times lower than current standards permit. Russia’s public exposure standards are 100 times more stringent than ours because Russian scientists have consistently shown that, at U.S. exposure levels, humans develop pathological changes in heart, kidney, liver and brain tissues, plus cancers of all types.16

Norbert Hankin, chief of the EPA’s Radiation Protection Division, states that the FCC’s exposure guidelines are protective only against effects arising from a thermal (flash burn) mechanism. He concedes that, "the generalization by many, that these guidelines protect human beings from harm by any and all mechanisms, is not justified."17 

Thus, public microwave exposure levels tolerated by the FCC and its industry-loaded advisory committees are a national health disaster. Yet, for pragmatic and lucrative reasons, federal exposure limits have been deliberately set so high that no matter how much additional wireless radiation is added to the national burden, it will always be "within standards."

The FCC regulatory mess comes into focus with the Likely Mountain case. Jasso says that when she and Garcia contacted the FCC regarding their radiation injuries, they were met with an appalling lack of expertise and concern. "FCC has no answers," Jasso says. "Their exposure guidelines are convoluted and nonsensical. They refuse to address problems of multiple antennas, field expansion, human body coupling and blood reversal because they want to avoid regulatory problems at telecommunication sites." She adds, "FCC will fine a licensee thousands of dollars for not having a light installed on top of a telecommunications tower, but they have not issued even a warning letter to their licensees for the injuries that occurred on Likely Mountain. They say injury cannot occur because their licensees are regulated."

Catch 22

When Garcia and Jasso filed suit against companies operating microwave transmitters on Likely Mountain, they could find no attorney who would take their case and they were forced to proceed pro se. In August, 2007, a California district court denied their claim, mainly on the grounds that they had not proven that the defendants had exceeded FCC exposure guidelines. Under federal law the shattered health of 24 people, plus medical testimony, is not sufficient proof of negligence and liability.

Since FCC provides no enforcement monitoring at transmitter sites and since the radiation industry is not required to prove with consistent documentation that it is compliant, injured parties have little chance of proving non-compliance because the damage to their health often becomes obvious months or even years after their typically undocumented exposure.

The court worried that the Garcia-Jasso case highlights "the conflict between the FCC’s delegated authority to establish RF radiation guidelines and limits and plaintiffs’ attempt to establish that wireless facilities like the one at Likely Mountain are ultrahazardous."

So, while current science provides ample evidence that FCC’s guidelines are ultrahazardous, the radiation industry hides behind FCC incompetence, simply because FCC retains exclusive authority to set the standards.

The FCC’s disastrous authority is calcified by the Telecommunications Act (TCA) of 1996. The telecom industry is infamous for lavish "donations" which keep legislators on its leash. Anticipating a national radiation health crisis and the public backlash that would follow, the telecom lobby blatantly bought itself a provision in the law that prohibits state and local governments from considering environmental (health) effects when siting personal wireless service facilities so long as "...such facilities comply with the FCC’s regulations concerning such emissions."

Many say the TCA insures that America’s war on cancer will never be won, while protecting gross polluters from liability.

On our own

After passage of the TCA, a group of scientists and engineers, backed by the Communications Workers of America, filed suit in federal court. They hoped the Supreme Court would review both the FCC’s outdated exposure guidelines and the legality of a federal law that severely impedes state and local authority in the siting of hazardous transmitters. In 2001, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The group’s subsequent petition to the FCC asking the agency to bring its exposure guidelines current with the latest scientific data was denied.18

This is where we stand today. The public has no vote, no voice, no choice. Chronic exposure to scientifically indefensible levels of DNA-ravaging radiation is now compulsory for everyone in America. This is why Garcia and Jasso are ill today; this why the industry enjoys unchallenged power to place dangerous transmitters in residential and commercial areas with unsafe setbacks and; this is why untold thousands of Americans in buildings with transmitters on the roof are given no safety warnings, though they work and dwell in powerful, carcinogenic electromagnetic fields. In the meantime, the radiation industry rakes in $billions in quarterly profits, none of which is set aside for to pay for the national health catastrophe at hand.
Every citizen is now condemned to protect and defend himself against radiation assault as best he can. There have been a number of lawsuits against the radiation industry since cell towers began going up in backyards across the nation. In 2001, a group action lawsuit was filed in South Bend, Indiana, by families living in close proximity to towers. The complaint describes health effects suffered by the plaintiffs, including heart palpitations, interference with hearing, recurring headaches, short term memory loss, sleep disturbances, multiple tumors, glandular problems, chronic fatigue, allergies, weakened immune system, miscarriage and inability to learn.19

The South Bend suit was settled out of court on the basis of nuisance and decreased property values. Health claims don’t hold water if emissions are within FCC exposure standards. This case is valuable for understanding the lunacy of FCC standards. The sick families enlisted the help of radiation consultant Bill Curry, who honed his expertise as an engineer for Argonne and Livermore labs. Dr. Curry found that one of the towers was irradiating homes at over 65 microwatts per square centimeter.20 This power density is well within federal exposure standards, which allow any neighborhood to be zapped with at least 580 microwatts per square centimeter, or higher, depending on the frequencies. If the families were sick at 65 microwatts/cm2 what would they be at 580? Considering that the Soviets used furtive Cold War microwave bombardment to make US embassy personal radiation-sick at an average exposure level of only .01 microwatts/cm2, America’s clear and present danger is obvious.21
 
How radiation sick is America?

Since the wireless revolution began wave-nuking the U.S. in the 1990s, there have been no federally funded health studies to assess the cumulative effects of ever-increasing communications radiation on public health. There is no national database enabling citizens to study the location of transmitters in their areas. Local and state governments can offer no information on how much commercial wireless radiation is contaminating their populations. When trying to find out who owns a tower or which companies have transmitters on that tower, citizens usually hit a brick wall.

Dr. Carlo heads the only independent, post-market health surveillance registry in the nation where people can report radiation illness.22 Dr. Carlo said the registry has heard from thousands of people who believe that their illnesses, including brain and eye cancers, are due to telecommunications radiation from both wireless phones and tower transmitters. In the last two years, the registry has seen an upsurge in reports as transmitters become ever more energetically dangerous in order to accommodate increased data flow for new, multi-media technologies.

We can only guess how many Americans are in their graves today from microwave assault. Arthur Firstenberg, who founded the Cellular Phone Task Force, wrote that, on November 14, 1996, New York City’s first digital cellular provider activated thousands of PCS antennae newly erected on the rooftops of apartment buildings. Health authorities reported that a severe and lingering flu hit the city that same week. In response to its classified newspaper ad advising that radiation sickness is similar to flu, the Task Force heard back from hundreds of people who reported sudden onset symptoms synchronous to microwave startup—symptoms similar to stroke, heart attack and nervous breakdown.


Firstenberg gathered statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and analyzed weekly mortality statistics published for 122 U.S. cities. Each of dozens of cities recorded a 10-25 percent increase in mortality, lasting two to three months, beginning in the week during which that city’s first digital cell phone network began commercial service. Sites with no cellular system start up in the same time period showed no abnormal increases in mortality.23
 
Studies abroad

Recent health surveys in other nations confirm that people living close to wireless transmitters are in big trouble:
• In 2002, French medical specialists found that people living close to cell towers suffered extreme sleep disruption, chronic fatigue, nausea, skin problems, irritability, brain disturbances and cardiovascular problems.24
• German researchers found that people living within 1,200 feet of a transmitter site in the German city of Naila had a high rate of cancer and developed their tumors on average eight years earlier than the national average. Breast cancer topped the list.25
• Spanish researchers found that people living within 1,000 feet of cellular antennas had statistically significant illness at an average power density of 0.11 to 0.19 microwatts /cm2, which is thousands of times less than allowed by international exposure standards.26
• An Egyptian medical study found that people living near mobile phone base stations were at high risk for developing nerve and psychiatric problems, plus debilitating changes in neurobehavioral function. Exposed persons had significantly lower performance on tests for attention, short term auditory memory and problem solving.27
• Researchers in Israel studied people in the town of Netanya who had lived near a cell tower for 3-7 years. They had a cancer rate four times higher than the control population. Breast cancer was most prevalent.28
 
Europe in an uproar

A new European Union poll of more than 27,000 people across the continent reveals that 76 percent of respondents feel that they are being made ill by wireless transmitters.29 Seventy-one percent in the UK believe they suffer health effects from mast (cell tower) radiation. In April 2007, The London Times reported a startling number of cancer clusters in mast neighborhoods. One study in Warwickshire, found 31 cancers around a single street.30 Some sick Brits send their blood to a lab in Germany, which uses state of the art methodology to confirm wireless radiation damage.


Radiation sickness is now so prevalent in Germany that 175 doctors have signed the Bamberger Appeal, a document calling the situation a "medical disaster." It asks the German government to initiate a national public health investigation. This appeal closely follows the Freiburger Appeal, signed by thousands of German doctors who say they are dealing with an epidemic of severe and chronic diseases among both old and young patients exposed to wireless microwave radiation. The head of the cancer registry in Berlin found that one urban area with cellular antennas had a breast cancer rate seven times the national average.31
 
Sweden was one of the first nations to go wireless. Swedish neuroscientist, Dr. Olle Johansson, with hundreds of published papers to his credit, said that a national epidemic of illness and disability was unleashed by the wireless revolution. Long periods of sick leave, attempted suicides and industrial accidents all increased simultaneously with introduction of mobile phone radiation. Ninety-nine percent of the Swedish population is now under duress of powerful third generation masts. Johansson reports that people are plagued with sleep disorders, chronic fatigue that does not respond to rest, difficulties with cognitive function and serious blood problems. Recurrent headaches and migraines are a "substantial public health problem," he says.32

Rooftop transmitters, which readily pass microwave radiation into structures, can be a death sentence. Across the world there are reports of cancer clusters and extreme illness in office buildings and multi-tenant dwellings where antennas are placed on rooftops directly over workers and tenants. In 2006, the top floors of a Melbourne University office building were closed after a brain tumor cluster drew media attention to the risks of communications transmitters on top of the building.33 Likewise, ABC’s Brisbane television complex, topped with satellite dishes and radio antennas, was the site of a well-publicized breast cancer cluster among workers.34

Deadlier death rays

In the meantime, the radiation cowboys of America are having a good ‘ol time because they know there’s no sheriff in town. The commercial wireless industry is relentless in its drive to construct thousands of new transmitter sites in neighborhoods and schoolyards everywhere, while adding more powerful antennas at its older sites. Countless WiFi systems, both indoors and out, accommodate wireless laptop computers, personal digital assistants, WiFi-enabled phones, gaming devices, video cameras, even parking and utility meters. Hundreds of cities already have or are planning to fund WiFi networks, each consisting of thousands of small microwave transmitters bolted to buildings, street lamps, park benches and bus stops. Some networks are being buried under sidewalks. These access points or "nodes" blast carcinogenic energy at 2.4 to 5 gigahertz with virtually no warning signs about radiation exposure. WiFi radiation is unregulated by the FCC.
Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire are now rolling out in U.S. cities tower-mounted WiMAX transmitters providing wireless internet access "to die for." WiMAX is WiFi on steroids. Upon startup of WiMAX transmitters near the Swedish village of Gotene, the emergency room at the local hospital was flooded by calls from people overcome with pulmonary and cardiovascular symptoms.35

WiMAX radiation could one day be cranked up to a bone-incinerating 66 gigahertz.36 A single WiMAX tower could provide internet coverage for an area of 3,000 square miles, although coverage for 6-25 square miles is the norm now. Promoters say WiMAX may some day replace all cable and DSL broadband services and irradiate virtually all rural areas.

Not a single environmental or public health study has been required as the industry unleashes infrastructure for this savage new wireless technology from which no living flesh is able to escape.
The commercial ray-peddlers are not alone in their quest to make the U.S. a radiation wasteland. In August, 2007, Congress approved new Homeland Security legislation which funds a program to "promote communications compatibility between local, state and federal officials."


We catch a glimpse of what this portends as the state of New York gears up to erect hundreds of new wireless installations for a "Statewide Wireless Network (SWN)," allowing agencies at various government levels to communicate instantly.37 SWN will blanket 97 percent of the state, adding to the fog of commercial wireless pollution. The New York Office for Technology says that the radiation power densities of the system will be within FCC limits.

Angela’s story

Angela Flynn, a 43-year-old caregiver, lives in Santa Cruz, California. Last spring she took classes at a local church where wireless antennas were concealed in a chimney on the building. She recalls, "Every muscle in my body felt sore. And my joints were feeling creaky. My instructor mentioned how people at the women’s center on church property had similar symptoms. During my sixth day I had a severe reaction. My short term memory was gone and I was disoriented and confused. When the instructor asked a question, I could not recall anything from the lecture."


At night, Angela could not sleep and she would lie awake, feeling her body buzz. She became hypersensitive to other sources of electromagnetic radiation. The symptoms became so bothersome that she canceled the rest of her course. Using a chart for calculating cumulative, non-ionizing, electromagnetic radiation exposure levels, she found that the classes—located only 100 feet from antennas in the building—had suffered the highest possible exposure during peak operation.

"It took a month before I regained my health," she reports.
When Angela wrote letters to the church inquiring whether it was monitoring the health of the people exposed to antenna radiation, church officials were "unresponsive and dismissive." So Angela saw the light. She helped organize a community group to put pressure on county officials for answers. After hearing community testimony, officials directed the zoning department to create a comprehensive map of county transmitter sites and to put together a report on emissions testing.

Angela says, "We recently had a delay of an installation of a tower near a middle school. The superintendent has even come out against the tower and was instrumental in delaying the hearing on the site. He also arranged a school board meeting on the issue." Angela’s efforts to share critical information with her community made a difference.


Conclusion

America must soon face its radiation cataclysm. The EMR Network says that millions of workers occupy worksites on a daily basis where operating antenna arrays are camouflaged and where no RF safety program is carried out. Thanks to shameless predatory advertising techniques, American youth are now literally addicted to "texting," watching TV and accessing the Internet on tiny wireless screens. These are the toys that keep cell towers and WiFi hot spots buzzing. A nation that requires compulsory mass irradiation to fuel its trivial entertainment needs is surely destined to have a sickly and short-lived population.

Right now, 11.7 million Americans have been diagnosed with cancer. Because humans can harbor cancer conditions for years before detection, additional millions of cancer victims are yet undiagnosed. The Journal of Oncology Practice predicts that, by 2020, there will be so many cancer cases in the U.S. that doctors may not be able to cope with their caseloads. The report concludes the nation could soon face a shortage of up to 4,000 cancer specialists.38
 
A recent CBS news series on the raging American cancer epidemic left viewers with the mindset that trainloads of federal cash must flow if we are to find the cancer answer. But the cancer cause now inundates our cities, roadways, schools, offices and homes. Any environmental stressor that jackhammers human cells at millions to billions of cycles per second is a cancer factor. Any wave-pollution that breaks the DNA and causes pre-cancerous micronuclei in human blood is a cancer factor. Logic tells us that there will be no "answer to cancer" until we eliminate the cancer factors.

Wireless communications radiation is to America today what DDT, thalidomide, dioxin, benzene, Agent Orange and asbestos were yesterday. Historically, the truth about the public health menace of extreme toxins is never told until thousands sicken and die.

Dr. Robert Becker, noted for decades of research on the effects of electromagnetic radiation, has warned: "Even if we survive the chemical and atomic threats to our existence, there is the strong possibility that increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes leading to our extinction before we are even aware of them. All life pulsates in time to the earth and our artificial fields cause abnormal reactions in all organisms…These energies are too dangerous to entrust forever to politicians, military leaders and their lapdog researchers."39
 
Our mission to save the nation’s health and restore sanity in the wireless age seems daunting. The wireless juggernaut is an aggressive, mean machine. Federal regulators are clearly compromised and incompetent to protect the public health. Uninformed consumers dearly love their magic digital toys and don’t yet understand the connection between those toys and a national raging cancer epidemic that may consume us all.
Powerful economic interests have lied to us long enough. Americans need and deserve the facts. We need dialogue. Wireless radiation is a form of electronic trespass. America must decide whose rights are more important—idlers beaming death rays for gibberish or the elderly with pacemakers who are made ill by cell phone and tower radiation wherever they go. Must we all prematurely perish so that wireless enthusiasts can capture cell phone photos and instantly send them for processing via carcinogen express? Does a human being have the right to NOT be forcibly WiMAXED into a coffin, or do only wireless providers and their devotees have rights?

What can we do?

We can commit to join the growing radiation awareness movement and continue educating ourselves and others. We can employ digital and audio radiation detectors to help safeguard our personal health and to demonstrate the ceaseless brutality of ubiquitous wireless radiation which threatens the genetic integrity of future generations. We can promote emerging technologies that could make communications technologies safer.

We can demand that federal radiation exposure standards be updated and that wireless emissions from transmitters be drastically reduced. We can demand routine compliance testing at all transmitter sites. We can see to it that people living and working near transmitters be given opportunity to report their illnesses in national surveys. Proper epidemiological studies must be conducted and their results published and broadly disseminated. Federal communications law must be rewritten so that local jurisdictions can regain their right to consider health and environment when reviewing wireless siting applications.
Each of us can break the seductive, but oppressive wireless habit ourselves. We can play no game, use no wireless Internet system, make no trivial phone call that necessitates enlarging America’s dense forest of wireless transmitters.


If no one buys WiMAX-enabled devices and related services, the system will fail. Whenever possible, we can go back to the old-fashioned, corded phones and message machines which made yesteryear a far more healthy time. We can encourage others to contact us by land line only.
Can we enjoy a leisurely conversation knowing that an irradiated caller risks disease and disability for mindless chatter? What good is wireless convenience if it means being ultimately tethered to a hospital bed? We can teach our children that health is more important than passing convenience and instant gratification.
According to OSHA, no environment should be deliberately made hazardous. Backed by current scientific knowledge, we can refuse to work or shop in an environment which endangers our health. We can demand that megahertz and gigahertz cordless phones, walkie talkie radios, WLAN and WiFi systems be removed from schools, offices, hospitals and any public place where people are grossly irradiated without their informed consent. Second hand smoke is bad; second hand radiation is worse.
We wish to thank the courageous radiation victims interviewed for this report who have generously revealed the details of their personal suffering in order to warn others. Following their example, we must continue undaunted in the moral quest to protect the national health and restore the world to sanity before it is too late.


Meters and resources

The Electrosmog Detector allows you to HEAR the intensity of RF/microwave pollution in your environment. Developed by British radiation expert Alasdair Phillips, this battery-operated device will quickly allow you to identify dangerous RF/microwave hotspots, even where transmitters are concealed, and take action to protect yourself. This meter is $99 (price includes shipping) and can be obtained by sending check or money order to: HEARING IS BELIEVING, Box 64 Hayden, Idaho 83835. E-mail: gzz@icehouse.net. The detector comes with a collection of important RF/microwave information.

The Trifield Meter ($130), produced by Alpha Lab, is used mainly to measure the milligauss of electromagnetic fields coming from 60 hertz sources. Use this digital meter to make sure your living and working spaces are under 2 milligauss. Alpha Lab’s Microwave Power Density Meter ($320) is a more sensitive digital microwave meter that will help you assess the kilohertz, megahertz and gigahertz radiation in our wireless environment. This easy-read meter measures microwave radiation in microwatts per cm2, allowing comparison of your readings to the 5 microwatts per cm2 used by the Russians to make our embassy staff sick. Remember, people inside the embassy reportedly received only about .01 microwatts per cm2. For more information, contact Alpha Lab Inc., 1280 South 300 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101; (800) 658-7030; www.trifield.com
For a list of more expensive professional meters available, go to: www.microwavenews.com. On the left side of the home page find a link called "Radiation Meters."
Alan Broadband produces radiation detection devices with models ranging in price from $159 to $2,800. The $159 model, while not giving detailed readings, is an extremely sensitive and sturdy instrument that gives an accurate dial read on whether or not radiation is present and its relative intensity. It lets you know when you are being irradiated and serves as an excellent tool to illustrate exposure levels to others. For more information, contact Alan Broadband 93 Arch St., Redwood City, California 94062; (888) 369-9627; www.zapchecker.com
Books
Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age, Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001.
Cellular Telephone Russian Roulette, Robert C. Kane, Vantage Press, 2001.
Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience or Environmental Hazard? The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council, Edited by B. Blake Levitt, 2000. Order from Barnes and Noble.
Websites
These websites provide excellent information on all aspects of health and other issues relating to electromagnetic fields and radio frequency/microwave radiation.
www.buergerwelle.com This excellent German (but in English) site features RF/microwave radiation news from all over the world. The science keeps pouring in and this is where to find it, along with lots of human interest.
www.cprnewsbureau.org This is an excellent source of up-to-date news on wireless issues.
www.emrnetwork.org This site has superb resources organized by professionals with expertise in all facets of our RF/microwave radiation problem.
www.safewireless.org This site features Dr. Carlo’s Mobil Telephone Health Concerns Registry where people can report ill health effects from living near microwave transmitters or from the use of wireless devices. It also features great news reports.
www.microwavenews.com This is home to Microwave News, an excellent monthly publication. It offers cutting edge science reports, plus a great archive.
www.sageassociates.net This site provides valuable information on how to make homes and offices safer in the wireless age.
CAUTION: There are many devices on the market claiming to protect wireless users from radiation. These include: air tube headsets, ferrite bead clip-ons and an array of paste-ons advertised to cut down on thermal effects or deflect negative energy. Energy testing, kinesiology and meter readings indicate that these mitigation devices DO NOT adequately protect against the brutal force of near field microwave radiation. You can investigate the effectiveness of these devices by metering radiation levels while using them. If radiation pours from your "safe" headset, don’t bank your life on it. If practiced in the art of kinesiology, you can also "muscle test" the effectiveness of the radiation mitigation device. The human body becomes very weak when irradiated with any man-made frequency, especially microwaves. If a protective device is really working, you will not detect muscle weakness when using a wireless phone or gadget. 

Remember when there were no cellphones?
By Don Harkins

As her friend and editor for over a decade now, I have grown alongside Amy in her research on chemtrails, depleted uranium and radiation. There is zero doubt in our hearts and minds that Amy’s references are sound, her interpretation of data flawless and her intentions purely honorable and compassionate.
That means use of cell phones, WiFi, WiMax and RFID is not only suicide, but complicity is a "slow burn" form of mass murder. If second-hand cigarette smoke bothers you, how does it compare to second hand radiation? Well, it doesn’t. Using a cell phone in proximity to others only increases the intensity of the ambient levels of radiation that are omnipresent to support wireless personal communication networks. Where nonsmokers can remove themselves or the smoker from the room, noncellphoneusers (one word) cannot escape radiation by going to another room. In other words, everyone is bathing in dangerous levels of cellphone "smoke" whether you are "smoking" or not.
When the wireless age was growing in earnest in the late 90s, people kept telling Ingri and I, "You really need to get cell phones—they are so convenient."
We opted not to for the same reason we have never acquired a laptop computer: If we are away from our desk that means we are (temporarily) FREE!—free of the phone and free of the computer.
The next stage, by the early 00s, people began saying to us, "Don, Ingri, you really need to get cell phones so it will be more convenient for us to get ahold of you."
Now, when the subject of our having resisted carrying cell phones to this point comes up in conversation, people say, "You are so lucky."
It’s not luck—we just didn’t like the idea of being "on call" all the time and our lifestyles just didn’t evolve to include cell phones. We have only known for a couple years how deadly they are.
But, for cellphoneusers (one word), the novelty of cell phones has been replaced with addiction and the convenience has been replaced with enslavement. In that sense, we are lucky.
The three following comments represent the most common justifications people recite for using cell phones:
"But with my job, I have to have one."
"They are handy in an emergency."
"This way, the kids (the wife/husband/friends/business contacts) can always get ahold of me."
But consider these responses from noncellphoneusers:
"Is your job worth irradiating yourself and the world around you?"
"What did you do in an emergency BC (that’s "before cell phones")?"
"Are you sure that you are so darned important that you can’t just have people leave a message on a land line recorder and check messages now and then?"
And one bonus retort: "If an industry is using your addiction to wireless toys as a means to finance the erection of a communications infrustructure that intends to control all life on earth en route to destroying it, should you choose to buy its services?"
The truth is you can do your job without a cell phone—or find another one.
You can prepare in advance for emergencies like we used to.
And, it is true, we aren’t so important that people can’t wait a few minutes or a few hours to talk to us. (DWH)

NOTES
1. Interview with Dr. Eckel was published by Schwabischen Post 12-07-06. Find this interview at www.heseproject.org. See "The Cell Nucleus is Mutating."
2. "Neurological Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation," a paper presented by Dr. Lai to the Mobile Phones and Health Symposium, October 25-28, 1998, University of Vienna. Also "DNA Damage and Cell Phone Radiation," www.rfsafe.com, 11-02-05.
3. Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age, Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001, p.151.
4. "Mobile Telecommunications and Health—Summary of the ECOLOG study for T-Mobile, 2000," Find this summary at www.hese-project.org.
5. "Cell Phone Radiation Harms DNA, Study Claims," (Reuters) MSNBC, 12-04-04. Also "Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA," R. Moss, CPR News Bureau, 10-16-06.
6. "RF-Induced DNA Breaks Reported in China," Microwave News, 09-29-05. This report comes from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine.
7. "2.45 GHz radiofrequency fields alter gene expression in cultured human cells," Lee S. et al, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, PubMed 16107253.
8. "Health Social Services and Housing Sub-Panel Telephone Mast Review," a public discussion by Dr. George Carlo, 2-26-07. Find this excellent dissertation at www. safewireless.org.
9. Few Americans know that cell phones have never been safety tested thanks to the FDA, which exempted cell phones from pre-market testing based on a "low power exclusion" rule.
10. "The American Cancer Society is Misleading the Public," Dr. George Carlo, 8-5-07. Find this statement at www.buergerwelle.com.
11. "Long-Term Mobile Phone Use Raises Brain Tumor Risk: Study," Reuters, 03-31-06. This research was conducted by the Swedish National Institute for Working Life whose scientists studied 905 people with malignant brain tumors to confirm a 240% increased risk of brain tumors after heavy mobile phone use.
12. "Cancer in Radar Technicians Exposed to RF/Microwave Radiation: Sentinel Episodes," Richter E. et al, Int. J. Occup Environ Health 6 (3):187-193, 2000.
13. "FCC Lives Large off Lobbyist Bribes," Capitol Hill Blue, 05-22-03, capitolhillblue.com.
14. "Health Social Services and Housing Sub-Panel Telephone Mast Review," public discussion by Dr. George Carlo, 2-26-07. Find this excellent dissertation at www. safewireless.org.
15. See www.c-a-r-e.org for information about groups affected by Lookout Mountain broadcast antennas.
16. For an excellent chart comparing biological effects at power density levels and a list of international exposure standards, go to: "Radio Wave Packet," Arthur Firstenberg, Cellular Phone Task Force, Sept 2001; also find this power density list at: "Analysis of Health and Environmental Effects of Proposed San Francisco Earthlink WiFi Network," Magda Havas, Ph.D, Trent University, May 2007.
17. Quote from letter by Norbert Hankin, chief environmental scientist with EPA’s Radiation Protection Division. This letter was received by EMR Network 7-16-02 and can be found at www.emrnetwork.org.
18. "Supreme Court Rebuffs Challenge to U.S. Tower Policy," Microwave News, Jan./Feb 2001; also EMR Network Petition For Inquiry To Consider Amendment of Parts 1 and 2 of the FCC’s Rules Concerning the Environmental Effects of Radiofrequency Radiation, September 25, 2001. See also FCC order to deny application for review filed by the EMR Network, adopted July 28, 2003. These documents found at www.emrnetwork.org.
19. Hicks, Onnink, Barber, Pennington v. Horvath Communications, Cause No.71C01-0107-CP St. Joseph Circuit Court, St Joseph County, Indiana.
20. "Some Unexpected Health Hazards Associated with Cell Tower Siting," Bill P. Curry, PhD., Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience or Environmental Hazard? The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council, edited by B. Blake Levitt, 2000. See chapter 6.
21. Practical Guidelines to Protect Human Health Against Electromagnetic Radiation Emitted in Mobile Telephony, Summary June 2001, Miguel Muntane Condeminas, industrial engineer for Consulting Comunicacio i Disseny S.L, Barcelona, m.co-di@eic.ictnet.es. See Section 4.3.1 "US Embassy in Moscow Study."
22. See www.health-concerns.org and www.safewireless.org. These sites provide a pathway to access Dr. Carlo’s Mobil Telephone Health Concerns Registry where people can report ill health effects from living near microwave transmitters or from the use of wireless devices.
23. "Electromagnetic Fields, (EMF) Killing Fields," Arthur Firstenberg, The Ecologist, v. 34, n. 5, 6-10-2004.
24. "Study of the health of people living in the vicinity of mobile phone base stations: I. influences of distance and sex," R. Santini et al, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées—laboratoire de biochimie-pharmacologie, 2002.
25. "Cancer Risks from Microwaves Confirmed," Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Institute of Science in Society press release, 5-24-07.
26. "The Microwave Syndrome—a preliminary study in Spain," Navarro E. et al, Biology and Medicine, 22 (2 &3) 161-169, 2003; also " The Microwave Syndrome—Further Aspects of a Spanish Study," Oberfeld G et al 2004, International Conference Proceedings, Kos, Greece 2004.
27. "Neurobehavioral Effects Among Inhabitants Around Mobile Phone Base Stations," Abdel-Rassoul et al, Neurotoxicology, 8-01-2006.
28. "Increase of Cancer Near Cell-Phone Transmitter Station," Wolf D. and Wolf, International Journal of Cancer Prevention 1-2, April 2004.
29. "Two in Three Believe Radiation from Phones Damaged their Health," Geoffrey Lean, 7-8-07 Independent on Sunday, U.K.
30. "Cancer Cluster at Phone Masts, " Times On Line, The Sunday Times, UK 4-22-07.
31. Report by Roland Stabenow, 9-21-06, head of cancer registry in Berlin.
32. "How Shall We Cope With the Increasing Amounts of Airborne Radiation?" Olle Johansson, Journal of the Australasian College of Environmental Medicine, Dec. 2006.
33. "Building Top Floors Closed After Brain Tumor Alert," Lisa Macnamara, The Australian, UK, 05-13-07. Read this report at www.rense.com.
34. "Cancer Strikes 12 Female Staffers," Tony Koch, Omega-News, 4-06-07.

Friday, October 22, 2010

FCC Raises the Red Flag about Cell Phone Hazards

By Dr. Mercola

On November 5, 2009, the FCC released their Consumer Facts on "Wireless Devices and Health Concerns." In this document, the FCC recommends precautions for the use of cell phones.

According to the FCC, “Recent reports by some health and safety interest groups have suggested that wireless device use can be linked to cancer and other illnesses. These questions have become more pressing as more and younger people are using the devices, and for longer periods of time.”
They now recommend the following steps:
  • Use an earpiece or headset
  • If possible, keep wireless devices away from your body when they are on, mainly by not attaching them to belts or carrying them in pockets
  • Use the cell phone speaker to reduce exposure to your head
  • Consider texting rather than talking
  • Buy a wireless device with lower Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

Sources:

  FCC November 5, 2009

Dr. Mercola's comment:

Public health agencies cannot continue to keep their heads in the sand while millions of people, including children, are unknowingly being exposed to radiation at levels that are putting their health at risk.

Warning Labels Should be Added to All Cell Phones

The issue has been heating up recently, and a bill introduced in Maine, which would make it the first to mandate warning labels on all cell phones, created a flurry of national attention. I suspect and sincerely hope it will not be much longer before cell phones are outed as the cigarettes of the 21st century, and this bill would be a first step toward that.
It calls for the following statement to be prominently placed on every cell phone and all related packaging, on a non-removable label:
“Warning, this device emits electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer. Users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep this device away from the head and body.”
In addition, the bill, as currently written, requires the label to include the color graphic showing the electromagnetic absorption of a 5-year old child’s brain, as depicted in a 1996 study published by the IEEE on the effect of cell phone microwave emissions on the neck and head.

Why You Can’t Trust Current FCC Cell Phone Standards

You may find it hard to believe that the FCC would allow cell phones on the market if they were unsafe. Well, the FCC does, in fact, require wireless devices to meet minimum safety guidelines for human use.
Unfortunately, these guidelines are based on exposure limits in terms of Specific Absorption Rate, otherwise known as the SAR value. The SAR value is a measure of the power of the cell phone and its potential for heating tissues.
But simply choosing a phone with a lower SAR value does not at all mean the phone is safe. Camilla Rees, founder of www.Electromagnetichealth.org and co-author with Magda Havas, PhD of Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution, explains:
“It is important consumers realize that the SAR value, while providing information for comparison purposes between phones, is very limited in its usefulness as a measure of ‘safety.’ We are greatly concerned that people may be turning to the EWG database in droves not understanding just how limited a measure the SAR value is.”
Why is the SAR value not an accurate measure of safety?
  1. The SAR value is only comparing the isolated heating effect of different phones and does not give an indication that a cell phone is ‘safe.’
  2. The power, or heating effect, of the phone is only one of many possible factors impacting cell phone ‘safety.’ Exposures to the radiation from the cell phone at non-heating levels have been linked to many serious biological effects, and the SAR value is not capturing anything about these harmful non-thermal exposures.
  3. SAR values are reported to the FCC by the manufacturer and have been known to vary from the reported number by a factor of two across models of the same phone.
  4. The SAR value varies with the source of exposure and the person using the phone. For example, if you are in a rural area or in an elevator or a car, where the cell phone uses more power, your brain will get a greater exposure from the higher power required in these instances. Under certain conditions, the SAR value can be 10-100 times higher than reported.
  5. Holding the phone in a slightly different way can actually render the worst SAR value phone better than the best SAR value phone.
  6. SAR values have been created based on simulations of exposure in a plexiglass head filled with fluid, not a human head, and many scientists consider them to be inaccurate and irrelevant at determining actual biological effects.
One of the worst deficiencies of the SAR value is that it only considers the thermal impact of cell phone usage, and it is very likely that the non-thermal effects of chronic cell phone exposure are more biologically damaging.
Even the FCC acknowledged this concern in their FCC Consumer Facts:
“Some experts think that low frequency magnetic fields rather than RF energy measured by the SAR possibly are responsible for any potential risk associated with wireless devices.”

Have You Heard? Cell Phones are Dangerous ...

In case you haven’t yet heard, there’s a reason why the FCC finally issued cell phone “precautions” despite the industry’s assurances to the contrary.
For starters, the 2009 special EMF issue of the Journal of Pathophysiology contains over a dozen different studies on the health effects of electromagnetic fields and wireless technology
In addition, a review of 11 long-term epidemiologic studies published in the journal Surgical Neurology revealed 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 where the cell phone is typically held.
You should also know that:
  • A study by Dr. Siegal Sadetzki linked cell phone use to salivary gland tumors
  • Wearing a cell phone on your hip -- either on your belt or in a pocket -- has been linked to decreased bone density in the pelvic region. (All the other vital organs located in your pelvic region -- your liver, kidney, bladder, colon and reproductive organs -- are also susceptible to radiation damage).
  • Proximity to cell phone towers causes an increase in the symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, visual and auditory disturbances, and cardiovascular effects
  • The BioInitiative Report 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, Acoustic Neuromas, and childhood cancers like leukemia
    • And much more
I’ve barely scratched the surface with the examples I listed above. There are many, many more out there, and if you’re interested to learn more the Web site ElectromagneticHealth.org offers 10 free eye-opening audio interviews with some of the world’s leading experts in the field of EMF.

What Can You do to Stay Safe?

I urge you to take action now to protect yourself and your family from the dangerous effects of cell phones and other wireless devices. Please do not wait for the FCC to make a more serious warning or ban the phones altogether.
I believe this issue is so important I’ve created an entire web site dedicated to EMF education and information. Feel free to bookmark EMF.mercola.com and check back on occasion for the latest news and updates.
If you are not ready to give up your cell phone just yet, at the very least don’t let your young children use one, and avoid cell phone exposure while pregnant or carrying your infant. Children are FAR more susceptible to harm from microwave radiation than adults.
Further, you can at least minimize exposure by heeding the following advice:
  • Reduce your cell phone use: Turn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters. As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call.
  • 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 many of them do not broadcast constantly even when no call is being made.
Note the only way to truly be sure if there is an exposure from your cordless phone is to measure with an electrosmog meter, and it must be one that goes up to the frequency of your portable phone (so old meters will not be of much use). You can find meters at www.emfsafetystore.com.
As a general rule of thumb, you can pretty much be sure your portable phone is a problem if the technology is DECT, or digitally enhanced cordless technology.
  • 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.
  • Don’t assume one cell phone is safer than another: Please understand that despite assurances, there’s still no such thing as a “safe” cell phone.
  • Keep your cell phone away from your body when it’s 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 (so do not carry your cell phone on your belt, either).
  • 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.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.mercola.com/js/citation.js" language="javascript"></script>