THE DAMAGING EFFECTS OF ELECTROPOLLUTION

The detrimental health effects of cell phones, WiFi, electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and the microwave-based technology we use daily makes worrying about our kids experimenting with drugs, sexual escapades, alcoholic binges, or a touch of crime insignificant - in comparison to the WiFi-equipped school you send them to, the cell phones you may have bought for them, the hours they spend in front of the TV (forget the content - the TV itself is worse), and the microwave oven from which they often receive their meals. Sex, booze, drugs, and crime are part of the dark side of life's education: one often learns from those mess-ups to go on to make healthy choices. Now consider that this "progressive" and seductive radiation technology has the power to obliterate life, phase out our biological future, and kill the brain.

I am one of those suckers seriously injured by cell phones. Our solar-powered cottage on Manitoulin is far from phone lines; so, for 25 years we used public phones. Last summer, a cell phone tower was erected 1 mile from my study window. Being a social animal, I thought this was fabulous! Over a period of two months I quickly developed indescribable headaches, piercing pains in my right eye, and spontaneous bleeding from my right ear. My ophthalmologist diagnosed two cataracts in my right eye: the hallmark of microwave radiation injury ( age-related cataracts appear in both eyes), as we know from research begun on WW II U.S. Navy personnel injured by radar equipment. In a future Vitality issue I will discuss the successful treatment I am undergoing and how I did not turn into a Luddite.

I am in stellar company: World Health Organization Director General, Gro Harlem Brundtland (1998 - 2003) and convener of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, did not permit any cell phones at WHO's Geneva headquarters because they caused her debilitating headaches. Of course, she had the wrath of the industry descend upon her accordingly. She is currently suffering from cancer.

In 2004, the WHO defined electrohypersensitivity (EHS) as: "... a phenomenon where individuals experience adverse health effects while using or being in the vicinity of devices emanating electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic fields .... a sometimes debilitating problem [occuring] several orders of magnitude under the limits of internationally accepted standards."

In fact, everybody is at risk. Epidemiologist Dr. Sam Milham first studied childhood leukemia clusters in the 1970s that eventually proved beyond any doubt that the risk for this disease is directly related to the presence of powerlines, and subsequently also cell phone towers; those areas of the world that have little or no electricity have almost no incidence of leukemia. In addition to leukemia, evidence now supports that cell phones cause especially brain tumors, cancer of the eye, salivary glands, testicles, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Alzheimer's. This radiation also contributes to the development of autism and ADHD. While several causes are known for all of these conditions, research has confirmed that the use of cell and cordless phones and lap-top computers, speed up their manifestation such that people in their 30's are now beginning to be diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer's. The degranulation process of live brain cells when exposed to cell phone radiation has been experimentally demonstrated. Cancer incidence is also significantly higher within 400 meters of a cell phone tower or transmitter site. Trent University researcher Magda Havas may now have discovered a third type of diabetes caused exclusively by electromagnetic radiation.

The most vulnerable are children, pregnant women, human brains in general, testicles, and ovaries. This was confirmed in 2007 by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer and in 2010 by a Swedish government study, all showing that cell phone use increases the chances of brain cancer by 40%. Last year, the European Journal of Oncology reported that serious heart and related problems (e.g. arrhythmia, palpitations, heart flutter, racing heart beat, fainting, profuse sweating etc) can occur to pulsed radiation as low as 0.5% of the existing Canadian and US federal guidelines which permit 10 mill micro/Wm2. The truly science-based exposure guidelines demonstrate that nobody should be exposed to more than 1 microW/m2.

When it comes to any type of death industry, the most reliable information comes from the military. On the website www.safeschool.ca you can download a recently declassified US Navy document from1971 which summarizes the more than 2,300 studies on the health effects from microwave radiation known way back then! Of course they knew - microwave technology was already part of the military arsenal intended to inflict bodily harm. It is the Military University in Germany that developed EMF protection standards for civilian building codes. In addition to people, building materials require protection from rapid corrosion caused by radiofrequencies and microwaves. In 2008, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities asked the federal government for an emergency fund of $ 123 billion over 5 years to avoid building collapse.

The financial problems caused by this irresponsible application of radiation-based technology includes agriculture and cows. Plants avoid high EMF levels by not growing as high as they normally would; when the EMF source is removed, they grow normally. As reported by Dr. Milham, when the "dirty electricity" was neutralized by Graham/Stetzer plugs in a U.S. school, "a dairy farmer a quarter of a mile away noticed that his cows each gave an average of ten pounds more milk per day, beginning the day the school received its filters. The cows were responding to dirty electricity being removed from the ground currents." In 2008 the French court ordered a power company to compensate cattle farmers for EMF damage.

A thoroughly depressing fact is that the main reason gorillas in Africa were reduced in numbers by 90% over the past two decades is because their habitat was destroyed by miners for a rare mineral called coltan. This mineral is apparently indispensable to the production of cell phones. The international efforts to save the gorillas is appearing to have some success, but nothing has happened so far, it seems to rescue the miners themselves - they are primarily children even as young as 6 years.

Living creatures are electrical beings able to function only within specific frequencies. Devra Davis observes: "The difference between being alive and being dead is just one thing - the presence of electrical activity in the brain." Thoracic surgeon Dr. William Rae, the co- founder of the American Academy for Environmental Medicine with Linus Pauling and Dr. Thoren Randolph, became originally interested in environmental influences on health when he himself became seriously EMF-sensitive in the 1970's from operating room equipment. His research led him to recognize the deleterious influence of pesticides and many other environmental toxins, all of which cause multi-system damage. The immune system is the primary target which does its job through electrically charged biological substances such as neurotransmitters, hormones, and peptides which transmit faster than the speed of light. It has been known since the 1990's that environmental illness from biological toxins and electrohypersensitivity share the process of a disastrous reduction in the nervous system enzyme cholinesterase. It's sudden depletion cause depression and also suicidal behavior.

All these biological processes have their inherent timing, repair and defensive responses, especially during pregnancy and brain development. Hence, the industry "safety" standards, with which government regulators collaborate, are totally absurd. Devra Davis explains: They are based on the imaginary SAM, the Standard Anthropomorphic Man based on military recruits of 1989: six foot two tall, about 200 lbs, and never exposed to a cell phone. The subsequently constructed safety standards date to 1962 when nobody knew the difference between heat-producing radiation and microwave radiation, and cell phones did not exist.

The Safe School Committee in Collingwood (www.safeschool.ca) is fighting the WiFi craze that has hit Canadian schools. Even though WiFi is slower than landline-transmitted connections, and even though there is a documented 40% increase in cardiac arrest in children under 13 years directly related to this type of radiation, the Toronto School Board is hell-bent on WiFi for all schools - presumably until no brains are left to zap. So eager are our guardians of education to implement what they call "Vision of Hope" (abysmally black humor unintended), they even exceed the totally inappropriate safety standards set by Health Canada - standards that date from a time when wireless phones were Dick Tracey-type sci-fi watches.

Ken Dryden expressed outrage on March 12 (Globe & Mail) about the lack of mandatory protection from head injuries in hockey, stating: "How could we be so stupid!" Such outrage applies to WiFi in schools even more because even more children - all of them in fact - will be affected. In a 2009 review of the usually irreversible harm EMFs cause, neuroscientists O. Johansson of the Karalinska Institute in Sweden, wrote: "Today no-one would consider having a radio-active wrist watch with glowing digits (as you could in the 1950s), having your children's shoes fitted in a strong X-ray machine (as you could in the 1940s), keeping radium in open trays on your desk (as scientists could in the 1930s), or X-raying each other at your garden party (as physicians did in the 1920s). In retrospect that was just plain madness. However, the persons doing so were not ...less intelligent. ... knowledge was deficient, as was a competent risk analysis coupled to a parallel analysis of public needs."

What is happening in other jurisdictions? In 2007, Germany initiate a policy of reducing the use of CAT scans because of their demonstrated cancer-causing properties, and because their use increased health care costs (directly and through additional cancer incidence) by 80% in 40 years. It followed logically that last year Germany banned the energy efficient CFLS light bulbs because their carcinogenic radiation exceeds European exposure limits. (I tossed all ours and put old-fashioned incandescent bulbs back; I found that the crushing fatigue I thought was aging mysteriously disappeared!) Many jurisdictions in the US are now framing legislation to deal both with the bulb's unacceptable levels of radiation and the difficulty of their disposal because of the high mercury content threatening the ground water.

The European Union's September 2009 report on EMFs stressed the "serious and irreversible damage to health and environments" from EMF radiation and called on all member states to take precautionary action. Shortly afterwards the possibility of outlawing the use of cell phones for children under 18 was discussed in the EU parliament.

The UK, whose national Department of Health is as industry-friendly and science-challenged as our Health Canada, started to surrender to reality and on March 11 advised its citizens that they should text, rather than put their cell phones to their ears.

Switzerland, Finnland, Luxumburg, and Austria supply their schools with the totally radiation-safe fiber-optic technology for their internet and communication needs. Israel has similar legislation in the works. Those countries also set the maximum level of exposure between 5 to 10 microW/cm2. Recall: In Canada we are told 1,000 microW/cm2 is "safe". Guess on which part of the Earth human brains will survive!

Meanwhile, we are also being threatened with "smart meters" which tend to increase electricity costs for people and expose them to massive amounts of radiation. As of February of this year, California allows people to refuse their installation, because a formal investigation showed that these US-made devices never passed all the mandatory regulatory hurdles, are hazardous to health, and can cause fire.

Devra Davis in her superb book "Disconnect" explains how the most serous practical challenge to this industry comes from the world's large insurance companies, such as the Sterling Group of Lloyd's of London. Having nearly been nearly wiped out when the asbestos-related claims became undeniable in the early 1990s, the cell-phone industry was informed they would not be backed when radiation hits the fan, as it must. The trigger for this decision was the UK's 2005 Stewart Commission whose chair, citing worldwide research demonstrating harm to children's brains from cell phones, told the mobile phone industry to "refrain from promoting the use of mobile phones by children". In Canada, liability is certainly worth testing in court, because the 2007 Human Rights Commission report on Environmental Illness specifically included harm from EMF radiation as being real and requiring accommodation.

Hear Magda Havas, Devra Davis and many others at the Total Health Show (April 8,9,10) and learn that, amazingly, it may be possible to be safe and have your toys.

Sources and Resources:

S. Milham MD, Dirty Electricity, iUniverse, 2010, any bookstore or www.sammilham.com

D. L. Davis, Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, Dutton, 2010

M. Havas & C. Rees, Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side of the Wireless Revolution, 2009

L. Blake, Electromagnetic Fields: A Consumer's Guide to the Issues and How to Protect Ourselves, iUniverse (updated 2007 edition)

Best source for relevant information www.magdahavas.com and www.microwavenews.com

To fight cell phone towers being placed near schools, playgrounds, hospitals, etc. research www.whyfry.org and google "cell phone towers + opposition"

NOTE: The products sources listed below I myself have tried and found helpful.

Planetary Association for Clean Energy Inc. Ottawa. Andrew Michrowski provides excellent scientific sources and practical help: paceincnet@gmail.com

Environmental Working Group at www.ewg.org tests cell phones etc for hazards, safety, alternatives, etc where regulatory information is lacking, outdated, or wrong. Check out their recommendations on safer cell phones.

Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a cardiologist of Co-Q10 fame, has excellent information on radiation on his excellent website www.heartmdinstitute.com

To take action against the WiFi plans for all of Toronto's schools go to www.safeschool.ca and meet its organizers at the Total Health Show April 8, 9, 10 at the Metro Convention Center.

To have your home/apartment assessed and made safe, or to build an EMF-safe house, contact www.breathing-easy.net

For Graham/Stetzer filters www.stetzerelectric.com & www.DirtyElectricity.ca and EMFSolutions 1-877-987-5185 or visit their booth at Total Health.

Full Source List for Vitality Website:

This list is in order of the information's appearance in the article itself.

1. The legislation proposed in Maryland could be used in its identical wording in Canada and proposed to Health Canada via our MPs. See www.mainlegislature.org go to "Summary of LD 1014".

2. On cell phone towers the most comprehensive information is in Dr. Sam Milham's book "Dirty Electricity". For success in having proposed cell towers moved to locations away from children, hospitals etc. see Waterloo Chronicle February 15, 2011 article entitled "Transmission interrupted?" and March 9, 2011 "WIND Mobile looking at other tower sites".

3. The EarthCalm website has a good summary article on the research involving EMF harm and possible protection entitled "EarthCalm develops unprecedented EMF protection against phone and WiFi radiation".

4. Google the name Arthur Firstenberg and read his article in The Ecologist volume 34, number 5, June 1, 2004, on the harm cell phone towers do to people and animals.

5. On the dangers to food quality done by using microwave ovens google "microwave ovens + safety".

5. The Wikipedia entry on former WHO Director Gro Harlem Brundtland is pretty informative and useful for the links it provides to her statements and interviews involving harm, from cell phones.

6. Contact Andrew Michrowski of Planetary Association for Clean Energy at paceincnet@gmail.com for his powerpoint presentations and scientific papers. Most useful is his summary of all the literature, world-wide, up to the end of 2010, entitled "Electro-Magnetic Fields: High Level Microtechnology Concerns". It is the source of many items in this article including the degranulation of brain cells, the damage to blood cells, the corrosive effect of microwaves on building materials, etc.

7. On February 23, 2011, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article "Cell Phone Radiofrequency Radiation Exposure and Brain Glucose Metabolism" which is exceedingly tame, until you get into the details which support the worst findings published internationally.

8. The information on microwaves and EMFs affecting the heart is in the European Journal for Oncology, Library Volume 5, October 2010. The lead author of Trent University's Magda Havas. For medical professionals this article is a must and for people with existing heart issues it is perhaps a life saver.

9. On building codes and EMF protection in architectural design, the Military University in Germany etc., go to Robert Steller's website www.breathing-easy.net

10. How EMFs adversely affect animals and plants is discussed and sources ion both the work of Andrew Michrowski (PACE) and in the book by Dr. Sam Milham. There are also a website specific to EMFs involving the issue of damage to trees, other plants and animals: www.popsci.com or con tact nukenet@energyjustice.net

11. The unbelievable nonsense on which the Toronto School Board bases its decision to WiFi all schools, go to www.safeschool.ca from where you can download all of this material.

12. The declassified summary of all adverse health effects of microwave radiation known by 1971 also go to www.safeschool.ca

13. The biological pathways shared by MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and EMF sensitivity are discussed in detail in the material available by googling Dr. William Rae, the American Academy for Environmental Medicine, and specifically from http://tis-hq.eh.doe.gov/chem-safety which is the web access to the U.S. Department of Energy. The article there is by Lucinda Grant published in 1997 entitled "Microwaves imitate pesticides".

14. EMFs and their harmful effects on the immune system of humans and animals is comprehensively presented in a long articled by O. Johansson of the Karalinska Institute in Sweden published in Pathophysiology in 2009. It can be downloaded from the website of EarthCalm.

15. The various sources for which countries have outlawed or initiated regulatory protection can be found on www.safeschool.ca, by googling Magda Havas, the organization Care, and accessing the January 2011 journal called Environmental Science and Technology, and www.communities.cana.com

16. On Germany curtailing the use of CAT scans see Globe & Mail, April 3, 1009.

17. The European Union's report from the European Environmental Agency of September 15, 2009 can be downloaded by googling them.

18. The advisory given by the UK Department of Health to text instead of put the cell phone to your head was published widely; my source was The Telegraph, March 11, 2011. Go to www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/martin-beckford

19. The report showing that "smart meters" are not safe and were not put through the mandated regulatory hoops was published on February 18, 2011 by Sage Associates of Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A/. and is entitled: "Addendum: Assessment of Radiofrequency Microwave Radiation Emissions from Silver Spring OWS-NIC514 Model Wireless Electric Meter". Go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/martin-beckford/ and/or omahoney@epri.com to get a copy of the report and associated materials.

20. The May 2007 Canadian Human Rights Commission report (2 parts - one on the medical condition, the other on Canada's legal obligations) on MCS/EMF sensitivity and relevant case law etc. can be downloaded by goggling its author Margaret E. Sears or by going to the Human Rights Commission website and searching for "Environmental sensitivities Report 2007".

21. To find a research study on how the EarthCalm protective technology for your home works, go to EarthCalm's website and download it. Title: "Quality of Life Research Testing of EarthCalm Protective System."

Helke Ferrie is a medical science writer who lives in Alton.

She runs Kos Publishing Inc., a publisher dedicated to the politics of medicine.  

Visit www.kospublishing.com

or reach her at helkeferrie@gmail.com