By Kristen J. Gough

Results from a new study suggest cell phones may pose some health risks to a pregnant woman’s developing baby. Before you toss out your wireless, find out exactly what those risks may be.

When you’re pregnant ,you try everything you can to ensure your unborn baby’s health. You avoid certain activities that might be harmful to your developing child—no hot tubs, scuba diving, or alcohol.  But should you add cell phones to the list?

According to a study appearing in the July 2008 edition of Epidemiology, researchers found evidence that pregnant women who used handset cell phones, which generate low levels of non-ionizing radiation, were more likely to have children with behavior issues after birth.

The study looked at responses from over 13,000 Danish women who answered questions about their cell phone use and then about their children’s behavior until the age of seven. Scientists compared the behavior of children whose mothers regularly used cell phones to those who used them infrequently or not at all. Overall, researchers found that 54 percent of children were more likely to exhibit behavior problems if their mothers were more frequent cell phone users. If the children were also early cell phone users themselves, they were 80 percent more likely to have behavioral issues.

While the findings may seem startling at first, Dr. Leeka Kheifets MA, PhD, of UCLA, one of the study’s authors, cautions that more research needs to take place before scientists conclude that cell phones pose a significant risk to unborn babies: “I think that we found an association between cell phone use and behavioral problems, but that doesn’t mean for sure that there is a cause and effect relationship,” says Dr. Kheiferts. In other words, behavioral issues in children whose moms frequently used cell phones are not necessarily a direct result from cell-phone generated radiation. Perhaps mothers who used cell phones regularly didn’t pay as much attention to their children, leading the children to act out and exhibit bad behavior.

What You Need to Know

At the heart of the debate over whether cell phone use can cause health problems—not just in pregnant women but in anyone—is the way wireless devices work. A cell phone uses radiofrequency waves, a form of electromagnetic radiation, to transit messages to and from cell towers. According to the National Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these waves are the same as those your microwave generates to heat food but at a much lower amount.

High amounts of these waves can disrupt body tissues—that’s one reason you wear protective shielding when you get an X-ray. Because stronger forms of this radiation, such as that used for X-rays, can be harmful to the body by damaging cells and DNA, it is called ionized radiation. Microwave ovens, cell phones, and other wireless devices also use electromagnetic waves to function, but because the radiation they produce is not thought to damage body tissue, it’s known as non-ionizing.

Still, the body absorbs non-ionizing radiation generated from your phone. According to the FDA, which regulates radiation levels in cell phones, the amount of RF energy your body absorbs “is called the Specific Absorption Rate,” or the SAR level. Cell phone manufacturers voluntarily adhere to the industry guidelines of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) and keep SAR levels at a low amount, not to exceed 1.6 watts per kilogram. You can find the SAR level of your particular phone by contacting its manufacturer. (The FCC no longer lists these levels. You can also go to Cnet.com and type “SAR levels” in the search box to find specifics.) While the FDA and FCC make these requirements, it’s up to the cell phone manufacturers to police themselves.

Consumers shouldn’t necessarily base their choice of cell phone on SAR levels. Jen O’Connell, who worked in the cell phone industry for over a decade and now acts as a consultant says, “The difference between SAR levels from one phone to another is so microscopic it’s a moot point.” O’Connell, the CEO of Voice of Wireless, reassures users that cell phones go through a vigorous testing process before becoming available to consumers. “Every wireless carrier has labs to thoroughly test their products. They spend close to $1 million and two years of research before a product becomes available on the market. SAR levels are just one part of this testing.”

Why Experts Are Concerned

What concerns researchers, however, is that the long-term effects of cell phone use are still largely unknown. Cell phones may emit low levels of radiation, but does constant, heavy use amplify the effects of the radiation? Dr. Kheifets says scientists are just beginning to explore the possible hazards of cell phone use, which may be especially acute in young children and unborn babies.

Many countries outside the US have already taken steps to curb cell phone use among pregnant women and young children. “In Europe now, Germany, the UK, France, and the Scandinavian countries [they] have recommended that children use cell phones only in emergencies due to potential [health] problems. They are practicing what they call the ‘precautionary’ principle,” explains Dr. Lynn Eldridge, MD, MPH, a former practicing obstetrician and author of Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time: Practical Advice For Preventing Cancer.  “In Europe they go by the philosophy guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to the potential risks posed by cell phones,” says Dr. Eldridge. “But in the US it’s innocent until proven guilty.”

Several scientific studies, including a recent report from Israel which looked at brain tumors among cell users, point to the potential hazards with using RF energy regularly near sensitive areas of the body.

The FDA advises, “The available scientific evidence does not show that any health problems are associated with using wireless phones. There is no proof, however, that wireless phones are absolutely safe.” They continue by saying, “Some studies have suggested that some biological effects may occur, but such findings have not been confirmed by additional research.”

That noted, Dr. Kheifets says, “There’s very little funding, particularly in the US” for research, despite the two billion people worldwide that use wireless phones.”

What You Can Do

If you are concerned about the potential hazards of cell phone use on your unborn baby, there are steps you can take to minimize your exposure to radiofrequency energy (RF).

• O’Connell advises you avoid anything that can interfere with your phone’s signal strength. The harder your phone has to work to send out its signal, the more RF energy it’s putting out. Use your phone as it came out of the box, as the manufacturer has tested it. That means rhinestone-studded covers or rubber sheaths are out.
• O’Connell also recommends you use a Bluetooth device, which still emits some RF energy but at a much lower level.  Just don’t forget to put the cell phone away from your body while using the Bluetooth device, don’t hold it next to your belly, in your pocket, or on a waist clip.
• Dr. Eldridge suggests using landlines whenever possible instead of relying on your cell phone to make calls.
• Also, consider using your laptop computer to make calls or send an instant message.

“Sometimes just taking a couple of little precautionary steps each day can make a big difference,” says Dr. Eldridge. But the most important advice Dr. Eldridge offers to pregnant women who are concerned about the issue is, “Don’t stress out about it.”

To find out more go to www.fda.gov/cellphones.

http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/is_it_safe/article/safety-and-cell-phones

Studies link Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) To Illness

By Neal Lawrence

It was sort of a funny story when we first heard about it a few years ago: A dairy farmer living in Wisconsin near high voltage utility company transmission lines couldn’t turn out the lights in his barn. Even with the switches in the off position, night after night after he had finished his chores, he’d go back out to the barn to find the light bulbs still glowing from the electrical charge hovering in the air. The cows were none too happy about it either, because the constant light prevented them from sleeping, and they gave less milk.

But the story doesn’t seem so funny any more — not after the spate of recent reports of children developing deadly illnesses or adults dying prematurely of rare diseases — all apparently because they had the misfortune of living near high amounts of electrical current.

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that invisible electromagnetic fields (EMFs) — created by everything from high-voltage utility company lines to personal computers, microwave ovens, TVs and even electric blankets — are linked to a frightening array of cancers and other serious health problems in children and adults.

Though it received scant attention from the mainstream press, a report leaked last October from the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection said there is a powerful body of impressive evidence showing that even very low exposure to electromagnetic radiation has long-term effects on health.

The report cited studies that show EMFs can disturb the production of the hormone melatonin, which is linked with sleep patterns. It said there was strong evidence that children exposed to EMFs had a higher risk of leukemia.

This follows on the heels of three epidemiological reports released in 1994. One indicated a tie between occupational exposure to EMFs and Alzheimer’ s disease. Another suggested a link with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The third study indicated a tie with Amyotrophic lateralsclerosis.

Now a surprising new report released in February by physicists at Britain’s University of Bristol shows that power lines attract particles of radon — a colorless, odorless gas irrefutably linked with cancer.

What’s this all about? And why have the media failed to report with the appropriate emphasis the implications of these significant health risks?

Shortly after her son Kevin was diagnosed with leukemia, Julie Larm of Omaha, NE. began to notice other children at the local pool who had lost their hair or had surgical scars. As her suspicion rose, she began talking to other parents. One person she contacted was Dee Hendricks, whose son was also undergoing cancer treatment. Together they collected the names of eleven children in the area who had cancer.

When they plotted them on a map they were surprised to see that all lived within one mile of each other and an electric power substation.

“If there was nothing to worry about, why does our utility have an EMF committee…which was in effect long before we came and started making noise ?” asks Larm, a member of the Omaha Parents for the Prevention of Cancer. “Why do they need such things if theres nothing to it?”

The group’s efforts have been buttressed by Paul Brodeur, a campaigning environmental journalist who had in his day taken on asbestos and chlorofluorocarbons and is the author of two books on the subject of EMFs. Brodeur is convinced that EMFs are one of the greatest environmental threats facing the nation.

“Never before has there been this much epidemiological evidence of the carcinogenicity of any agent,” says Brodeur, “and that agent declared to be benign.”

Robert Becker, M.D., author of Cross Currents (Tarcher, 1990), who has studied this subject since the 1960s warns, “EMFs could turn out to be a far worse environmental disaster, affecting far more people, than toxic waste, radiation or asbestos.”

To some, especially the families of people with unexplained cancers, the sheer volume of research that has been carried out on this issue suggests there must be a cancer connection and perhaps a cover-up. Their suspicion is heightened by the fact that many of the studies are funded by the utility industry, which would be directly affected by the studies’ outcomes.

At the heart of the matter is a relatively simple and well-understood physical phenomenon: When an electric current passes through a wire, it generates an electromagnetic field that exerts forces on surrounding objects. Electric fields arise from the strength of an electric charge; magnetic fields, from the charge’s motion.

Unlike ionizing radiations such as x-rays — which pack sufficient wallop to knock electrons out of the molecules that make up the human body — EMFs do not produce charged particles, so experts always believed they posed no danger. Therefore, the Federal government has never regulated EMFs, and the electric industry was allowed to set its own standards.

But other recent experimental studies have shown that even weak magnetic fields can change the chemistry of the brain, impair the immune system, and inhibit the synthesis of melatonin, a hormone known to suppress several types of tumors and to be present in reduced amounts in men as well as women who develop breast cancer.

Some lab tests have confirmed that EMFs affect living cells in a variety of ways, most of them harmful. (Scientists are intrigued, however, by their ability to speed slow-healing fractures, enhancing bone formation).

What’s confusing is that the studies have produced widely divergent and often contradictory results. On the one hand, many scientists are convinced the study of electromagnetic fields is a massive waste of time and money — costing an estimated one billion dollars a year. After years of extensive study, Dr. Garry Boorman says, “We’re not sure what part of the field, if any, is toxic or important, or could be hazardous to your health.”

As a PBS “Frontline” documentary reported, scientists have been unable to locate a mechanism by which electromagnetic fields would trigger a biological reaction. The energy in the fields to which most of us are exposed is tiny tens of millions of times too small to break the molecules in cells. All living organisms evolved in the presence of the earths magnetic field, which is two hundred times larger.

Dozens of animal experiments have been carried out in which rats and mice are exposed to very large magnetic fields for long periods — some for their entire lives — but no animal has ever been proven to contract cancer due to this exposure. Generations of rodents raised in the presence of high magnetic fields do not show any increased evidence of birth defects or depressed immune systems.

With no animal data to support the claim and no physical mechanism to explain how it might affect the body, the main support for a connection has come from epidemiology.

As for clusters like the ones which motivated Julie Larm and her group in Omaha, many scientists are skeptical about their significance, if any, to the debate about EMFs. Because conditions like cancer are surprisingly common about one-third of the population gets cancer in their lifetimes random clusters of the disease are not unusual and are found close to and far from power lines.

Still, because of our reliance on electricity and the potential financial consequences for utilities and other companies, the regulation of EMFs is a politically sensitive issue. There is evidence to establish that the Bush administration tried to suppress findings of a study by the Environmental Protection Agency linking electromagnetic fields to certain health problems. The Clinton White House, meanwhile, has been largely silent on the issue.

Cover-Up?

Lending credence to claims that there is, indeed, a public health risk from EMFs and that the government knows about it is that an EPA report a few years ago raised suspicions of a causal link between electromagnetic fields and leukemia, brain tumors, breast and prostrate cancer, even birth defects.

Less-publicized but still significant are some of the foreign studies. Last July, Canadian researchers told the Lancet medical journal they had found a high rate of leukemia among children whose mothers had worked at sewing machines while pregnant.

Checks showed the operators were exposed to more electromagnetic radiation than people who work on power lines or in power stations.
In another study, Swedish researchers assessed the long-term exposure of people living near high-voltage transmission lines by taking spot measurements of the field strength in each home, and using them to confirm the accuracy of a computer model that calculated the strength of the fields emitted by each of the lines, according to distance from the lines, the wiring configurations, and the current level the lines were known to be carrying.

Then they programmed a computer with records of past current loads that had been maintained over the previous 20 years for each of the transmission lines. They were thus able to pinpoint with great accuracy EMF exposure for each cancer victim. What they found was a clear dose-response relationship between exposure to even weak power-frequency electromagnetic fields and the development of cancer, especially acute and chronic myeloid leukemia.

A second Swedish study, which also employed cases and controls, was conducted by epidemiologists. It confirmed that average magnetic field exposure over time was the critical factor in the development of disease. Interestingly, these studies were funded in part by the Swedish utility industry.

Maria Feychting of Swedens Karolinska Institute looked at 127,000 children who lived near big power lines for over 25 years and found twice the risk of leukemia.

“In our study we found about a two-fold increase in the risk if the children were living close, within 50 meters (yards) of a big power line,” she told Britain’s Channel Four television.

The new study by the University of Bristol showing that power lines can attract cancer-causing gases like radon has heightened concerns.

Even scientists who have failed to find a reason for the apparent link refuse to say it is safe to live near a high-voltage power line.

Warning to Parents

Of critical importance to all parents is that some studies have suggested that children exposed to magnetic fields of between two and three milligauss or above experienced a significantly increased risk of developing cancer. Since ambient levels of two to three milligauss can routinely be measured in buildings within 50 to 150 feet of wires carrying strong electric current, these findings are especially troublesome.

The report leaked last October by the mellitus National Council on Radiation Protection recommended a safety limit of 0.2 microteslas, a very weak field compared to those generated by household appliances. A person standing one foot away from a vacuum cleaner or electric drill can be exposed to anywhere between two and 20 microteslas.

There is no way to block EMFs (they even penetrate lead shielding), and the only protection is distance from the source.

In our electronic age, its almost impossible to eliminate exposure to the myriad of electrical sources with which we come in contact on a daily basis.

Thousands of electric company substations are scattered throughout our cities large and small and they abut homes, apartments and office buildings — even schools. Since few of the high-voltage lines that lead into and out of these substations have been buried to prevent harmful emissions, magnetic fields of potent strength can be found virtually everywhere.

Concerns have also been raised about magnetic fields given off by faulty household wiring, by high-current conductors concealed in the walls, ceilings and floors of commercial office buildings and other large structures; and by high-voltage transformers that can be found in almost any large building.

The EPA Raises Questions

Concerns about so-called non-ionizing radiation began to mount in 1979, when a study of cancer rates among Colorado school children determined that those who lived near power lines had two or three times as much chance to develop cancer. The link seemed so improbable that power companies eagerly paid to have the study replicated. To their surprise, the subsequent scientific inquiry supported the original findings, which have since been buttressed by a variety of additional studies and reports of increased cancer rates among workers employed in the electric industry.

One such study, conducted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. confirmed that telephone linemen, electricians and electric-power workmen are developing breast cancer at six times the expected rate.

But it was the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific review that has had an explosive impact, lending the most credence to those who have been warning of EMF health hazards.

The report — a 367-page document entitled “Evaluation of the Potential Carcinogenicity of Electromagnetic Fields” — came to light in 1990, when someone in the agency leaked a draft version of it to Louis Slesin, editor of an influential newsletter called Microwave News.

Chief among the conclusions was one specifying that power line electromagnetic fields should be classified as a “probable human carcinogen.” William Farland, then-director of the EPA’s Office of Health and Environmental Assessment ordered this conclusion deleted from the report.

Then the Associated Press reported that the Bush administration tried to delay release of the EPA’s findings. Robert E. McGaughy, the project manager and chief author of the report, was quoted as saying that the White House “was concerned not about the accuracy of the report…[but] about how people would react to the news and how it would affect the electric power industry.”

Ultimately, after two major TV networks and newspapers throughout the country exposed the Bush administration’s efforts at censorship, the report was released. It contained a disclaimer that asserted “the controversial and uncertain nature of the scientific findings of this report” and declared that it should not be construed as “representing Agency policy or position.”

The Medical Connection

Just how EMFs affect humans is still not entirely known.

In the case of cancer, most specialists theorize that a malignant tumor forms in at least two stages. In the first, referred to as “initiation,” an outside agent damages the cell’s genetic material. Because EMFs are not strong enough to break molecular and chemical bonds, scientists are concentrating on the second stage of cancer, a series of steps called “promotion.” Researchers are tying to pinpoint ways in which EMFs might cause cells to grow and multiply abnormally.

Some studies suggest that EMFs may promote cancer by interfering with the transmission of calcium across the cell membrane, a flow that governs such processes as muscle contraction, egg fertilization, cell division, and growth. EMFs may also disturb a cell’s ability to process hormone, enzyme, and other biological signals that regulate normal growth.

EMFs are known to affect nerve impulses. Melatonin, a regulatory hormone secreted by the pineal gland near the brain, ordinarily stimulates immune responses and may suppress tumor growth. Reduced melatonin production has been linked to breast and prostate cancer. Melatonin secretion in turn is controlled by norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Receptors for its relative, the hormone epinephrine, are disturbed by EMFs.

Some doctors stated that their observations led them to believe that it was possible that magnetic fields stimulate the rate of cancer cell growth, or act as a cancer promoter.

A San Antonio researcher discovered human cancer cells exposed to 60 Hz fields (the frequency of a high-voltage line) grew as much as 24 times as fast as unexposed cells and showed greatly increased resistance to destruction by the cells of the body’s defense system.

Female breast cancer has reached epidemic proportions, with one in ten American women developing it and one in four dying. Alarmingly, of women who develop the disease, 55% have no known risk factors. Breast cancer mortality rates are five times lower in Asia and Africa than in industrialized North America and northern Europe regions where EMFs are omnipresent.

Electric Companies On the Spot

A contention of the electric utility industry in the United States had been that the pathologies referred to in most of the studies might actually have been induced by exposure to pesticides, chemicals or other toxic agents in the environment.

For a time they contended that if power-line magnetic fields really did cause cancer, the fivefold increase in electrical usage during the past 30 years would have been expected to have produced an epidemic of childhood leukemia. The utility industry stopped making this statement in June of 1991, after the National Cancer Institute disclosed that a study it had made showed that in recent years there had been unexplained increases of nearly 11% in childhood leukemia, and of more than 30% in childhood brain cancer.

A study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reported a steep increase in brain-cancer rates over the past dozen years among the general population.

People working with computer monitors are developing primary brain tumors at nearly five times the expected rate.

Still, as Dr. Becker observes, “Companies wont admit that EMFs are risky, because they will become liable. And the government wont, because it is the largest user of the electromagnetic spectrum, especially for military communications. Our whole economy depends on them now.”

Not surprisingly, as people begin to focus on the problem of EMFs, property values near power lines and electric substations have been plummeting, and numerous lawsuits have been filed.

Look here to see what high tension lines can do!

http://www.megadisc.com.au/index_files/Page1683.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DumgUdJhzpo

Whether PCB’s or EMR, stay away from high power lines!

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/1917/Power01.html

PRUDENT AVOIDANCE—live longer!

Electricity is an inseparable part of our modern day society. This means that electromagnetic radiation will continue to be all around us for the foreseeable future. But, as Discover Magazine postulated, aside from making our lives easier, is electricity also making our lives shorter? Perhaps a more important question is “Until more is known, what can we do to minimize the potential risks?”

Prof. M. Granger Morgan, a well-known expert at Carnegie Mellon University, says it certainly can’t hurt to take simple steps. EMF “may pose no risk,” he says, “but most experts I have talked with give me odds somewhere between 10 percent and 60 percent that within the next decade it will become clear that they do.” Prof. Morgan advocates “prudent avoidance.”

“Prudence” means to be sensible and to exercise sound judgment in practical matters. Hence, prudent avoidance means that we should avoid exposure to EMF when it is consistent with sound judgment. In other words, learn where EMF comes from and then distance oneself from it whenever such avoidance won’t cause too much personal or economic disruption.

Most experts agree that limited, non-chronic exposure to EMF is not a threat. For example, it is probably acceptable to be near a toaster in the morning, but it is not advisable to sleep under an electric blanket operating all night. Certainly the person who works on a computer all day, watches TV close up at night, lives near a power line, and sleeps under an electric blanket, is under an extreme case of chronic exposure. This condition applies to millions of Americans and people throughout the world.

If you wish to practice prudent avoidance, the following advice is offered:

· Measure your environment with a Gauss meter, and avoid areas where the field is above 1 mG. Measure the fields both inside and outside your home, and don’t let your children play near power lines, transformers and microwave towers.

· Measure the magnetic fields from appliances, both when they are operating and when the are turned off. Magnetic fields are created only when current is flowing, but some appliances (such as TVs) are still drawing current even when they are switched off.

· Don’t sleep under an electric blanket or on a water bed. If you want to warm your bed before go to sleep, when you’re ready to get under the cover, unplug the electric blanket (don’t just turn it off). Even though there is no magnetic field when the blanket is turned off, there may still be a high electric field.

· Don’t sit too close to your TV set. Distance yourself at least 6 feet, but keep in mind that EMF from some TV sets can be measured as far away as 10 feet or more. An ELF and VLF Gauss meter can help you decide where to sit.

· Don’t sit too close to your computer display. Keep at least an arm’s length away from the screen, but remember that at this distance you will still be within the magnetic field. Computer monitors vary greatly in the strength of the magnetic fields which they emit.

· Rearrange your office work area so that you and your co-workers are not exposed to EMF from the sides and backs of each other’s VDTs.

· Turn off your VDT when you are not using it.

· Consider purchasing a low radiation VDT which contains an active compensating coil, or a zero radiation display based on shielded LCD technology.

· Don’t stand close to your microwave oven when in use. Even if your microwave oven is not leaking microwaves, it will still give off strong ELF magnetic fields.

· Move your electric clock away from your pillow. Several feet away should be sufficient. Better yet, buy a battery-powered digital clock.

· Keep other electric appliances away from your pillow, too. Telephones and answering machines generate EMF.

· Eliminate dimmers and three-way switches; they create high fields.

· Eliminate wires running under your bed.

· Be wary of cordless appliances such as electric toothbrushes, which use magnetic induction to charge the battery. Such devices deliberately create a large magnetic field.

·    Remember that EMF passes right through walls, so check out what’s on the other side. It could be a cordless electric toothbrush, or a television set, or a clock-thermostat radiating EMF into your bedroom.

A final note on AC fields:

just like medicines have good and bad effects, not all AC electric and magnetic fields are negative influences. Under controlled circumstances, AC fields can be used to help our health. Some AC magnetic fields, for example, are used at hospitals to promote bone growth in the case of fractures.

Similarly, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines are very useful in detecting tumors, aneurysms, etc., and are an excellent alternative to X Rays or CAT Scans. Other devices that use AC magnetic fields are also in use, such as AC Tens units to treat pain, as well as other magnetic devices that treat other symptoms and complaints.

Static magnets have now been reported in the medical literature as being benefitial for diabetic neuropathy, (tingling and chronic pain in the feet), a condition affecting half of all diabetics, or almost 10 million people.

www.megadisc.com

THE DANGERS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS (EMFS)

An electromagnetic field (EMF) is an invisible electric field that is produced when an electrical current runs through a wire. EMFs are also a natural product of the Earth’s magnetic field.  The effects of man-made EMFs can be very damaging to your health—particularly your breast health. One way that they interfere with your body’s ability to stay healthy is by disrupting certain hormones, especially melatonin. Melatonin is known as your sleep hormone but it is also profoundly important for general good health and breast health. Women with chronically low melatonin levels, usually caused by going to bed too late or working the night shift, have a significantly elevated risk of breast cancer. Even seemingly small amounts of EMFs like those created by the wires and appliances in your home, can disturb your melatonin levels. Researchers have found that residential 60-Hz magnetic fields caused by normal electrical house wiring and equipment (such as clock radios, electric blankets, and televisions) depress melatonin.

In a comprehensive review of the all the published studies on EMF exposure and breast cancer, a definite link between the two was found, and so we can say with certainty that EMF exposure contributes to breast cancer. In many studies, even male electricians showed an increased risk of the disease. A review of eleven occupational studies found a statistically significant increased risk of breast cancer in several categories. Overall, the risk of breast cancer doubled in premenopausal women who had jobs with significant EMF exposure. These jobs included telephone-line installers, repairers, and line workers. The risk was 65 percent higher for system analysts and programmers and 40 percent higher for telegraph and radio operators. A German study published in Cancer Research in 2002 found that 50-Hz EMFs caused breast tumors to start growing and accelerated their growth—but, in this study, melatonin levels remained normal. These researchers concluded that EMFs may disrupt the body some other way. Regardless of the specific disturbance that EMFs cause in the balance of your body, we know one thing for certain: exposure to EMFs contribute to the initiation of breast cancer and accelerate its growth.

Understanding EMFs through Quantum Physics

Quantum physics has shown through the “superstring theory” that everything in the Universe including your mind/body at its most finite level is composed of vibrations. The intelligent vibrations of your mind/body create a measurable electromagnetic field around you called a “biofield”. The health of your biofield influences the health of your mind/body and visa versa. Some external influences are harmonious with your biofield and support its health; others disrupt it. When you’re exposed to man-made EMFs, they interact with your biofield. If the external EMF is out of harmony with your own, it creates imbalances in your biofield and obstructs the flow of its intelligence. When this intelligence is interrupted, it creates imbalances in your mind/body and causes it not to function properly. Eventually diseases such as cancer can result.

www.drchristinehorner.com

As you can see, the word “electromagnetic” implies that two fields are produced and this is indeed the case. Those two fields are an electric field and a magnetic field. The electric field that is produced is measured in volts and the magnetic field is measured in a unit called Gauss. It is the flow of electricity through a wire, or conductor, that produces electromagnetic radiation. For example, when an appliance, like a hairdryer or a lamp, is plugged into an outlet but not turned on, an electric field is generated. But when current is added, by turning the hairdryer or lamp on, a magnetic field is now added. Hence, an electromagnetic field is produced.

Electromagnetic fields also be produced in a wireless manner as with a cell phone or wireless internet connection. See the discussion on “How Cell Phones Work” to learn more. Most appliances today operate on an alternating current or AC. The current is called alternating because the electricity can flow back and forth moving in both directions. Direct current or DC, on the other hand, only moves in one direction. AC current moves back and forth alternating at a cycle of 60 Hertz (Hz). Hertz is defined as one cycle per second so most of our electricty used today operates at 60 Hz. AC fields induce electric currents in objects that can conduct electricity, including humans. Remember this. It will be important later in the dicussion of health issues.

Electromagnetic radiation is often referred to by many other names. Some of those are EMR, EMFs, electromagnetic fields, radio frequency radiation, radio waves, and microwave radiation, to name a few. These terms are often used interchangeably.

Remember, too, that the human body is electrical and uses very subtle electrical currents and circuits to function normally.

What is a safe level of EMR exposure?

Robert Becker, MD, pioneered research in the area of electromagnetic exposure. He recommends the safe level at 0.3 mG (milliGauss) with 1 mG as the maximum safe level for continuous exposure. As we’ll see in further research our living and working environments often exceed these recommendations.

It’s important to realize that electromagnetic radiation does occur naturally through forces on the earth and in the atmosphere. Electrical activity is also a necessity for us to live, not only from the standpoint of convenience, but it is also a necessary part of our lifeform, our biochemistry. The human body simply could not function without the proper use of this electricity. However, electromagnetic radiation can also be very damaging and dangerous to the sames cells in our body that depend upon it to function properly.

www.cell-phone-radiation.org

YOU DON’T DESERVE BRAIN CANCER — YOU DESERVE THE FACTS

By Amy Worthington

Some people appear to have an almost pathological emotional attachment to their cell phones and there is a fascinating suggestion that cell radiation pulses might actually be addictive to the human brain.. We can’t save those who would rather die than switch. But ethics compelled us to ensure that all reasonable people have access to the basic scientific facts.

Your cell phone is a microwave transmitter and it should bear a cancer warning! Microwave energy oscillates at millions to billions of cycles per second. The Journal of Cellular Biochemistry reports that these frequencies cause cancer and other diseases by interfering with cellular DNA and its repairmechanisms. Microwave promotes rapid cell aging. Italian scientists have recently demonstrated that cell phone radiation makes cancerous cells grow aggressively. Cordless phones marked 900 megahertz or 2.4 gigahertz emit the same dangerous microwave radiation as cell phones.

The connection between microwave exposure and cancer has been documented for years. During the Cold War, the Soviets irradiated the U.S. Embassy in Moscow , Russia , with low level, twin-beam microwave radiation. Two successive ambassadors developed leukemia. Other staffers also developed cancer, or their blood showed DNA damage, which precedes cancer.

Research by University of Washington professor Dr. Henry Lai shows brain cells are clearly damaged by microwave levels far below the U.S. government’s “safety” guidelines. Dr. Lai notes that even tiny doses of radio frequency can cumulate over time and lead to harmful effects. He warns that pub! lic exposure to radiation from wireless transmitters “should be limited toæminimal.”

Motorola advises consumers to avoid pointing a cellular antenna toward exposed parts of the body. But independent tests show that cell phones can also leak huge amounts of radiation from the keypad and mouthpiece. This radiation deeply penetrates brain, ear and eye tissues, which are especially susceptible to microwave damage. Belt clip cases allow cell phones to deliver radiation to the liver or kidney areas when a wired, hands-free earpiece is used.

Recent studies confirm that cell and cordless phone microwave can:

·         Damage nerves in the scalp

·         Cause blood cells to leak hemoglobin

·         Cause memory loss and mental confusion

·         Cause headaches and induce extreme fatigue

·         Create joint pain, muscle spasms and tremors

·         Create burning sensation and rash on the skin

·         Alter the brain’s electrical activity during sleep

·         Induce ringing ! in the ears, impair sense of smell

·         Precipitate cataracts, retina damage and eye cancer

·         Open the blood-brain barrier to viruses and toxins

·         Reduce the number and efficiency of white blood cells

·         Stimulate asthma by producing histamine in mast cells

·         Cause digestive problems and raise bad cholesterol levels

·         Stress the endocrine system, especially pancreas, thyroid, ovaries, testes

In 1993, the telecom industry committed $25 million dollars for a series of research projects designed to prove that cell phones are safe. The studies proved just the opposite! They proved that federal microwave exposure standards are dangerously inadequate. Cell damage and tumors can be easily induced in the lab at about one third of the FCC’s exposure guidelines.

The telecom boys panicked. They and their lackey politicians and federal regulators decided the only lucrative thing to do was to LIE and DENY. Despite damning evidence, the FDAstill prevaricates: “There is no reason to conclude that there are health risks posed by cell phones to consumers.” Meantime, the telecom industry has been pressing to INCREASE BY MORE THAN 10 TIMES the allowable human exposure to cell phone radiation!

Luckily, Dr. George Carlo headed up the industry’s study project. He presents the shocking facts in his book, Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age: An Insider’s Alarming Discoveries About Cancer and Genetic Damage (Carroll and Graf, 2001). A summary of Dr. Carlo’s book is this: Cell phones are hot, adequate protective regulations are naught, and Americans are being “fried” so that the deceitful telecom industry can rake it in! It’s dirty business as usual, and the longer the industry can con the public, the more billions it collects.

On June 16, 2002 , CBS aired a Sixty Minutes segment which confirmed the telecom industry is about as grungy as it gets. CBS producers accused major phone service providers of cheating, scamming, forging signatures, switching phone service without permission and lying about charges. The attorney general of Connecticut stated that despite millions of dollars in fines each year, these companies remain incorrigible. Should we be trusting this industry with our brain tissues and our very lives?

Microwave to the head is extremely hazardous to children. Parents in some European nations are now warned to keep children away from cell phones. A University of Utah researcher found the younger the child, the more radiation is absorbed by the brain. Spanish researchers have shown that cell phones can alter electrical activity of a child’s brain for hours, causing drastic mood changes and possible behavior and learning disabilities. Scientists fear that cell phone radiation could damage human embryos. Pregnant women are advised to be wary.

A cell phone must greatly increase its field strength to maintain communications within the metallic cage of an auto. Thus, the effect of microwave radiation inside a vehicle is especially intense. Volkswagen of Europe has warned that cell phone usage inside a car can be “injurious to health due to the extremely high electromagnetic fields generated.”

Insurance studies in England showed that an average driver talking on a cell is actually more impaired in function and reaction time than a drunk. Finland ‘s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority reports that one hour of exposure to mobile phone radiation can cause human cells to shrink. Researchers believe this is due to increased protein activity, an indicator of cell damage. What an unstable world needs now is a global population afflicted with incredible shrinking brains!

Brain cancer rates in USA have increased by 25% since 1975. In 2001, 185,000 Americans were diagnosed with some form of brain cancer. A grade four brain tumor can grow from the size of a grape to tennis ball size in just 4 months. Brain tumors are almost always fatal and most people die within 6-12 months after diagnosis. On April 7, 2002 , Sixty Minutes aired a fascinating report on brain cancer, explaining that scientists are unsure why incidence of the disease is growing so exponentially.

Ironically, the segment was followed by a Sprint ad, which advised parents that the best way to keep track of teenagers is to connect them to a cell phone. While researchers say that radical damage to the brain can occur within the first few minutes of conversation, telecom ads encourage customers to spend many hours on the phone each month. Those blazing, full-page cell phone ads in newspapers and magazines must be the reason cell phone dangers are almost never discussed in the mainstream media.

An excellent resource tool is Robert Kane’s book Cellular Telephone Russian Roulette (Vantage Press, 2001). As a telecommunications expert, Kane presents an impressive collection of studies showing that both government agencies and cell phone manufacturers KNEW YEARS AGO that cell phone radiation at present exposure levels is dangerous to human health. He notes that cell phones would be rendered useless if their RF emissions were reduced to safe levels.

Reports of illness from heavy cell phone usage and from living or working close to powerful RF transmitters are synchronous with numerous cancer-related lawsuits now being filed against the cell phone industry. The insurance industry sees big trouble ahead. Underwriters for Lloyd’s of London refuse to insure phone manufacturers against damage to users’ health. Cell phones are today what tobacco was 40 years ago.

Excellent web sites offering up-to-date scientific data on microwave and other radiation issues are:

www.energyfields.org www.microwavenews.com www.emrnetwork.org

www.wave-guide.org

Powerful microwave energy directed at homes, offices and schools can flow right through windows and walls. Microwave meters and mitigation devices are available at:

lessemf@lessemf.com www.trifield.com

A specialized RF meter (in the $300 range) is useful for avoiding some environmental exposure and for keeping the interior of your home safe. Turn your microwave meter on when you drive. You will discover that from coast to coast, Americans are being bombarded with communications radiation in the microwave spectrum, just like those lucky embassy workers in Moscow who ended up so very sick. USA is having a real “blast” so to speak! And it is going to get worse as wireless technologies broaden.

By Amy Worthington (observer@coldreams.com) 1/20/03

What’s More Important – Your Cell Phone or Your Brain?

By Enrico Grani (with Paul Doyon)

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
My name is Enrico Grani and I presently live in Australia. I used cell phones for ten-plus years extensively on-and-off, and because of this I developed a brain tumor!

In 2007, about one week before my birthday, I was diagnosed with a 3 cm by 4 cm brain tumor. I had a stroke (my first one) the previous year in late November 2006. An MRI examination revealed a brain tumor in the area of my brain next to my ear where I always used my cell phone — in the exact position where the cell phone’s antenna was located.

My goal here is to try to make you and your loved ones aware of the extreme dangers posed by these microwave-emitting devices. Please read about my experience carefully and thoroughly, and please do not make the same mistakes that I have made.

Rationalizations Won’t Save You

My father told me constantly that cell phones were very dangerous and that I would get a brain tumor. We actually had many big arguments because of my cell phone use. I would say “Yeah, Yeah, Papa, what do you know about cell phones anyway?” It went in one ear and out the other.

I rationalized that I needed this cell phone for my business. What I didn’t understand was the terrible price I would pay. I thought that if I exercised and ate healthy food, that I would be able to reverse the negative effects — if there were any at all! After all, we were ALL told that cell phones posed no risk to our health. Remember?

I was very wrong. Cell phones are much more dangerous than anyone can possibly imagine. By just owning one of these devices, you are paying the cell-phone industry — you are giving them the power to destroy your life — and to make an increasing number of people sick. To think that I have paid the cell-phone industry thousands of dollars over the years to get a brain tumor (which has completely destroyed my life) sickens me.

I would gladly trade in all my money (which isn’t much now) and every single material possession I have for the chance to have my brain function restored. I was foolish!

Please don’t make the same mistake. Your brain is much more precious than the device called a cell phone. If you don’t believe this after reading this completely then there is no hope for you, and you will find out the hard way just like I have.

There’s No Customer Service When You’re Dying

Remember one thing, when you get a brain tumor from cell-phone use and you nearly die as a result, ring up the cell-phone shop and you will see how quickly they hang up on you.

All the smiles you remember in the shop — going through all the models with the sales people — are gone, and now you are totally alone in a world of pain, torment, and humiliation.

“Brain Tumor Day”

After I had my first stroke, my left arm became paralyzed and I now have severe cognitive difficulties, and problems with fine-motor movement in my hand. The brain tumor was situated in the right parietal lobe — exactly in the position where I used the cell phone.

I was diagnosed one week before my 40th birthday with a meningioma brain tumor. I was so shocked my legs went weak. This was a birthday present that I will never forget — ever! My birthday will always be remembered as “Brain Tumor Day.” I can no longer work as I am disabled, but this does not mean that I cannot make you aware, so that you or your loved ones never endure my fate.

All I can do now with my life is to try and increase awareness of this serious problem.

Nothing Left to Do But Spread the Word

Thanks to the help of some good friends, scientists, epidemiologists, and a few doctors, I have been able to learn so much about the severe dangers posed by cell phones, cell-phone base stations, and the increasing levels of ambient electromagnetic radiation (EMR) permeating our living environments.

If we don’t do something about this now, I believe firmly, as do many renowned scientists, that this is posing a severe threat to all life on this planet.

There is growing evidence that the drastic disappearance of frogs, insects, and birds — and now food production — is connected to the growing microwave radiation permeating our environment. What I am trying to say here is that we are seriously looking at extinction as a species if something isn’t done soon — if people continue to remain complacent and in denial about this problem because of another related problem — the selfishness, greed, and stupidity infecting our way of life.

If we remain ignorant and uneducated about the seriousness of this situation, then many people, children, animals, and all life forms will gradually become sick and die. It has already started to happen!

Who Do You Trust?

I now sincerely wish that I had seriously listened to my father — but I was really stupid. Now that I know what I know, I know that I have made a big mistake in trusting the cell-phone industry and my government to protect me against this danger.

After all, everyone was using them and they seemed OK. If I had had a better understanding of two things — (1) the effects of electromagnetic radiation, and (2) the blatant irresponsibility of a government bought and paid for by an industry blinded by senseless greed — I would never have encountered this sad fate.

Being disabled is very hard for me to deal with, as it complicates every aspect of what is left of my life. However, knowing now that my disability could have been prevented, knowing now that numerous scientific studies years ago had already shown cell-phone radiation causes DNA damage and brain tumor development, knowing now that these scientific studies were completely ignored because of industry greed many years ago prior to my tumor, and knowing now that it could have been prevented, is even harder for me to deal with emotionally.

Now I want to tell you all that I firmly believe that cell-phone use was the cause of my brain tumor. And I pray you don’t think that you are the lucky, untouchable one!

I pray that you don’t think you are immune to this either! Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) does not discriminate. If you use a cell phone, the chances of you also getting a brain tumor, not to mention all kinds of other serious health problems, are extremely high.

My goal here is not to scare you, but rather to give you the cold hard facts — facts that you may not know about and facts that you need to be aware of.

Brain Tumors are On the Rise

In the past few years there has been a drastic increase in the number of people getting brain tumors (not to mention other cancers and disease states like Autism, ADHD, CFIDS and so on). Brain tumors are now the number-one cause of death in children in Australia and the United States (and I imagine many other countries also).

It is now being predicted by epidemiologists that within the next ten years we will see at least a 1,000 percent increase in this disease state. A major brain-tumor epidemic is just around the corner. It saddens my heart to watch all the children with their cell phones glued to their ears; they have no idea what they are in for in years to come. This should not be happening, but it is and it is a serious crime against humanity being committed by humanity itself. I seriously believe this now!

My life has been completely destroyed. I have seizures nearly all the time now and it is extremely painful to experience these; it feels as if I am being electrocuted over and over again, with the flesh peeling off my bones. It took me over two months to learn how to walk again. However, I am a fighter and I always will be!

Systemic Genocide Against Humanity

I have always tried to take good care of my health and I was always very conscious of the importance of my body and mental strength, as I am quite a fitness buff. I just wasn’t aware how seriously dangerous cell phones actually were. I really just wanted to quickly recover after having the tumor removed from my brain and I was exercising, lifting weights, and leg pressing twice my body weight, as soon as I could walk again. I just wanted my health back, and to be able to work again and regain the lifestyle I once had!

However, having said that, I am still suffering drastically because of this. What the phone companies did to me with their lies and their greed is a crime that should never have been allowed to happen.

What will happen to an increasing number of people can only be considered as “Systematic Genocide Against Humanity.”

I know it and many other people know it too. Unfortunately, not enough people want to believe it — until of course something like this happens to them. It is as if they are drug-addict zombies in a trance — addicted to their cell phones. The only difference here being is that the cell phone is the new “Electromagnetic Drug.” This is what the cell-phone industry wants and has seemingly planned and now totally achieved.

The First Hit is Free

Why would a cell-phone company make you sign a contract and then give you “free” minutes? Sounds to me like what a “drug pusher” would do.

As the saying goes “nothing is for nothing.” Free minutes “equals” more time on the cell phone, “equals” addiction, “equals” a brain tumor, cancer, disability, allergies, feeling unwell, plus once you are addicted your “free minutes” are quickly all used up and then you will pay even more to your cell-phone company.

The cell-phone companies are killing us and no one seems to have a clue about what is really going on — or they are so addicted to their cell phones that most don’t seem to care.

No one can deny that cell phones caused my brain tumor, except perhaps the unethical liars bought and paid for by the cell-phone industry. No matter how much proof you submit, they will deny it to no end, backed by their highly paid unethical lawyers, who have no soul! It’s totally disgusting. These people have sold their souls for money and gold, at the expense of the health of people worldwide!

It is time for me to go public with this and I suggest that if you (or someone that you know) are in the same or a similar situation that you go public as well. I am not scared of the cell-phone industry because I have a soul filled with love for humanity. They have no soul at all, or they would not be doing this to us!

Placing cell-phone towers next to people’s homes and nearby children’s schools, and selling cell phones to young children when it is a known fact that a child’s skull is thinner than an adult’s, and a child’s brain is not fully developed and is damaged greatly by cell phone use, is completely unethical and irresponsible.

The cell-phone industry, while completely aware of these facts, still — blinded by greed, it seems — engage in this ironically legal “Crime Against Humanity.” I really don’t care if they try to kill me, harass me, or whatever else they may try to do to me. Sure, they have so much money, and I have none. So what? At least I am a human being with dignity and a conscience — and that is much more than I can say about them.

I was in a coma for three days, I had three strokes, and I had a good portion of by brain cut out of my head. What more needs to be said? How could I possibly be scared of them?

My life is garbage and I know many other people that have been seriously affected from all walks of life. Once a person has cheated death as many times as I have, then one no longer holds any fear of anyone or anything. I just want to get this story out to the public and hopefully from reading about my experience some people’s lives can be spared from fates similar to mine. My only goal in life right now is to save life through educating people about my experience.

Mass Media Avoids the Truth Like the Plague

I have approached many TV stations here in Australia and none of them have wanted to touch my story. It seems to me that they are also bought and paid for by the cell-phone industry. This is not hard to believe either.

How many people must die before this situation with the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is taken seriously in my country and given the worldwide coverage that it deserves? I suppose many people are fearful of losing their jobs by speaking out. All I can say to these people is that when they are in a wheel chair and can no longer work it’s “You had the chance to speak out but chose to remain silent.”

Should it be Considered Premeditated Murder?

It really makes me extremely angry because it is the children, with their lives still ahead of them, who are going to suffer the most because of this. The children’s brains and immune systems are still in a process of development. The cell-phone industry, fully ignoring this fact, manipulates children into purchasing a cell phone by using Mickey Mouse designs on the phones to get the child’s attention.

All I can say is that this is “premeditated murder.” What else can it be called when they are fully aware from all the data, facts, and studies (except the ones they have manipulated) by an army of ethical scientists and researchers out there saying that these things are dangerous!

You May be Affected But Attribute it to Other Things

This microwave radiation is destroying people’s lives and most people do not even realize this because it seems that they are attributing their symptoms to other things.

It is difficult for people to realize that something they can’t sense with their senses — see, touch, taste, smell, or hear — is harmful, and most don’t even imagine that this is indeed the cause of their symptoms.

Not even the doctors are aware of the problem it seems, and if they are, most are keeping their mouths shut (for fear of losing their jobs). The cell phone companies are making staggering amounts of money, the pharmaceutical companies are making money, and doctors and hospitals are making money. And as long as they are all making money, it seems as if everyone is happy — until of course they also get sick!

I spent approximately $4,000 AUS dollars on my cell-phone bills in 1996. I still can’t believe that I gave those Criminals all that money and I don’t expect that they will ever pay me back any of it either.

In the initial stages of having a cell phone I started to notice a burning sensation above the ear (where the tumor was diagnosed), but at the time I didn’t give it much thought, like many of you out there I presume.

However, come to think of it, there were a few times when I had to end the phone call because the pain was unbearable and I would have to call the person back later after the pain had subsided. I would also get these chronic headaches and pain in my eyes, but then again, I just attributed this to the pressures of the work. I even started to lose my memory and get lost while driving, which is strange since before that I always had a decent sense of direction.

All these symptoms started with the business and the cell phone usage. I finally left that business after 17 months on the job.

I went to see about five doctors over a period of years because of the headaches. Not one of them told me to stop using my cell phone. They all just diagnosed me with having tension headaches and prescribed Panadol or Aspirin or some other drug, which I usually did not take since I never trusted pharmaceuticals. Had just one of these doctors ordered a MRI brain scan, or a CT brain scan, I probably would not be so disabled today. If my brain tumor had been diagnosed earlier, I most likely would be working now and enjoying life.

Conventional Medicine is Still Clueless About the Dangers of EMR

The brain rehabilitation team was utterly astounded with my progress after my brain tumor was removed. However, they seemed to be completely clueless about the dangers of EMR and often would take their cell phone calls directly in the immediate vicinity of my head. They really should be aware that one should not put one of these microwave-emitting devices next to one’s head and especially not close to the head of someone who has just had a brain tumor removed.

However, like most people out there they are completely and utterly clueless regarding the dangers posed by this EMR weapon. It’s a complete irony and utter contradiction, but the people in the medical profession — the people who are supposed to be helping us — do not have any clue about the harmful effects of EMR on living organisms.

Hopefully, in the future — if we have one — this will change! At this point, people really have to do the research on EMR themselves. I have personally had to do my own research regarding EMR and my condition. Doctors are just too happy to prescribe drugs without really thinking too deeply about the underlying causes.

Now, my only mission in life is to make people aware of the dangers posed by this wireless technology. What else can I do? I just hope people are smart enough to listen. My only desire is for people to have life — not death!

To my father: I am sorry Papa that I failed you by not listening to you. Papa you were right just as usual, and I paid the price for not listening to your words of wisdom as usual. The only thing is, this time I cannot correct my mistake. I am disabled for life. Sorry Papa, please forgive me for my stupidity.

To read more about my experience, please visit the website below, where my experience since being diagnosed with a brain tumor has been documented.

Cell Phone Health Effects

by Will Thomas

Though intended for renovations, Chris Anderson would like all visitors to deposit their cellular phones in the cement mixer by his front door. This sounds excessive – until you step into Anderson’s orchard, where the pegged needle of a shrieking electromagnetic radiation (EMR) meter placed beside a connected cellphone still shows significant exposure 100 feet away.

Much to the chagrin of this certified EMR-mitigation specialist, every day some 300 million cell phone users are “reaching out and touching someone you love. Yourself, and anyone else within range of the microwaves emitted by your cell phone.”

Mesmerized by magical gadgets, we have yet to count the costs of miniature radio transmitters that are transforming Marconi’s invention into new possibilities for portable personal pollution. As entire nations reach for pocket communicators, the explosively emergent $40 billion a year cell phone industry is poised to deliver a “Wireless Revolution” that over the next five years is expected to double the one-billion people connected by telephone lines over the past century.

Silicon sensors are already calling to each other. Soon, countless communicating microchips embedded in everything from bumpers to brooms will be sending streams of encoded electrical energy through glass, steel, concrete, bone and flesh.

Exquisitely sensitive to subtle electromagnetic harmonies, human brains and bodies as intricate as galaxies depend on tiny electrical impulses to conduct complex life-processes – including the ability to read, recall and respond to these words. Acting as antennas, our anatomies just as easily tune into spurious signals from radio and microwave transmissions. Blake Levitt, author of Electromagnetic Fields, says that when it comes to cellphones, “a worse frequency could not have been chosen for the human anatomy.”

As cell phones conquer consumer minds and markets, researcher Carolanne Patton notes that “the brain reaches peak absorption in the UHF bands, right where cellular telecommunications operate.” British military scientists have discovered that cellphone transmissions disrupt the brain sites for memory and learning, causing forgetfulness and sudden confusion.

Other studies show that electromagnetic signals from cellular phones reduce the ability to concentrate, calculate and coordinate complicated activities such as driving a car. Startled by $4 billion a year in extra claims among cellphone-wielding drivers, North American insurers did a double-take that found simply juggling ‘cell phones is not causing a 600% increase in accidents over other drivers busy shaving, applying makeup, tuning radios, taming pets, making out, pouring coffee, retrieving dropped cigarettes, talking and gesturing to passengers, or actually steering the vehicle.

Instead of just another dangerous distraction, tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy found that using a cell phone severely impairs memory and reaction times. “Hands-free” mobile speaker-phones cause even more crashes because they typically emit 10-times more brainwave interference than handheld units.

For all drivers dialing outon their cell phones, University of Toronto investigators report that the heightened probability of cracking up your car persists for up to 15-minutes after completing a call.

That’s comparable to the risk of crashing while driving dead drunk exclaims Dr. Chris Runball, chairman of the B.C. Medical Association’s emergency medical services committee. Reeling from “dial-a-collision” costs, the government of British Columbia may join England, Spain, Israel, Switzerland and Brazil in restricting or banning the use of cell phones by drivers.

In New Zealand, cellphone towers are prohibited on school property because of possible health effects. But Health Canada regulations ignore the hidden hazards of cell-wrenching cellphones, which send pulsed signals through the skull in a process one expert likens to “jackhammers on the brain.”

“Safety Code 6” looks only at microwaves burning skin. “Basically, Health Canada claims if it can’t cook you, it can’t hurt you,” says Walter McGinnis. “It’s like saying cigarettes aren’t dangerous unless they burn you.”

One of a handful of licensed electricians who understand electromagnetic fields well enough to eliminate them from household wiring, McGinnis has been testing EMFs and collaborating with fellow testers and researchers for nearly a decade. In Victoria, where he has helped residents defeat six cellphone towers, there was dancing in the streets after Microcell Connexions withdrew its application to erect a microwave transmission tower against the Wishart Elementary School fence in the spring of 1998.

Microcell spokesman Colin McCrae points out that emissions from the company’s towers carry about the same energy as a 50-watt lightbulb – well within federal guidelines.
This is hardly reassuring, retorts the former president of the Wisehart parents advisory council. Tania Berenuik observes that Health Canada “also told us thalidomide, asbestos and the blood supply were safe.”

Carrying similar risks of long-term lethality, and strangely just as legal, cellphone addiction mirrors the prestigious early allure of smoking – as well as an immensely profitable industry’s steadfast denial of risk and responsibility. As poisonous as cigarette smoke and even harder to corral, the cellphone’s “second-hand” microwave and radio-frequency (RF) pollution pose invisible but significant risks to bystanders – particularly children riding in cars that transmit amplified cellphone signals through their steel structure. Reporting the conclusions of a 12-person British study team, scientist Sir William Stewart told London’s Financial Times that “children may be more vulnerable because of their developing nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head and a longer lifetime of exposure.”

Roger Coghill became a long-standing advocate for health warnings to be affixed to cell phones after this biologist found that cellphone transmissions damage the ability of white blood cells to ward off infectious disease by disrupting the immune system’s electromagnetic communications.

Dr. Neil Cherry has measured accelerated aging, increased cell death and cancers caused by radio frequency microwaves from cellphones and their relay towers. With the brain’s electro-chemical communications repeatedly zapped by lightning-like cellphone pulses, this Ph.D. biophysicist warns that headaches, fatigue, lethargy, nausea, dizziness, depression, arteriosclerosis and even Alzheimer’s can result from frequent or prolonged calls on cell phones.

“There is also a higher incidence of cardiac problems,” Cherry comments, “in terms of the timing function in hearts. You get more heart attacks and more heart disease – it has now been shown in many studies.”

The biophysicist from Lincoln University in Christ Church, New Zealand has also found that cell phones can murderously modify moods. In brains and bodies seriously derailed by tiny imbalances in trace minerals and hormones, depression, suicide, anger, rage and violence can result when calcium and serotonin levels are disrupted by cellphone transmissions.

In 1995, Cell phone sales in North America exceeded the birth rate. Hired by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association to condone cellphones, public health scientist George Carlo found that rare tumors on the outside of the brain are more than doubled among cell phone callers – particularly on the right side of the head where ‘phones are usually held. Carlo told ABC’s “20/20” that cell phone causes genetic damage that leads to cancer.

Warning of “the potential for a global health disaster,” ABC recommended “prudent avoidance” of cellphones after finding that every cellphone they lab-tested exceeded the Federal Communication Commission’s standards for EMF absorption rates. EMF researcher Dave Ashton cautioned 20/20 viewers that because cellphones constantly search for the nearest repeating tower, “long-term damage comes from cell phones in the stand-by mode.” Cell phone “shields” and headsets “cannot adequately address these problems,” Ashton added.

Dr. Carlo later told London’s Express newspaper that cellphones cause genetic damage following a dose-response curve. That is, the more a person uses a cell phone, the more cellular destruction and health risks they incur. Cellphone-confused cells can go crazy, Carlo cautioned. Experiments on captive animals show that this cumulative DNA damage is passed on to succeeding generations.

Addicted as we are to a culture of convenience, we forget how inconvenient it is to contract cancer. An Adelaide Hospital study confirmed Carlo’s conclusions after finding B-cell lymphomas doubled in mice within 18 months of one-hour daily exposure to power densities experienced by a cellphone user. B-cell lymphomas are implicated in 85% of all cancers.

READY OR NOT

As magazine-size “cellular” relay antennas hidden in church steeples and rooflines keep popping up just about everywhere, more and more communities are declaring their airspace a “No Fry Zone”. But in Canada, where cell phone towers come under federal jurisdiction, municipalities are only “advisers’ to a process in which no permits are required to erect transmitter towers deemed necessary for “national security.” Cellphones do save a lot of lives. FCC Chairman William Kennard reports that every day more than 98,000 people make 911 calls from wireless cell phones.

Many more lives are involuntarily imperiled by non-emergency calls. Pat Irwin was working in a Colwood health food store when she noticed a truck unloading metal framework. The next morning, a new cellphone tower was ready to add its emissions to another BC Tel tower already operating down the street. There had been no announcement, no public hearings – just a quiet notification to the municipality that a tower was going up, literally overnight.

The intruder radiated for a month when Irwin felt her immunity dropping. She wondered if other changes in her energy and menstrual cycle were “not from the moon or something that I ate.”

Irwin also seemed more irritable after her central nervous switchboard began receiving round-the-clock cellphone calls. With cellular relay towers in Kansas and Oklahoma being shut down because they interfered with passing aircraft, Irwin sensed how the same transmissions plucked her own electrical circuitry, inflicting a “chronic edginess” that “twangs human nerves.” Sleep disorders, she learned, are common among people exposed to high levels of electromagnetic pollution.

After several other women in the same business centre reported similar symptoms, Irwin quit her job. “I saw it as something that was there to stay and I’d be daily exposed to it over a long period of time,” she told Alive. “All this stuff is what we’re playing with on a daily basis, and we don’t know the long-term health effects.”

Implying recognized hazard, cell phone companies such as B.C.’s FIDO insist that the new digital phones operating at 1/50 the power of older analog models are safer. But there is nothing “safe” about the new 1.9 gigahertz broadcasting frequency. Much like a boxer taking repeated blows to the head, rapidly pulsing cellphones signal permanent brain damage. A study by Dr. Peter Franch found unequivocally that “cells are permanently damaged by cellular phone frequencies.” This cellular damage, Franch noted, is maximized at low dosage – and “inherited unchanged, from generation to generation.”

Attempting to explain a 25% increase in asthma and a 5% increase in asthma-related death rates throughout rapidly “mobilizing” metropolitan Sydney, Franch found that the production of histamine, which triggers bronchial spasms, is nearly doubled after exposure to mobile phone transmissions. Cellphones also reduce the effectiveness of anti-asthmatic drugs, and retard recovery from illness.

Katharina Gustavss, a certified Building Biology consultant with 25 years experience, explains that CDMA’s 217 Hz spikes are very close to the frequencies of human cell membranes. Gustavss accompanied a Microcell technician to the Colwood microwave relay tower Irwin and others had complained about. When he waved a spectrum analyzer, Gustavss checked the display and saw “pretty scary” energy spikes.

“What’s that?” she asked the tech.

“I’ve never seen that before,” he told her. It turned out that this cellphone tower tester only set his meter to an averaging mode. Switching to “real time” froze the readings at “scary” maximum output levels.

How dangerous are cellphones? “The risk is extremely high,” declares Dr. Cherry. “There are 66 epidemiological studies showing that electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum increase brain tumors in human populations. Two of those studies are for particular brain tumors from cell phones.”

Cherry says that because cancer takes decades to develop, it will be another 10 or 20 years before “mobiles” manifest a big bonanza in brain tumors. But he adds, we’re already seeing “acute effects that are noticed within minutes of using a cellphone.”

After two minutes’ conversation, a cellphone’s digitized impulses disable the safety barrier that isolates the brain from destructive proteins and poisons in the blood. Professor Leif Salford, the neurologist who carried out the research for this finding, informed the Daily Mail: “It seems that molecules such as proteins and toxins can pass out of the blood, while the phone is switched on, and enter the brain. We need to bear in mind diseases such as MS and Alzheimer’s which are linked to proteins being found in the brain.”

DANCING WITH THE TELECOMONSTER

If you must pack a cell phone, treat it like a loaded pistol. Keep it turned off. Don’t carry it near ovaries, testicles, or the heart. For partial protection, buy an antenna shield. Limit calls to one-minute, six to 10 minutes a month. Never fire off a cellphone with children anywhere in sight.

A better bet is to facilitate the growth of organic telephone networks with lots of fibre. Instead of more microwave towers, “We should be wiring up our cities with fibre-optic cables to provide Internet, fax, telephone, radio and television at very high quality,” Cherry urges, “rather than saturating our cities with the microwave, radiowave and low frequency signals all the time.”

When it comes to cells, consciousness and cell phones, every call is collect. How can convenience count more than cancer? What is gained by being in constant contact with disembodied voices, while being “out of touch” with the friends and neighbours around us? Are we comfortable having our location traced by monitoring authorities?

Unless we start voting with our wallets, consumer complacency could prove as species-limiting as corporate cynicism. “Microwave frequencies are the same as those used in radar and your microwave oven,” says Florida cellphone tower opponent Joe Chwick. “You wouldn’t think of sticking your head in the oven, but there is no hesitation to putting the cell phone to your ear.”

Having somehow survived three-million years of evolution without them, many contemporary hominids claim they cannot live without them. But can exquisitely sensitive electromagnetic beings live with cell phones – and the cell phone towers their signals ride in on? Like polyethylene food and water containers, plastic cookers and coffee-makers, microwave ovens and petroleum-powered vehicles, cellphones could be one of those brilliantly beguiling inventions we have to let go. Would hanging up on such an intrusive and hazardous addiction be so terrible?

On Jan. 1, 2001 I cancelled my cellphone service…