Article on electrosmog

[Guest guest]

Is 'electrosmog' harming our health?

By Segell for Prevention Magazine [Comments in

brackets are Shivani's.]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34509513/ns/health-cancer

updated 12:35 p.m. ET Jan. 18, 2010

In 1990, the city of La Quinta, CA, proudly opened the doors of its

sparkling new middle school. Gayle Cohen, then a sixth-grade teacher, recalls

the

sense of excitement everyone felt: " We had been in temporary facilities for 2

years, and the change was exhilarating. "

But the glow soon dimmed.

One teacher developed vague symptoms - weakness, dizziness - and didn't

return after the Christmas break. A couple of years later, another developed

cancer and died; the teacher who took over his classroom was later diagnosed

with throat cancer. More instructors continued to fall ill, and then, in

2003, on her 50th birthday, Cohen received her own bad news: breast cancer.

" That's when I sat down with another teacher, and we remarked on all the

cancers we'd seen, " she says. " We immediately thought of a dozen colleagues

who had either gotten sick or passed away. "

By 2005, 16 staffers among the 137 who'd worked at the new school had been

diagnosed with 18 cancers, a ratio nearly 3 times the expected number. Nor

were the children spared: About a dozen cancers have been detected so far

among former students. A couple of them have died.

Prior to undergoing her first chemotherapy treatment, Cohen approached the

school principal, who eventually went to district officials for an

investigation. A local newspaper article about the possible disease cluster

caught

the attention of Sam Milham, MD, a widely traveled epidemiologist who has

investigated hundreds of environmental and occupational illnesses and published

dozens of peer-reviewed papers on his findings. For the past 30 years, he

has trained much of his focus on the potential hazards of electromagnetic

fields (EMFs) - the radiation that surrounds all electrical appliances and

devices, power lines, and home wiring and is emitted by communications devices,

including cell phones and radio, TV, and WiFi transmitters.

His work has led him, along with an increasingly alarmed army of

international scientists, to a controversial conclusion: The " electrosmog " that

first

began developing with the rollout of the electrical grid a century ago and

now envelops every inhabitant of Earth is responsible for many of the

diseases that impair - or kill - us.

Milham was especially interested in measuring the ambient levels of a

particular kind of EMF, a relatively new suspected carcinogen known as

high-frequency voltage transients, or " dirty electricity. " Transients are

largely

by-products of modern energy-efficient electronics and appliances - from

computers, refrigerators, and plasma TVs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and

dimmer switches - which tamp down the electricity they use. This manipulation of

current creates a wildly fluctuating and potentially dangerous

electromagnetic field that not only radiates into the immediate environment but

also can

back up along home or office wiring all the way to the utility, infecting

every energy customer in between.

With Cohen's help, Milham entered the school after hours one day to take

readings. Astonishingly, in some classrooms he found the surges of transient

pollution exceeded his meter's ability to gauge them. His preliminary

findings prompted the teachers to file a complaint with the Occupational Safety

and

Health Administration, which in turn ordered a full investigation by the

California Department of Health Care Services. [The school did not cooperate

with Milham, a world-class epidemiologist offering to investigate, pro bono,

their cancer cluster. They tried to keep him from doing it.]

The final analysis, reported by Milham and his colleague, L. Lloyd ,

in 2008 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine: Cumulative exposure

to transients in the school increased the likelihood a teacher would develop

cancer by 64%. A single year of working in the building raised risk by 21%.

The teachers' chances of developing melanoma, thyroid cancer, and uterine

cancer were particularly high, as great as 13 times the average. Although not

included in the tabulations, the risks for young students were probably

even greater.

" In the decades-long debate about whether EMFs are harmful, " says Milham,

" it looks like transients could be the smoking gun. "

The case against EMFs

Cancer and electricity

Could a disease whose cause has long eluded scientists be linked to perhaps

the greatest practical discovery of the modern era? For 50 years,

researchers who have tried to tie one to the other have been routinely dismissed

by a

variety of skeptics, from congressional investigators to powerful interest

groups - most prominently electric utilities, cell phone manufacturers, and

WiFi providers, which have repeatedly cited their own data showing the

linkage to be " weak and inconsistent. "

Recently, however, in addition to the stunning new investigations into

dirty electricity (which we'll return to), several developments have highlighted

the growing hazards of EMF pollution - and the crucial need to address

them.

The evidence showing harm is overwhelming

In 2007, the Bioinitiative Working Group, an international collaboration of

prestigious scientists and public health policy experts from the United

States, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and China, released a 650-page report citing

more than 2,000 studies (many very recent) that detail the toxic effects of

EMFs from all sources. Chronic exposure to even low-level radiation (like

that from cell phones), the scientists concluded, can cause a variety of

cancers, impair immunity, and contribute to Alzheimer's disease and dementia,

heart disease, and many other ailments. " We now have a critical mass of

evidence, and it gets stronger every day, " says Carpenter, MD, director of

the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany and

coauthor of the public-health chapters of the Bioinitiative report.

Fears about the hazards of cell phones seem justified

" Every single study of brain tumors that looks at 10 or more years of use

shows an increased risk of brain cancer, " says Sage, MA, coeditor of

the report. A recent study from Sweden is particularly frightening, suggesting

that if you started using a cell phone as a teen, you have a 5 times

greater risk of brain cancer than those who started as an adult. The risk rises

even more for people who use the phone on only one side of the head. While

defenders of cell phone safety claim no scientist can explain why EMFs may be

harmful in humans, a body of reliable and consistent animal research shows

that electromagnetic fields, equal to those generated by mobile phones, open

the blood-brain barrier, causing blood vessels to leak fluid into the brain

and damage neurons. Ironically, that research (by renowned Swedish

neuro-oncologist Leif G. Salford, MD, PhD) began with the goal of finding a way

to

deliver chemotherapy to brain tumors. [To this day, the mechanism by which

tobacco smoke causes cancer is not known. The mechanism/s need not be known to

know there is harm and take appropriate action. However, in fact several

mechanisms are known. In addition to four more besides the effect on blood

brain barrier mentioned above, please see info. below, following this

article. -Shivani]

Other countries are revising exposure standards

Members of the European Union, which has led the way on EMF investigations,

are moving quickly to protect their citizens, particularly children and

pregnant women. In the past 2 years alone, France, Germany, and England have

dismantled wireless networks in schools and public libraries, and other

countries are pressing to follow suit. Israel has banned the placement of

cellular

antennae on residences, and Russian officials have advised against cell

phone use for children under 18.

Electrical hypersensitivity (EHS) is becoming more widespread

Symptoms of EHS, a recently identified condition, include fatigue, facial

irritation (resembling rosacea), tinnitus, dizziness, and digestive

disturbances, which occur after exposure to visual display units, mobile phones,

WiFi

equipment, and commonplace appliances. Experts say up to 3% of all people

are clinically hypersensitive, as many as one-third of us to a lesser degree.

Electrical pollution is increasing dramatically

" For the first time in our evolutionary history, we have generated an

entire secondary, virtual, densely complex environment - an electromagnetic soup

- that essentially overlaps the human nervous system, " says

Persinger, PhD, a neuroscientist at tian University who has studied the

effects of EMFs on cancer cells. And it appears that, more than a century after

Edison switched on his first lightbulb, the health consequences of that

continual overlap are just now beginning to be documented.

A history of harmful effects

Until Edison's harnessing of electricity, humans' only sources of EMF

exposure were the earth's static magnetic field (which causes a compass needle

to

point north) and cosmic rays from the sun and outer space; over our long

evolution, we've adapted to solar EMFs by developing protective pigment. " But

we have no protection against other EMF frequencies, " says Marino,

PhD, JD, a pioneer in bioelectromagnetics who has done extensive EMF research

and a professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the Louisiana

State Health Sciences Center. " How quickly can we adapt our biology to these

new exposures? It's the most important environmental health question - and

problem - of the 21st century. "

Research into the hazards of EMFs has been extensive, controversial - and,

at least at the outset, animated by political intrigue. A sampling:

The Russians first noticed during World War II that radar operators (radar

operates using radio frequency waves) often came down with symptoms we now

attribute to electrical hypersensitivity syndrome. In the 1960s, during the

height of the Cold War, they secretly bombarded the US embassy in Moscow with

microwave radiation (a higher-frequency RF used to transmit wireless

signals), sickening American employees. Radio wave sickness - also called

microwave sickness - is now a commonly accepted diagnosis.

When television (also radio wave) was introduced in Australia in 1956,

researchers there documented a rapid increase in cancers among people who lived

near transmission towers.

In the 1970s, Wertheimer, PhD, a Denver epidemiologist (since

deceased), detected a spike in childhood leukemia (a rare disease) among kids

who

lived near electric power lines, prompting a rash of studies that arrived at

similar conclusions.

In the 1980s, investigators concluded that office workers with high

exposure to EMFs from electronics had higher incidences of melanoma - a disease

most often associated with sun exposure - than outdoor workers.

In 1998, researchers with the National Cancer Institute reported that

childhood leukemia risks were " significantly elevated " in children whose mothers

used electric blankets during pregnancy and in children who used hair

dryers, video machines in arcades, and video games connected to TVs.

Over the past few years, investigators have examined cancer clusters on

Cape Cod, which has a huge US Air Force radar array called PAVE PAWS, and

Nantucket, home to a powerful Loran-C antenna. Counties in both areas have the

highest incidences of all cancers in the entire state of Massachusetts.

More recently, the new findings on transients - particularly those crawling

along utility wiring - are causing some scientists to rethink that part of

the EMF debate pertaining to the hazards of power lines. Could they have

been focusing on the wrong part of the EMF spectrum?

Transients: the post-modern carcinogen

Some earlier, noteable - albeit aborted - research suggests this may be the

case. In 1988, Hydro-Québec, a Canadian electric utility, contracted

researchers from McGill University to study the health effects of power line

EMFs

on its employees. Gilles Theriault, MD, DrPH, who led the research and was

chair of the department of occupational health at the university, decided to

expand his focus to include high-frequency transients and found, even after

controlling for smoking, that workers exposed to them had up to a 15-fold

risk of developing lung cancer. After the results were published in the

American Journal of Epidemiology, the utility decided to put an end to the

study.

That research commenced at a time when energy-efficient devices - the major

generators of transients - were beginning to saturate North American homes

and clutter up power lines. A telltale sign of an energy-efficient device is

the ballast, or transformer, that you see near the end of a power cord on a

laptop computer, printer, or cell phone charger (although not all devices

have them). When plugged in, it's warm to the touch, an indication that it's

tamping down current and throwing off transient pollution. Two of the worst

creators of transient radiation: light dimmer switches and compact

fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Transients are created when current is

repeatedly

interrupted. A CFL, for instance, saves energy by turning itself on and off

repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per second.

So how does the human body respond to this pulsing radiation? " Think of a

magnet, " explains Dave Stetzer, an electrical engineer and power supply

expert in Blair, WI. " Opposite charges attract, and like charges repel. When a

transient is going positive, the negatively charged electrons in your body

move toward that positive charge. When the transient flips to negative, the

body's electrons are pushed back. Remember, these positive-negative shifts are

occurring many thousands of times per second, so the electrons in your body

are oscillating to that tune. Your body becomes charged up because you're

basically coupled to the transient's electric field. "

Keep in mind that all the cells in your body, whether islets in the

pancreas awaiting a signal to manufacture insulin or white blood cells speeding

to

the site of an injury, use electricity - or " electron change " - to

communicate with each other. By overlapping the body's signaling mechanisms,

could

transients interfere with the secretion of insulin, drown out the

call-and-response of the immune system, and cause other physical havoc?

Some preliminary research implies the answer is yes. Over the past 3 years,

Magda Havas, PhD, a researcher in the department of environmental and

resource studies at Trent University in Ontario, has published several studies

that suggest exposure to transients may elevate blood sugar levels among

people with diabetes and prediabetes and that people with multiple sclerosis

improve their balance and have fewer tremors after just a few days in a

transient- free environment. Her work also shows that after schools installed

filters to clean up transients, two-thirds of teachers reported improvement in

symptoms that had been plaguing them [and their students], including headache,

dry eye, facial flushing, asthma, skin irritation, and depression.

[Melrose-Mindoro, WI school nurse reported to the school board that after

transients

were filtered from the school's electricity the number of students with

medically diagnosed asthma fell from 37 to 5, and she never again had to use

the nebulizer to enable a student to breathe when their pocket inhalator was

not sufficient help.]

Transients are particularly insidious because they accumulate and strengthe

n, their frequency reaching into the dangerous RF range. Because they travel

along home and utility wiring, your neighbor's energy choices will affect

the electrical pollution in your house. In other words, a CFL illuminating a

porch down the block can send nasty transients into your bedroom.

Something else is sending transients into your home: the earth. From your

high school science texts, you know that electricity must travel along a

complete circuit, always returning to its source (the utility) along a neutral

wire. In the early 1990s, says Stetzer, as transients began overloading

utility wiring, public service commissions in many states told utilities to

drive

neutral rods into the ground on every existing pole and every new one they

erected. " Today, more than 70% of all current going out on the wires returns

to substations via the earth, " says Stetzer - encountering along the way

all sorts of subterranean conductors, such as water, sewer, and natural-gas

pipes, that ferry even more electrical pollution into your home.

A pragmatic proposal

Of course, these small studies - from Milham, Hydro-Québec, and Havas -

hardly constitute a blanket indictment of transients. " We're still early in

this part of the EMF story, " says Carpenter. Does that mean as evidence of

their harm accumulates, officials will raise a red flag? Not likely, if past EMF

debates are any indication. Power companies have successfully beaten back

attempts to modify exposure standards, and the cell phone industry, which has

funded at least 87% of the research on the subject, has effectively

resisted regulation. One good reason has had to do with latency - how long it

takes

to develop a particular cancer, often 25 years or more. Cell phones have

been around only about that long.

But does that mean we avoid any discussion of their possible dangers?

Again, if the past is a guide, the answer appears to be " probably. " American

scientists worried about the hazards of smoking, the DES (diethylstilbestrol)

pill (given to pregnant women, it caused birth defects), asbestos, PCBs

(polychlorinated biphenyls) - the list is lengthy - but officially warned about

exposure only after they could say with absolute certainty that these things

were harmful. As for protecting ourselves from toxic radiation, we have a lax

- and laughable - history. In the 1920s, just a few years after medical

imaging devices were invented, physicians were known to entertain their guests

by X-raying them at garden parties. In the 1930s, scientists often kept

radium in open trays on their desks. Shoe stores used X-ray machines in the

1940s to properly fit children's feet, and radioactive wristwatches with glowing

hour hands were popular in the 1950s.

All of which means that, absent prudent safety standards from both public

officials and manufacturers (adding a protective filter would add 5 cents to

the cost of making a CFL and $5 to the cost of a laptop), you'll have to

protect yourself from EMFs. Here's a reasonable proposition: Practice what is

known in Europe as the precautionary principle, which is pretty much what it

sounds like. Don't expose yourself unnecessarily to EMF hazards. Don't buy a

home next to a WiFi tower. Get a corded telephone instead of a cordless

one. Don't let your teenager sleep with a cell phone under her pillow. Don't

use your laptop computer in your lap. Treat your EMF-emitting devices with the

same cautious respect you do other invaluable modern devices, like your

car, which is also dangerous - and can kill. You don't drive in an

unnecessarily risky fashion - at high speed or while talking on a cell phone

(right?).

The sad truth is that until we have more epidemiologic evidence - whether

from disease clusters like the ones at La Quinta and on Cape Cod or from

long-term analyses of the health of the world's 4-billion-and-growing cell phone

users - we won't know definitively whether electrical pollution is harming

us. And even then, we are unlikely to know why or how. " In this country, our

research dollars are spent on finding ways to treat disease, not on what

causes it - which is to say, how we can prevent it, " says Marino. " And that's

a tragedy. "

But that's also another story.

Copyright© 2010 Rodale Inc. All rights reserved. No reproduction,

transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Rodale

Inc.

(end article)

Four more mechanisms by which EMF/EMR harms humans, as mentioned in a

letter to We Energies electric utility company of Wisconsin, written 1/4/2005 by

my physician, Roy Ozanne M.D.:

1.) It is established from multiple, independent studies that EMR from

ELF to RF/MW reduces melatonin in animals and human beings. Melatonin is

not only vital for healthy sleep, it is the most potent naturally produced

antioxidant that helps to protect cells from genetic damage that leads to

cancer, neurological, cardiac and reproductive damage, illness and death.

2) Exposure to intensities and field strengths that are extremely low

cause a biological effect called calcium ion efflux. Calcium ion

alteration of cells by EMR is linked to neurological degeneration, to cancer and

many

other health effects. The heart is also an electromagnetic organ, with an

electric pulse initiating a cascade of calcium ions that cause the cells in

the heart to contract and produce a heartbeat. Exogenous electromagnetic

signals can interfere with this regular electrical pulse leading to heart

disease and heart attack of the arrhythmic kind.

3) Physiological changes that are bedrock indicators of allergic

response and inflammatory conditions that are stimulated by EMF exposures

include: overreaction of the immune system; morphological alterations of immune

cells; profound increases in mast cells in the upper skin layers, increased

degranulation of mast cells and larger size of mast cells in EHS individuals;

presence of biological markers for inflammation that are sensitive to EMF

exposure at non-thermal levels; changes in lymphocyte viability; decreased

count of NK cells; decreased count of T-lymphocytes; negative effects on

pregnancy (uteroplacental circulatory disturbances and placental dysfunction);

suppressed or impaired immune function; and inflammatory responses that can

result in cellular, tissue and organ damage if exposure occurs on a continuing

basis over time.

Mast cells are also found in the brain and heart, and this might accou

nt for some of the other symptoms commonly reported: headache, sensitivity

to light, cardiac arrythmias and other cardiac symptoms.

4.) Many studies have shown that RF/MW radiation and ELF fields cause

increased DNA strand breakage and chromosome aberrations.

Neither the utility company nor the Wisconsin PSC will respond to

information we have sent them about the health effects of EMR/EMF. They just

parrot that the RF-broadcasting meters they are installing are safe because

they conform to FCC guidelines. The electrically sensitive people who know

from painful experience how we are affected by exposure to RF have been

told that if we do not accept a RF-broadcasting meter on our home by April

15th, our power will be turned off.

Please see my website about the health effects of manmade electromagnetic

frequencies and some info. about the politics involved. Dirty, dirty.

Shivani Arjuna

www.LifeEnergies.com

..