Health Effects

HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO WIRELESS RADIATION

Humans and all living beings function electrically and are connected and adapted to frequencies found in Nature. Earth’s frequency, which we are attuned to and need for our health – called the Schumann Resonance – is a low 7.83 Hz, a wavelength nearly 28,000 miles long. The variety of frequencies and unnatural modulation of waves used for radar, shortwave, AM & FM radio, CB and police radio, tv, wi-fi, cellular communications 2G to the experimental 5G+, microwave weapons in space, and more, are drowning this frequency out and immersing us in hazardous  manmade radiation. In cities, the intensity of this radiation is trillions of times higher than natural background levels. So it seems only logical that this could cause interference with our body’s own much weaker electrical signaling. Were this a synthetic chemical, the City would be evacuated.

The US has no safety standard, even though tens of thousands of studies provide evidence of biological effects, producing harm at power density levels millions of times lower than the FCC “guidelines.” Pulsed modulated signals are especially pernicious as they are unevenly timed and spike erratically (often above the guideline), making them highly interactive with living matter. They may not be noticed at the conscious level, but are felt and recorded by the body. These exposures are cumulative and after time can overwhelm the body’s attempts to compensate.

Electromagnetic sensitivity (EMS) can first manifest with insomnia, fatigue, nausea, and an inability to concentrate; further disruption of normal nervous-system functioning can cause attention deficit, learning and memory impairments, and behavioral changes such as hyperactivity and agitation. Other effects are tinnitus, headaches, eye damage, abnormal skin sensations and rashes, and seizures. Even without obvious symptoms, changes in heart rhythm, raised blood pressure and blood-cell clumping have been observed in the short term. The endocrine system is also affected, which is thought to have a possible role in chronic diseases such as problems with the thyroid and diabetes, and with male and female fertility.

At a smaller scale, some bacteria exposed to microwave radiation become de-activated, while some grow and mutate more rapidly, posing the danger of their becoming antibiotic-resistant more quickly. Effects of the use of microwaves to de-activate viruses are under study.

Some biologists, such as Dr. Martin Pall, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at Washington State University, report that pulsed and modulated signals can activate the calcium channel membranes in our cells. This drives out oxygen and water and allows calcium to enter, thus disrupting calcium’s role in normal cell functioning. This process, called the voltage-gated calcium channel effect (VGCC), can be the basis for a wide range of health effects in the peer reviewed literature, including cancer, as it impairs natural cell death (apoptosis), and produces oxidative stress.

The US National Toxicology Report, the gold-standard experimental study released in 2018, showed “clear evidence of carcinogenesis” in male rats after various exposures to microwave radiation. It also corroborated Henry Lai and Narandra Singh’s findings of DNA damage. In 1994, on the eve of the revised Telecommunications Act, Henry Lai and N.P. Singh had observed single and double strand DNA breaks in rats after just two hours of cell phone-level exposure. 

Heart schwannomas were also found in the large Ramazzini study in Italy, which simulated exposure to radiation from distant cell towers, the kind of exposure we have no control over.

The schwann cells in the hearts of the rats are very similar to the glial cells in the human brain, as they both produce myelin, which is a protective coating for the nerve cells. Though the incidence of brain tumors are said to be going down, gliomas – fast-growing brain tumors – are on the rise in the US, and have become the leading cause of cancer death among the young, and the most common cancer among 15 to 19-year-olds. 

This could be because the brains of children, whose skulls are smaller and thinner and their blood-brain barrier not fully formed, absorb 10 times more radiation than adults’ brains. Biologist Allan Frey had discovered the blood-brain barrier breach effect back in the 1970s when working for the Office of Naval Research and the American Army. He demonstrated the infiltration of blue dye into the brains of rats after being exposed to radio waves for just a matter of minutes.  When experiments such as Frey’s and Lai and Singh’s started being replicated, all funding for this type of research dried up.

And the situation remains murky in the public opinion because of the emphasis placed on the existence of studies that show no effect, most of which have been funded by industry. Dr. Henry Lai’s analysis of all the studies that have been done found that there was a roughly 70%/30% reversal in outcome, depending on whether the study was industry funded or not. And so it seems likely that we are re-living the tactics used by the tobacco industry, which for decades was in the business of peddling doubt, as one internal memo had put it.

“Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.” –Brown & Williamson Internal Document, 1969

While the waters are being muddied, we should be aware of the disclaimer in our phones’ Legal menu, which has tips for how to reduce exposure to RF energy.  Blackberry warns us to use it only with a strong signal, to reduce the amount of time on calls, avoid metal cases, and to keep the phone at least 0.98” away from our body (making a special note of pregnant women and the lower abdomen of teenagers.)  Of course the phone’s advisories should be the first thing one reads upon purchase, not buried in the fine print.

We should also be aware that those who are most qualified to gauge unintended consequences– the insurance industry– has refused to cover any claims to do with radio frequency radiation.  For example, Lloyd’s of London and another large insurance group, Swiss RE, have put 5G in their highest risk category.

“The danger with EMF is that, like asbestos, the exposure insurers face is underestimated and could grow exponentially and be with us for many years.”

                            — Lloyd’s of London Report on Electromagnetic Fields, 2010

The most vulnerable years remain from conception to the age of 13 or 14. And since the current school environment requires children to sit many hours per day at screens with wi-fi-enabled internet, which at 2.45 MHz emits a 5” wavelength approximating the dimensions of their heads and brains, we may be setting the young generations up for widespread future health problems.

Effects on mammals, birds, fish, insects, trees, plants and seeds are likewise pronounced. Xenobiotic (foreign-to-life) radiation disrupts bee navigation and can cause colony collapse. Bird populations, relying on their high concentration of brain magnetite for navigation, have lost their bearings. Their populations, especially in urban areas, are in sharp decline; and some 70% of the developed world’s insects are already gone. Electromagnetic radiation could be the hidden factor or co-factor in this alarming trend.

For those who are electromagnetically sensitive, estimated at about 3 in 10 people, the effects can be so disabling that they must leave their homes, try to prevent further exposure to RF/EMFs, and detoxify until their body gradually heals.

The worst of these effects could be avoided if the FCC would lower its “guidelines” to permit only the minimal level of power to get a cell phone signal, as is actually called for in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Massive data used for Netflix downloads, gaming and the “Internet of Things (IoT) should be sent through faster, safer, more reliable wired broadband – that is, fiber to the premises (or better, to the device), and mobile wireless reserved for emergency personal phones calls.

Two hopeful notes on the legal front: on August 13, 2021 the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case Children’s Health Defense/ Environmental Health Trust v. FCC, ruled that the FCC’s decision to decline to review its guidelines, after sweeping aside 11,000 pages of scientific evidence and testimonials from many who have been harmed, was “arbitrary and capricious,” and asked the agency to return to the court and give a reasoned explanation of their refusal. Stay tuned.

On Sept. 15, 2021, the PA Supreme Court determined that Act 129 to streamline smart meter installation was not a mandate, but should be an opt-in, and that anyone sensitive to the radiation effects of a digital smart meter must be accommodated by restoring their analog meter. This is a great move forward!