Re: Response to electric company's assurance that

Terrific letter Shivani! With people like you around, I have hope.
Andrew
>On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:42:07 EDT [hidden email] wrote.
>Two weeks ago I wrote a letter to the editor of our small local paper

>about the health dangers created by the radiowave radiation of the "smart"

>meters the electric utility company, WeEnergies, plans to attach to every

>home

>in the area.

>Last week a We Energies spinmaster wrote the editor, assuring everyone that

>the radiation is safe.

>Here is my second letter, written in response.

>

>There are few industries these days that put the welfare of those affected

>by their policies or toxins above the profit to be made by following those

>policies and creating those toxins. It is now commonplace for industries

>to hire PR people -spin doctors- to respond to the public's concerns, and
We

>

>Energies has an exceptional crew at work in this capacity.

>

>It is true, as We Energies Customer Services Vice-President Joan Shafer

>states, that the radiation from their radiowave-transmitting â??smartâ??

>meters is

>allowable under present FCC regulations concerning non-ionizing radiation.

> However, the present FCC regulations were based on inaccurate assumptions

>and have not been updated as these assumptions were proven false. The

>regulation is in about the same place as regulation re negative effects of

>cigarette smoking or asbestos was 30 or 40 years ago.

>

>In just a few decades, with the explosion of wireless signals of radio and

>TV broadcasts, radar, military applications, microwave towers and cell

>phones, and ever etcetera, the density of radio waves and microwaves in our

>environment has been increased to many millions of times higher than the

>natural

>levels with which all life on earth evolved, with no forethought regarding

>possible health effects.

>

>The frequencies at and below that of visible light are known as

>non-ionizing, and those above light as ionizing. At ionizing frequencies,

>the particles

>of radiation contain enough energy to eject electrons from atoms and

>molecules, leaving them electrically imbalanced, or ionized. Ionized

>molecules are

>highly reactive and can damage cells, thus ionizing radiation is strictly

>regulated.

>

>As technology advanced and we began to use the higher frequencies, it was

>accidentally discovered that frequencies of about 27MHz (27 mega Hertz, or

>27

>million cycles per second) caused body heating. It was inaccurately

>concluded that any biological effects not caused by ionization must be

>caused

>solely by overheating. Thus the safety standard set for exposure to manmade

>electromagnetic energy took only heating into consideration, relying on how

>much

>radar MW energy it took to heat metal balls and containers of salt water,

>which were believed to represent the electrical characteristics of animals

>and

>humans.

>

>However, the biochemical processes of a living body all involve

>electromagnetism. A living system itself supports a variety of oscillatory

>electrical/

>biochemical activities, each characterized by a specific frequency, some of

>which happen to be close to those found in the RF/MW signals - a
coincidence

>

>that makes these bioactivities vulnerable to being interfered with in

>various non-thermal ways.

>

>The Consumer Affairs Commission (1999) found current thermal guidelines

>associated with EMR irrelevant, since cancer and Alzheimer's are associated

>with non-thermal EMR effects.

>

>The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences concluded in 1998

>that extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields should be regarded as

>possible carcinogens.

>

>In 2002, Norbert Hankin of the EPA's Center for Science and Risk

>Assessment, Radiation Protection Division stated: " The FCC's current

>exposure

>guidelines, as well as those of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics

>Engineers (IEEE) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation

>Protection, are thermally based, and do not apply to chronic, non-thermal

>exposure

>situations." Nontheless, the flawed standard remains in effect.

>

>So much for the assurance based on the fact that â??smartâ?? meter
radiation

>

>complies with FCC regulations.

>

>We Energies' Ms. Shafer also remarked that â??based on a large and diverse

>body of research, exposure limits are designed to protect against
identified

>

>hazardsâ?¦â?? This is pure B.S. Thousands of studies have shown that

>present

>exposure limits are allowing exposure that is causing great damage to

>animals

>and human beings.

>

>It's well established by the research of Dr. Carl Blackman and others that

>there is a biological effect called calcium ion efflux and influx caused by

>EMR at levels not involving heating but involving frequency.

>Calcium ions in cells play a role in the growth and development of cells,

>in DNA synthesis and in the life and death of cells. Therefore calcium ion

>alteration of cells by EMR is a biological mechanism linked to neurological

>degeneration such as Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases of age, to

>cancer and many other health effects. The scary aspect of this is that

>calcium

>ion efflux occurs at intensities and field strengths that are extremely

>low. Much lower than allowed by FCC regulations.

>

>There are also well-established mechanisms by which external

>electromagnetic signals are resonantly absorbed in human tissue, especially

>the brain and

>heart, causing reduced melatonin. Melatonin is the most potent naturally

>produced antioxidant, protecting cells from genetic damage that leads to

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

>Of

>course, reduced melatonin also causes sleep disorders.

>

>The National Cancer Institute in the U.S. did a study of people in

>industries that exposed their workers to microwaves and found a tenfold

>increase in

>brain tumors among employees who have been exposed at work for twenty

>years.

>

>So much for research showing communications frequencies are safe.

>

>Ms. Shafer states that the new meters operate at lower power and duration

>than cell phones, hand-held devices like a BlackBerry or other radio

>frequency devices, implying that they are therefore safe.

>

>As noted by Dr. Henry Lai of the University of Washington, one of the

>world's leading experts on the biological effects of RFR: â?? In excess of

>70f

>the studies funded independently of the cellular phone industry identify

>biological effects of RFR at the low power levels typical of cell phones
and

>

>cellular base station antennae.â??

>

>Reports of headache are consistent with the fact that microwaves

>non-thermally affect the dopamine-opiate system of the brain and increase

>the

>permeability of the blood-brain barrier. The reports of sleep disruption,
on

>the

>other hand, are consistent with the effect of the radiation on rapid eye

>movement (REM) sleep and on melatonin levels, while memory impairment is

>consistent with the finding that microwave radiation targets the

>hippocampus.

>

>University of Toronto investigators report that the heightened probability

>of cracking up your car persists for up to 15-minutes after completing a

>cellphone call. That's comparable to the risk of crashing while driving
dead

>

>drunk. This is due to the effect of the radiation on your brain.

>

>The production of histamine, which triggers bronchial spasms in asthma, is

>nearly doubled after exposure to mobile phone transmissions. Cellphone-like

>radiation also reduces the effectiveness of anti-asthmatic drugs and
retards

>

>recovery from illness.

>

>The British medical journal The Lancet printed a study showing that

>radiation from cell phones causes an increase in blood pressure and
directly

>alters

>cell function in the human body.

>

>Swedish cancer specialist Dr. Lennart Hardell has found that right-handed

>people have a two-and-a-half times higher risk of a brain tumor in the

>right-hand side of the brain, whereas left-handed people have elevated risk

>of a

>left-hand side brain tumor. Investigations of thousands of cases of brain

>tumors and mobile phones of all types has found up to a 50ncreased risk

>of

>a brain tumor after five years, which doubles after ten years. (An

>important point to note is that the damage to the body is cumulative. Not

>everyone

>notices immediate effects.)

>

>Cell phone "safety tests" are done by exposing fluid in a plastic head to a

>cell phone held next to the "ear" while the temperature of the fluid is

>monitored. This has nothing to with how radiation causes harm to living

>creatures in non-thermal ways. A plastic head cannot possibly suffer
from

>

>conditions such as insomnia, headaches, forgetfulness, inability to focus,

>Alzheimer's or cancer. Your head is not a plastic piñata.

>

>Neurosurgeon Leif Salford of Lund University in Sweden showed cell phone

>radiation causes leakage through the blood-brain barrier. At least ten
other

>

>scientific papers also show blood-brain barrier effects of RFR.

>Salford's continuing research shows that microwave exposure causes brain

>cell destruction of up to two percent, and that â??low power broadcasts can

>be

>more damaging than higher power ones, depending on frequency, modulation,

>coherence, bandwidth and other properties of microwave radiation.â?? Some
of

>the

>damaged rats were only exposed to 0.1 watt of microwave transmission, much

>less than the peak 0.6 watt microwave output of a typical cell phone. The

>â??

>smartâ?? meter's output is .143 watts.

>

>So much for the reassurance that cell phone-like radiation is safe.

>

>The most creative of Ms. Shafer's reassurances is that when a radio

>wave-broadcasting meter is attached to your home â??99.4 percent of the
time

>there is

>no transmission occurring.â?? This is like saying that it's safe to hang

>out in the middle of a firing range because 99.4 percent of the time no

>projectiles will be passing through you.

>

>The biological effects of your exposure to the radiation is the only thing

>that really matters. It is not in We Energies interest to educate you

>about those effects. You will have to become informed.

>

>For reliable, unbiased information, please see:

>http://lifeenergies.com/he-emr/, www.microwavenews.com/,

>www.emrnetwork.org/, www.powerwatch.org.uk/

>and www.emfacts.com/.

>

>Shivani Arjuna

>Town of Fredonia

>

>

>

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Andrew McAfee