Response to electric company's assurance that "smart" meters are safe

>
> 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 everyhome
> 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, andWe
> 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 “smart” 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-thermalexposure
> situations." Nontheless, the flawed standard remains in effect.
>
> So much for the assurance based on the fact that “smart” meter radiation
> complies with FCC regulations.
>
> We Energies' Ms. Shafer also remarked that “based on a large and diverse
> body of research, exposure limits are designed to protect against identified
> hazards…” 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: “ In excess of 70% of
> 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.”
>
> Reports of headache are consistent with the fact that microwaves
> non-thermally affect the dopamine-opiate system of the brain and increasethe
> 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 50% increased 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 toa
> 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 “low power broadcasts can be
> more damaging than higher power ones, depending on frequency, modulation,
> coherence, bandwidth and other properties of microwave radiation.” 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 “
> smart” 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 “99.4 percent ofthe time there is
> no transmission occurring.” 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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