Raise awareness of environmental health issues in order to better protect our children and future generations.

09 June 2017

Smart Meter Radiation and Health - Why Are We Neglecting Non-Toxic Alternatives?

Display from a BG smart meter.  Just too bad about all
the electromagnetic smog it generates.  Photo:
athriftmrs.com via Flickr (CC BY-SA).
Smart meter radiation and health - why are we neglecting non-toxic alternatives?
by Lynne Wycherley, theecologist.org
6 June 2017

With growing evidence of harm to physical and mental health caused by continuous pulsed em radiation from 'smart' electricity meters, Lynne Wycherley asks: have we underestimated risks to heart function and the nervous system? And of interference with embedded medical devices, such as cardiac pacemakers? It's time to switch to over-wire or fibre communications to bring the 'smart green grid' of the future to electrosmog-free reality.

It is striking that the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called for a moratorium on smart meters (2012) and continues to veto them today.

Based on their literature reviews and clinical experience, they advised no smart meters should be located in or next to the homes of those with cardiac or neurological conditions, including Parkinson's or dementia; or electrosensitivity; or cancer.

Their board wrote to California's Public Utilities Commission: "guidelines for RF exposure used to justify installation of 'smart meters' are based only on thermal effects and are obsolete" - guidelines now under heavy fire from the 224-scientist appeal to the UN (see Part 1).

The AAEM continues: "Wireless RF radiation ... effects accumulate over time which is an important consideration given the chronic nature of exposure to 'smart meters'. The current medical literature raises credible questions about genetic and cellular effects, hormonal effects ... blood / brain barrier damage, and increased risks of certain types of cancers from RF and ELF levels similar to those emitted by 'smart meters'. Children are placed at particular risk."

Footage has been published of smart meter transmissions disrupting the human heartbeat. Blind electrocardiogram field tests (16 May 2017), verified by Dr Gilberto Leon MD, an American GP, reveal smart meter heartbeat disruption in an apparently healthy adult male.

Repeated disruption was found at 1m from a smart meter in blind tests on a healthy adult male. Dr Leon warned this effect "silently makes our hearts work too hard", a chronic stress. He had to halt a later blind test (1.5m) on a woman due to the meter's apparent, rapid impact. If such risks are confirmed by double-blind studies (if funded), or found at greater distances, should smart-meters be re-sited or withdrawn?

Electro-siege ... RF-sensitive medical implants

Pacemakers, insulin pumps, deep-brain stimulators, cochlear implants, internal defibrillators (ICDs), spinal stimulators and other RF-sensitive implants are in growing use worldwide. Many of us have loved ones with such implants, and may face personal use in later life.

Geophysics professor Gary Olhoeft has a Parkinson's deep-brain-stimulator that can be affected unpredictably around wireless technologies, even shutting off. He has given talkson the EMF cacophony we are creating - and its breathtaking short-sightedness.

During one such talk, everyone present indicated that their own medical implants had been disturbed by EMFs in the environment. On the lack of research into such interactions, he says "you have to ask: why is so little known about something that has the potential to injure or kill so many ... ?"

Internationally, there has been no post-rollout monitoring of possible smart-meter / medical implant interactions, despite the meters' 24:7 piercing microwave pulses, mixed modalities, and situations - such tiny shop units (UK) - which create sustained close exposure. Despite the new EU law on occupational EMFs.

Louis Donovan (California) testifies to four hospitalisations from pacemaker shut-downs, plus EMI that continually overrode his pacemaker, that coincided with smart-metering and ceased only on meter removal many months later. Baffled surgeons found no fault with his mint-condition device. Jerry Kozak (Canada) had chronic palpitations that overrode his pacemaker, relieved only by blocking his smart-meter. Though circumstantial, such testimonies suggest a need for vigilance.

In 2015, engineer Jeff Silverberg at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (USA) reported that "EMC information in regulation is often incomplete and has errors." Noting that, numerically, medical implant interference problems may far exceed those reported to his unit, he flagged growing risks from the "proliferation of RF wireless technology".

Under stress? The 'white tree' of our nervous systems

Published non-ionising risks to our nervous systems, long noted by military sources, continue to grow. Harvard neurology professor Martha Herbert co-authored a paper with 560 references on a plausible link between EMFs and autism (Pathophysiology 2013). "The nervous system is an electrical organ", observes former bioengineering professor Henry Lai, who surveys neuroactive findings to 2007 and 2007 to 2014, cautioning that few address our long-term exposure.

As noted, biochemist Professor Martin Pall demonstrates that ion-channels (VCCGs) in our cells can be over-stimulated by pulsed RF (and by strong AC electric fields) with oxidative/ genotoxic "downstream effects" (see Part 1). "It is time for a paradigm shift ...current safety standards are based on quicksand." He highlighted smart-meter pulse intensity. In his new paper 2016, he notes "VGCCs occur in very high densities throughout the nervous system."

Reviewing research that, in his analysis, meets "five criteria for causality", he observes that neural symptoms reported in smart meter and cell-tower epidemiology are consistent with substantial Soviet research, including Lerner 1980: "1300 [pulsed] microwave workers ... with relatively low exposure levels had an approximate doubling of neurological complaints ... over controls."

Could we revisit the Precautionary Principle? Gareth Shane, Maryland, testifies to sudden deterioration in his multiple sclerosis when a smart-meter was installed on his home without his knowledge, with rapid reversal after its removal, a testimony backed by his doctor. The global absence of health screening to test whether such experiences exceed coincidence is troubling.

Continue reading:
http://www.theecologist.org/campaigning/2988970/smart_meter_radiation_and_health_why_are_we_neglecting_nontoxic_alternatives.html

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.