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

31 March 2020

United States: Lawsuits Fight to Change Federal Wireless Safety Standards

Lawsuits Fight to Change Federal Wireless Safety Standards
BY CONAN MILNERtheepochtimes.com, 30 March 2020

Groups hope to force FCC to recognize science warning of health hazards linked to wireless radiation

A  1981 report prepared for NASA had already warned of
adverse effects from microwave radiation. 
(Herr.Stock/Shutterstock)
Microwave radiation can cook your food, but it also carries your calls, texts, and wireless data. Regulators set strict guidelines on microwave ovens to prevent exposure to dangerous radiation leaks, but critics say the lax standards applied to wireless devices are the result of undue industry influence over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

According to the FCC, the dividing line between safe and unsafe exposure is basically a matter of heat. If that radiation can produce a thermal effect, like burn us, it is dangerous. The FCC does not recognize other biological impacts of microwave radiation on our bodies.

28 March 2020

Restrict Screens, No Cell Phones And Minimize Wireless Radiation For Education During COVID-19 Quarantine: Russia Releases Recommendations For Children’s Protection

Restrict Screens, No Cell Phones And Minimize Wireless Radiation For Education During COVID-19 Quarantine: Russia Releases Recommendations For Children’s Protection
ehtrust.org, March 2020

Scientific Research Institute of Hygiene and Children’s Health in the Russian Ministry of Health and the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RusCNIRP) Have Released New Recommendations for Children Regarding Screens During COVID-19 Quarantine

See PDF of Letter in Russian

Unofficial translation from PDF

Digital Environment Security Distance Learning for Children Under 18

Recommendations of the Research Institute of Hygiene and Protection for Children’s Health, National̆ Medical Research Center Children’s Health̆ of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and the Russian National Committee for Protection Against Non-ionizing Radiation

These conditions with temporary restrictions on school attendance are designed for children and their parents, for grandparents and all who help children study at home using digital technology during the forced restrictions on learning at school and other educational institutions.

27 March 2020

Top Adviser in the Netherlands Warns against Uncritical 5G Roll-Out

Top adviser in the Netherlands warns against uncritical 5G roll-out
Lost Thread: tabttraad.home.blog, 24 March 2020 - English auto-translation

NEWS / ABROAD: The chairman of the Radiation Committee of the Netherlands National Health Council, Hans Kromhout , now warns the country's decision makers against uncritical 5G roll-out.

The Dutch professor believes that all the benefits of 5G must be carefully weighed against the risks to public health that this society runs.

This is what the Dutch daily newspaper 
De Telegraaf writes.

Hans Kromhout does not believe that the precaution of mobile radiation meets the standards used to protect the population from other risks such as chemicals, pesticides and medicines, where the requirements of Hans Kromhout are strict.

Coronavirus Could Infect Privacy And Civil Liberties Forever

(In Geneva, Swisscom is tracking smartphone users to see whether the limit of gatherings of no more than 5 people is being respected.)

Coronavirus Could Infect Privacy And Civil Liberties Forever
by Simon Chandler, Contributor, forbes.com, 23 March 2020

The coronavirus outbreak may result in a permanent
reduction in privacy and civil liberties. 
Photo... AFP
Via Getty Images
Coronavirus has infected more than just individuals and their bodies. It’s also infected society, which is adapting drastically in order to reduce the number of lives the COVID-19 pandemic claims. Not only are governments adopting new economic and public health measures to fight the coronavirus and its impact, but they're harnessing big data in ways that, while potentially saving lives, will also reduce our privacy and civil liberties.

From a technological perspective, the coronavirus pandemic is one massive testbed for surveillance capitalism. More specifically, it's a testbed for new, much more large-scale forms of surveillance. Already, governments in Italy, Germany, Austria, China, South Korea and Taiwan have begun analysing smartphone data so as to determine to what extent populations are really locking themselves down at home. Meanwhile, governments in the UK and the US are very close to rolling out similar surveillance measures, all in the effort to ensure that policies of mass behaviour modification are successful.

24 March 2020

Corona Virus and 5G – Is There a Connection?

Corona Virus and 5G – is there a connection?
by Dr. Magda Havas, magdahavas, 21 March 2020, updated 22 March 2020

Several people have asked me the question that is circulating among EMF experts, “Is there a connection between the outbreak of the CoVid-19 and deployment of 5G networks around the world?”

I have been following the conversations regarding this and my opinion is as follows:

1. Immune System Impairment

The best scientific evidence we have is that exposure to electrosmog (non-ionizing radiation from power frequencies to microwaves) impairs the immune system. This is well documented in the scientific literature. If your immune system is compromised because of electrosmog or because of certain medications you are taking or because you are elderly or very young you are likely to have a more severe and/or prolonged response to CoVId-19. Dr. Joel Moskowitz has a blog on his website, Research on the Effects of Wireless Radiation Exposure on the Immune System, that I recommend you read. Here is the abstract from one publication by Dr. Stanislaw Szmigielski.

Szmigielski S. 2013. Reaction of the immune system to low-level RF/MW exposures. Science of the Total Environment.454-455:393-400. 

Abstract
Radiofrequency (RF) and microwave (MW) radiation have been used in the modern world for many years. The rapidly increasing use of cellular phones in recent years has seen increased interest in relation to the possible health effects of exposure to RF/MW radiation. In 2011 a group of international experts organized by the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon) concluded that RF/MW radiations should be listed as a possible carcinogen (group 2B) for humans. The incomplete knowledge of RF/MW-related cancer risks has initiated searches for biological indicators sensitive enough to measure the “weak biological influence” of RF/MWs. One of the main candidates is the immune system, which is able to react in a measurable way to discrete environmental stimuli.

17 March 2020

Electrohypersensitivity as a Newly Identified and Characterized Neurologic Pathological Disorder: How to Diagnose, Treat, and Prevent It

Electrohypersensitivity as a Newly Identified and Characterized Neurologic Pathological Disorder: How to Diagnose, Treat, and Prevent It
by Dominique Belpomme 1,2,3,* and Philippe Irigaray 1,2

View Full-Text

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21061915
Received: 5 February 2020 / Revised: 3 March 2020 / Accepted: 5 March 2020 / Published: 11 March 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sensitivity Illnesses: Mechanisms and Molecular Signatures)

Abstract
Figure 1. Examples of skin lesions observed on the hand of
an EHS-bearing patient (A) and of an EHS/MCS-bearing-
patient (B).
(Photographs are issued from the database.)

Since 2009, we built up a database which presently includes more than 2000 electrohypersensitivity (EHS) and/or multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) self-reported cases. This database shows that EHS is associated in 30% of the cases with MCS, and that MCS precedes the occurrence of EHS in 37% of these EHS/MCS-associated cases. EHS and MCS can be characterized clinically by a similar symptomatic picture, and biologically by low-grade inflammation and an autoimmune response involving autoantibodies against O-myelin. Moreover, 80% of the patients with EHS present with one, two, or three detectable oxidative stress biomarkers in their peripheral blood, meaning that overall these patients present with a true objective somatic disorder. Moreover, by using ultrasonic cerebral tomosphygmography and transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, we showed that cases have a defect in the middle cerebral artery hemodynamics, and we localized a tissue pulsometric index deficiency in the capsulo-thalamic area of the temporal lobes, suggesting the involvement of the limbic system and the thalamus. Altogether, these data strongly suggest that EHS is a neurologic pathological disorder which can be diagnosed, treated, and prevented. Because EHS is becoming a new insidious worldwide plague involving millions of people, we ask the World Health Organization (WHO) to include EHS as a neurologic disorder in the international classification of diseases. 


06 March 2020

Colorado: Nancy Versus the Cell Tower - Testimony of Microwave Sickness

Nancy versus the cell tower
by Shannon Mullane, Durango (Colorado) Herald, March 4, 2020

Durango woman joins effort to reduce wireless technology emissions

Nancy Van Dover says she is a prisoner in her own home. Since January, it has become too physically painful to be around electromagnetic fields, like those emitted by high voltage power lines, cellphones and cell towers, she said.

(Photo): Nancy Van Dover stands about as far as she can go in her home on East Animas Road (County Road 250). She said she cannot use the west side of her home because of electromagnetic fields emitted by high voltage power lines, cellphones and cell towers. Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

“Now, I cannot step outside my door. I can’t even go out of my house,” Van Dover said. “I’m in prison, and I’m getting sicker.”

Van Dover and others in Durango are leading an effort to move the city to safer technology, but they face big industry, slow government and an unaware, at times disbelieving, public.

There has been an “unprecedented” increase in the number and diversity of electromagnetic field (EMF) sources, according to the World Health Organization. People around the world say they experience electromagnetic sensitivity (EMS), often attributing physical symptoms to their proximity to technology. State, federal and international agencies have recognized EMS symptoms, but like the scientific research, are slow to definitively connect them to technology.

Green Bank, W.Va.: No Cell Signal, No Wi-Fi, No Problem. Growing Up Inside America’s ‘Quiet Zone’

No Cell Signal, No Wi-Fi, No Problem. Growing Up Inside America’s ‘Quiet Zone’
By Dan Levinnytimes.com, 6 March 2020 (extracts from article)

Photographs by Annie Flanagan

Green Bank, W.Va., is home to a telescope so large that it requires near radio silence to operate, a technological restriction that has created a unique kind of modern childhood.

The Green Bank Telescope, partially obscured by fog in
Green Bank, W.Va.
... Welcome to Green Bank, population 143, where Wi-Fi is both unavailable and banned and where cellphone signals are nonexistent.

The near radio silence is a requirement for those living close to the town’s most prominent and demanding resident, the Green Bank Observatory, home to the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. To protect the sensitive equipment from interference, the federal government in 1958 established the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile area near the state’s border with Virginia.

The observatory’s telescope “could detect your phone on Saturn in airplane mode,” states a sign outside its science center building, but is rendered much weaker if anyone uses electronics that emit radio waves. For those who live within 10 miles of the observatory, the limitations also include a ban on Bluetooth devices and microwaves, unless they are contained in a metal box, known as a Faraday cage, which blocks electromagnetic fields.

05 March 2020

Mobile phones cause DNA damage in the placenta and umbilical cord

In a new study, researchers show that mobile phone use during pregnancy increases the incidence of oxidative stress and DNA damage in umbilical cord blood and placenta from women who have just given birth. The researchers also report that the negative effects are amplified by simultaneous exposure to WiFi. Researcher and cancer physician Lennart Hardell estimates that the results indicate that mobile use during pregnancy can increase the risk of birth defects and diseases. (Ref: "Mobiler orsakar DNA-skador i moderkaka och navelsträng" - "Mobile phones cause DNA damage in the placenta and umbilical cord"):
https://www.stralskyddsstiftelsen.se/2020/03/mobiler-orsakar-dna-skador-oxidativ-stress-hos-gravida-kvinnor/

Comparison of effects of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and mobile phone exposure on human placenta and cord blood
Hava Bektas,Suleyman Dasdag &Mehmet Selcuk Bektas
Pages 154-162 | Received 28 Sep 2019, Accepted 31 Jan 2020, Published online: 11 Feb 2020

Abstract

Clinical presentation of young people (10–24 years old) with brain tumors: results from the international MOBI-Kids study

"Brain tumors (BT) are one of the most common tumor types in young people. In 2018, the estimated age-standardized annual rate for brain and central nervous system (CNS) tumors in high income areas was 2.5 per 100,000 persons below the age of 25 [1]. Incidence of BT has risen during the last decades and it is unclear whether this is due solely to improved diagnostic practices or to a real increase in disease frequency..."

"MOBI-Kids is a multinational case–control study set-up to estimate risk of BTs in relation to electromagnetic felds— mainly Extremely Low Frequency and radiofrequency (RF) felds—exposure from use of mobile communication device. Cases were patients with a first primary benign or malignant BT, diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 24 years, during a 3–4 study period between 2010–2016 (depending on country), and residing in one of the study regions of the participating countries (Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Netherlands, Japan and Korea)."

Clinical presentation of young people (10–24 years old) with brain tumors: results from the international MOBI-Kids study

04 March 2020

Electromagnetic Radiation due to Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies: How safe are we?

Electromagnetic Radiation due to Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies: How safe are we?

Naren, Elhence A, Chamola V. Guizani M. Electromagnetic Radiation due to Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies: How safe are we? IEEE Access. 4:1-21. 2019. DOI 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2976434

Open access paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9016183

Abstract

The electromagnetic radiation (EMR) emitted out of wireless communication modules in various electronic devices have been identified by researchers as biologically hazardous to humans as well as other living beings. Different countries have different regulations to limit the radiation density levels caused by these devices. The radiation absorbed by an individual depends on various factors such as the device they use, the proximity of use, the type of antenna, the relative orientation of the antenna on the device, and many more. Several standards exist which have tried to quantify the radiation levels and come up with safe limits of EMR absorption to prevent human harm. In this work, we determine the radiation concern levels in several scenarios using a handheld radiation meter by correlating the findings with several international standards, which are determined based on thorough scientific evidence. This study also analyzes the EMR from common devices used in day to day life such as smartphones, laptops, Wi-Fi routers, hotspots, wireless earphones, smartwatches, Bluetooth speakers and other wireless accessories using a handheld radio frequency radiation measurement device. 

The procedure followed in this paper is so presented that it can also be utilized by the general public as a tutorial to evaluate their own safety with respect to EMR exposure. We present a summary of the most prominent health hazards which have been known to occur due to EMR exposure. We also discuss some individual and collective human-centric protective and preventive measures that can be undertaken to reduce the risk of EMR absorption. This paper analyses radiation safety in pre-5G networks and uses the insight gained to raise valuable concerns regarding EMR safety in the upcoming 5G networks.

Huawei Finds 5G Heaven in Switzerland With ‘Fitbits’ for Cows

Huawei Finds 5G Heaven in Switzerland With ‘Fitbits’ for Cows
swissinfo.ch / Bloomberg, 4 March 2020

(Bloomberg) -- A quiet Huawei Technologies Co.-led 5G revolution is unfolding at the heart of Europe -- in the bucolic Swiss hamlet of Taenikon.

Far from President Donald Trump’s campaign to stop the world from using the Chinese company’s technology, cows in this northern Swiss village -- with its white-washed cottages and manicured fields -- wear Huawei’s 5G-connected neck-straps instead of traditional flat bells. And in the village’s Cistercian abbey, converted into a test farm, Switzerland’s second-biggest telecommunications operator, Sunrise Communications Group AG, and Huawei test the next-generation 5G wireless network.

Apple will pay up to USD 500 million to settle California class action lawsuit for slowing iPhones

Apple pays USD 500 mln to settle California class action lawsuit for slowing iPhones
Telecompaper, 3 March 2020

(Choice of image by "Towards Better Health")
Credit: Reuters/ Regis Duvignau
Apple will pay up to USD 500 million to settle a case in the US, where consumers accused the company in a class action lawsuit of intentionally slowing down their older iPhones, Reuters reported. The preliminary settlement still requires approval by the US district judge in San Jose, California. It calls for Apple to pay plaintiffs USD 25 per phone, a number which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum payment of USD 310 million. Apple denied the accusations but settled the nationwide case to avoid the burdens and costs of litigation, court papers show.

03 March 2020

Switzerland: Thousands of 5G Antennas Blocked

Thousands of 5G antennas blocked
by Christoph Pfluger, Zeitpunkt, 28 February 2020 (auto-translation)

A few days ago, the thousandth objection to a 5G antenna was filed. The association “Protection against Radiation” [«Schutz vor Strahlung»] reports this and speaks of a “factual 5G moratorium”. Swisscom is announcing 90 percent 5G coverage almost simultaneously. A contradiction? No, an interpretation question.

Since the legal basis for the construction and retrofitting of 5G antennas was relaxed in April 2019, the mobile phone operators have been trying with all their might to advance the network expansion. 5G promises a hundred times more data performance, but requires tripling of the limit values ​​and a massive increase in the number of antennas. This prospect has mobilized the 5G opponents and the radiation victims - the proportion of electro-sensitive people is around ten percent of the population. Its spearhead is the "antenna alarm", which is operated by the association " Protection against Radiation". It collects planning applications and supports those affected on site with the appeals. The antenna alarm set up in April proved to be extremely successful. The majority of building applications have been blocked since last summer; Swisscom does not want to disclose exact figures on request.