Smart meter radiation and health - why are we neglecting non-toxic alternatives?

Bron: www.theecologist.org/campaigning/2988970/smart_meter_radiation_and_health_why_are_we_neglecting_nontoxic_alternatives.html

Lynne Wycherley
6th 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 talks on 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,
www.justproveit.net/sites/default/files/prove-it/files/military_radiowave.pdf
continue to grow. Harvard neurology professor Martha Herbert co-authored a paper with 560 references on a plausible link between EMFs and autism
www.pathophysiologyjournal.com/article/S0928-4680%2813%2900037-0/abstract
(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.

Needles in the night: smart meters by bedrooms

Addressing a smart grid conference, Dr Karl Maret, a US physician and engineer, advised ''don't have your kids or elderly or sick people sleep on the other side of a wall where the smart meter is'' He points out whole-body exposure is involuntary, at times considerable (his measurements: 1, 2,) with pulse intensity disguised by time-averaged data. Preliminary microscopy (Springob 2013; video) suggested near-field risks to blood cells; however, this needs scaled-up replication.

Though models vary, the reality may be less cosy than adverts suggest. In Britain, modest cellular uploads (WAN) coexist, as elsewhere, with house-piercing pulses (HAN). Measurements by Dr Liz Evans GP and others unveil the high-intensity microwave spikes firing off every 2 seconds (video).

When the UK government dismissed wired smart-meter options - used extensively in mainland Europe - Dr Evans set up a pressure group, 'Stop Smart Meters UK'. ''Ours is very much an environmental message'', explains co-founder Mike Mitcham, an IT consultant. They hope that by airing unresolved health, privacy and security issues, plus malfunctions and the eye-watering expense, bio-friendly Green alternatives will emerge.

But while wireless smart-meter modalities and outputs vary, close overnight exposure looks increasingly unwise. See this typical US testimony at 22:10. Pulsed RF has been shown repeatedly to raise oxidative stress, even at relatively low levels re: Zigbee: a chronic disease risk factor.

Insomnia is a keynote in US court cases on smart meters, plus emerging epidemiology from other countries (see Notes). Norwegian paediatrician Dr Toril Jelter has compiled childhood insomnia cases resolved by removing wireless transmitters - including smart meters.

Dr Lamech 2014 (see Part 1) found insomnia topped her peer-reviewed, smart meter case histories: patients ended up ''relocating their bedrooms, moving to another residence ... or moving out of the state'' while headaches / dizziness etc. linked to exposure at work, it seems, forced some to lose their jobs.

Collating 210 health testimonies in Maine, USA, biochemist Dr Richard Conrad commented ''what struck me most was the common time-line: normal people, strange new symptoms, who only later discovered that a smart meter had been installed ... Upon inquiry, they found out it had been installed at the time or just before their symptoms initiated.'' (2013)

Animal studies, whatever our misgivings about them, are less vulnerable to attribution errors, or failures to connect real-life exposure with possible effects. While results have varied, in some studies low level pulsed RF was found to alter small mammals' sleep cycles or to interfere with GABA (e.g. 3, 4,) the calming neurotransmitter. (Or melatonin 5,).

Short term human trails on pulsed RF and sleep, often on fit young men, have had mild, mixed results. Poor sleepers (and 'electrosensitives' 6, 7,) may be at raised risk (8, 9,). RF susceptibility was first observed in 1932 .

Swept off-stage - cancer data and environmental pulsed RF

In 2013 a group of six medical doctors from Oregon sent evidence to the Federal Communications Commission suggesting community health risks from smart meter rollouts. Led by Dr Paul Dart, their referenced 18-month review of 289 bio-medical studies brings to light some valuable cautioning evidence on chronic pulsed RF exposure, air-brushed from public reviews.

Referencing the late Professor Neil Cherry, this includes a helpful, visual summary of longitudinal cancer studies for radar workers, radio hams, and residents exposed to cell towers (phone masts). Such as Dode 2011, a high-quality paper in Science of the Total Environment, which found a spatial / dose relationship and short latency. (See also Yakymenko 2011 review).

What might be the chronic effects, perhaps, of additional, all-hour exposures? Re: Professor Karl Hecht's suppressed work. Such as penetrating smart meter pulses - often over 40,000 per day (British Gas) - on top of other EMFs? Notice, for example, animal studies of near-field WiFi toxicity 10, 11, 12, 13 and brain protein mayhem from in-situ cordless phone transmitters (DECT). Plus risks to melatonin from certain magnetic fields + here.

The doctors noted smart metering is ''a community issue not just an individual issue'' because of interpenetrating exposures. With additive smog from RF 'smart' appliances. They called for protection of ''vulnerable groups in the population including children'', anticipating the International EMF scientist Appeal (see Part 1). And advised local suppliers to ''adopt a policy of minimising its RF footprint in the community'': a timely concept.

Fibre optics: the elegance of light

For the remaining part of this paper and for the many links in it see the link on top



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