The EMF Thread

[ubaru]

In May 2011 the WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use. Group 2B is the same category as DDT, lead, chloroform, and engine exhaust.

Let's talk about the evolution of using radiating technology in our lives. In Europe and the Netherlands, awareness is far ahead of that in the US regarding the negative effects of radiation. They are recommending the use of landlines over cell phones. It is illegal to allow anyone under the age of 14 to use a cell phone. They recognize electrosensitivity as a medical illness. See the attached letter from Swedish Dr. Johansson.

But that awareness is growing fast here especially from the "Smart" Meter" activist community. Let's raise that awareness in this thread.

Here is one new device to help people regulate their wireless phone usage. Incidentally, when this company approached Steve Jobs regarding it's use in iPhones, he said, "not interested."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=1Jv1ZyqzVEA

Resources:
http://emfsafetynetwork.org



Liz

[ubaru]

EMF Safety Tips


Radio Frequency RF & Microwave Prevention Tips

Radio Frequency Waves (RF) and Microwave Radiation are produced by all wireless communication devices and cell phone transmission towers. The are invisible and exist almost everywhere. Current technology is now using pulsed digital signals which increase the risks of exposure. Obtaining an RF free sleeping area is important because we spend 1/3 of our life asleep. The goal is to reduce long term, low level exposure to Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation. Obtaining accurate exposure readings is very important. Some of our competitors’ meters do not measure pulsed digital signals. Our complete line of RF Meters will measure pulsed digital signals including the RF-Detector. Please visit our EMF Meter, RF Meter and Body Voltage Meter pages for Bau-Biologie approved testing equipment. See below for our suggestions on how to lower your RF exposure at home:

• Avoid Living near cell phone transmission towers or any other radio/TV transmitter.
• Have your sleeping area evaluated by a Bau-Biologist for Radio Frequency (RF) radiation from cell phone towers and all other wireless radiation sources. Bau-Biologie Exposure Standards indicate RF radiation should be below 1 μW/m2 (microWatts per square meter) and below 0.1 μW/m2 for digital pulsed radiation signals.
• If elevated RF Radiation is found, determine whether its source is internal or external to the building. If the source is external (local cell phone tower), installing RF shielding fabric curtains, a bed shielding canopies or RF reflective window foil is recommended. If the source is internal, find the source and turn it off (cordless phone, wireless router). Seek the professional advice of a trained Bau-Biologist for more protection solutions.
• Avoid the use of cordless telephones. Most new models (DECT) base stations constantly transmit RF radiation even when they are not in use.
• If a cordless phone is necessary, choose 900 MHz cordless phone before higher frequency phones. Most 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz phones base stations constantly broadcast where as the majority of 900 MHz phones do not. Also the 900 MHz cordless phones use an analogue signal where the 2.4 GHz and the 5.8 GHz phones use more biologically damaging pulsed digital signals.
• Avoid the use of a microwave oven. If using a microwave oven, leave the area. The RF will cover a large area (30-40 feet and more).
• Avoid eating or drinking microwaved food or water. Don’t feed microwaved food or milk to babies or young children.
• Avoid the use of wireless baby monitors. Use a hard wired intercom system.
• Avoid the use of an RF security system, use the hard wired one.
• Avoid the use wireless router internet sharing devices. Use a hard wired type. (Ethernet Cat 5 cables
• If required, use cellular telephones for emergency back-up. Use them with the SLT1 headset.
• Avoid speaking on a cell phone in the car without an external antenna. The RF waves will be reflected back at you from the metal chassis, doors and roof magnifying the radiation. Also, the cell phone has a hard time sending its signal out of the car because of the metal chassis, and increases its transmitting strength to compensate.
• Avoid the use of a cellular phone if pregnant.
• Do not let a child use a cellular phone.
• Minimize your exposure to medical and dental x-rays.

Home EMF and RF Prevention Tips

The sleeping area is particularly important because we send 1/3 of our life sleeping. The goal is to reduce long term, low level exposure to AC Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation. Obtaining accurate exposure measurements is also very important. Please visit our EMF Meter, RF Meter and Body Voltage Meter pages for Bau-Biologie approved testing equipment. See below for our suggestions on how to lower your EMF exposure at home:

• Sleep in a room that has been electromagnetically evaluated. Bau-Biologie Exposure Standards for sleeping areas indicate that Magnetic and Electric Fields should be as low as possible, preferably under 0.2 mG (milliGauss) or 20 nT (nanoTesla) for Magnetic Fields and below 1 V/m (Volt per Meter) for Electric Fields. Ideal Body Voltage readings should be below 10 mV (milliVolts).
• Shut off the electricity in your bedroom during sleeping hours. This can be accomplished manually by turning off the breakers or automatically with a demand switch. This will eliminate electric field exposure while sleeping. Seek the professional advise of a trained Bau-Biologist for protection solutions.
• Avoid placing a bed on a shared wall with a neighbouring apartment if in a townhouse or apartment building. Your neighbours may have electronic equipment or electrical appliances on the other side of the wall emitting high electromagnetic fields.
• Have your sleeping are evaluated for radio frequency (RF) radiation from cell phone towers, and all other wireless radiation sources. Bau-Biologie exposure standards indicate RF radiation should be below 1 μW/m2 (microWatts per square meter) and below 0.1 μW/m2 for digital pulsed radiation signals.
• If elevated Radio Frequency Radiation is found, determine weather its source in internal or external to the building. If the source is external (local cell phone tower), installing RF shielding fabric curtains, a bed shielding canopies or RF reflective window foil is recommended. If the source is internal, find the source and turn it off (cordless phone, wireless router). Seek the professional advice of a trained Bau-Biologist for protection solutions.
• Avoid the use of cordless telephones. Most new models (DECT) constantly transmit RF radiation even when they are not in use.
• Remove all electronic devices from all occupied bedrooms.
• Avoid the use of an electric blanket. The will produce high electric and magnetic fields.
• If possible, sleep in a bed that has no metal parts, such as innersprings or a metal frame.
• Avoid using metal head and foot boards because the electric fields will be enhanced.
• Keep metal way from the sleeping area, such as metal bookshelves, end tables or metal pole lamps.
• Use a battery operated alarm clock rather than an AC electric alarm clock.
• Avoid purchasing a home within 500 feet of high voltage power lines. This distance will vary according to the power of the lines. A magnetic and electric field strength measurement would determine the exact distance.
• Avoid running electric extension cords under chairs, beds and couches.
• If possible, maintain a distance of 10 feet from the television and other electronic devices and appliances.
• Avoid the use of fluorescent and halogen lights, use incandescent full spectrum lighting.
• Avoid the use of electric motors, such as an electric can opener, shaver or toothbrush. Rechargeable or battery operated toothbrushes and shavers are preferred to plug-in models.
• Consider replacing an ungrounded 2 wire lamp cord with a 3 wire shielded power cord to reduce electric fields. Your lamp may have to be customized in a specialty lighting store or by an electrician and meet UL and CSA approvals.
• Stand back 3 feet or more from operating motors such as juicers and blenders.
• Avoid the use of hand held hairdryers. If required, keep the motor and the cord as far from the body as possible.
• Avoid using the over head fan while in the bathroom. If it must run maintain a distance of 10 feet.
• If possible, maintain a distance of 10 feet from the heater coils when cooking with an electric stove or oven.
• If purchasing a computer monitor locally, screen it with a Magnetic Field Detector or gauss meter. The latest standards require that AC magnetic field be 1 mG (100 nanoTesla) or less one foot from the monitor.
• Don’t give an older computer to a child without first measuring the magnetic fields it produces.
• Avoid the use of a sewing machine during pregnancy or balancing a laptop on the abdomen.

Automobile EMF & RF Prevention Tips

Some of us spend a great deal of time in a car, therefore it is important to choose a vehicle that has low EMF and RF emissions. The goal is to reduce long term, low level exposure to Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation. Unfortunately little can be done with the automobile. There is also very little data recorded on this subject so each automobile would require a measurement to check its emissions. Obtaining accurate exposure readings is very important. Please visit our EMF Meter, RF Meter and Body Voltage Meter pages for Bau-Biologie approved testing equipment. See below for our suggestions on how to lower your EMF and RF exposure in automobiles:

• The gasoline-ignition engine has spark plugs to ignite the fuel-air mixture. The ignition (spark) system is a tremendous source of broad spectrum RF Radiation as well as Magnetic Fields.
• The car body is used as part of the electrical system, considerable electrical emissions exist inside an automobile.
• The alternator is a strong source of Magnetic Fields.
• The diesel engine with mechanical fuel injection has no spark plugs at all. An electric spark is not required therefore lower Magnetic Field emissions
• The car stereo is a large source of EMF, even when powered off.
• Keep distance form the audio speakers which emit large magnetic fields.
• The air conditioning and heating fan generate large magnetic fields.
• Most new cars have a satellite communication system and can transmit high levels of RF radiation.
• Avoid speaking on a cell phone in the car without an external antenna. The RF waves will be reflected back at you from the metal chassis, doors and roof magnifying the radiation. Also, the cell phone has a hard time sending its signal out of the car because of the metal chassis, and increases its transmitting strength to compensate.
• New hybrid vehicles will emit high electric and magnetic fields.

Office EMF Prevention Tips

Achieving a low AC EMF emission office environment is difficult because of the constant use of electronic equipment. The goal is to reduce long term, low level exposure to Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation. Obtaining accurate exposure measurements is also very important. Please visit our EMF Meter, RF Meter and Body Voltage Meter pages for Bau-Biologie approved testing equipment. See below for our suggestions on how to lower your EMF exposure in the office:

• Measure the Electric and Magnetic Fields that your monitor produces. LCD monitors are not always the best choice. Measuring with approved test equipment is the only way to know for sure. See our approved EMF Meters and Body Voltage Meter for test equipment suggestions. Seek the professional advice of a trained Bau-Biologist for more EMF protection solutions.
• Use Shielded AC Power Cords and power bars for all computer or electronic equipment.
• Plug your computer and electronic devices into a grounded 3-holed outlet.
• Use a radiation-reducing grounded glare guard on computer monitors to reduce EMF radiation.
• If possible use a telephone with a cord for the bulk of your calls.
• Only use a cellular phone for emergency back-up or with the SLT1 Headset.
• Beware of Magnetic and Electric Fields from personal computers, electric typewriters, calculators, desk lamps and measure their strength with an approved Electric and Magnetic Field detector.
• Use a manual pencil sharpener rather than an electric one.
• Maintain distance from the rear and sides of a neighbour’s computer monitor.
• Locate the buildings electric panels, transformers, etc. and do not sit near them.
• Keep wiring, surge protectors, power bars and extension cords 5 feet away from any body part.
• Maintain minimum distance of 10 feet from copiers, fax machines and other office equipment.
• Use a full-spectrum incandescent lamp (grounded if possible), rather than a fluorescent or halogen light if you have the option.
• If using a laptop, buy one with a 3-prong plug. Run it off the battery routinely. If it is not possible to purchase a 3-prong plug, ground the chassis of the laptop. This will eliminate the large electric field caused by the ungrounded laptop.
• If carrying a pager, cell phone, or any electronic device regularly rotate it around the body.
• Avoid congregating or sitting near the microwave oven when it is on. The RF radiation can infest a large area.
• Avoid work areas that use wireless networking and wireless phones if possible.

Electrical EMF Prevention Tips

A properly installed electrical system plays a key roll in the AC Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Pollution levels in a building. Proper grounding can significantly reduce Electric Fields. Neutral wire isolation can reduce unwanted Magnetic Fields thus eliminating Net Currents. It is important to reduce long term, low level exposure to Electric and Magnetic Fields. Obtaining accurate exposure readings is also very important. Please visit our EMF Meter, RF Meter and Body Voltage Meter pages for Bau-Biologie approved testing equipment. See below for our suggestions on how to lower your EMF exposure at home:

• Sleep in a room that has been electromagnetically evaluated. Bau-Biologie Exposure Standards for sleeping areas indicate that Magnetic and Electric Fields should be as low as possible, preferably under 0.2 mG (milliGauss) or 200 nT (nanoTesla) for Magnetic Fields and below 1 V/m (Volt per Meter) for Electric Fields. Ideal Body Voltage readings should be below 10 mV (milliVolts). Seek the professional advice of a trained Bau-Biologist.
• Shut off the electricity in your bedroom during sleeping hours. This can be accomplished manually by turning off the breakers or automatically with a Demand Switch. This will eliminate electric field exposure while sleeping.
• Avoid placing a bed on a shared wall with a neighbouring apartment if in a townhouse or apartment building. Your neighbours may have electronic equipment or electrical appliances on the other side of the wall.
• Remove all dimmer switches used in the house. They emit high magnetic fields and cause dirty electricity.
• Verify that all circuits in the house are properly grounded.
• Use 3 wire shielded cable (BX) for wiring a home. The metallic jacket shields Electric Fields.
• Plug 3-wire appliances into working 3-wire outlets.
• Locate the power panel at least 15 feet from living / sleeping areas.
• Locate hot water heater (electric) at least 10 feet from living/sleeping areas.
• Locate clothes dryer 14 feet from living/sleeping areas.
• Most new Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI)'s generate constant Magnetic Fields and dirty electricity.
• Install a non-metallic junction (Dielectric Union) where the metal water pipe enters the ground. (Just after the water meter) This will help prevent stray ground current from entering your home and infest the water pipes.
  
  
  http://www.safelivingtechnologies.ca...afety_Tips.htm

[Howard]

You forgot a few:

Avoid fear mongering espoused by those who profit from such.
Avoid all things that can't be proven with 100% certainty to the satisfaction of everyone.
Avoid one of the great cities of the world, San Francisco, because it has 4G cellular service.
Avoid walking by the homes of the city council members opposed to wifi because they have wifi.
Avoid sitting in front of the monitor that emits RF typing in recommendations to avoid RF on an online bulletin board.
Avoid living in the real world.
Better yet, just avoid reality altogether.

I challange others to come up with other things to avoid.

Howard

[ubaru]

I'm reposting this from Sue:


I think the difference between landline and mobile is the pulsed RF
radiation, not just where the electronics are located.....

There are many books written on this subject including:

Devra Davis's Disconnect, http://www.amazon.com/Disconnect-Radiation-
Industry-Protect-Family/dp/B004LQ0ENC/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&qid=1325003645&sr=8-1

Zapped: http://www.amazon.com/Zapped-Shouldn...rt-Electronic-
Pollution/dp/0061864277/ref=pd_sim_b_2


Public Health SOS http://www.amazon.com/Public-Health-SOS-Wireless-
Revolution/dp/1441458794/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Here's an article: Addiction to Technology & iPhones -- Natural Health Blog
http://www.jonbarron.org/natural-hea...disorder-study

also many websites have info:

here are a couple: http://www.environmentalhealthtrust.org/

http://emfsafetynetwork.org/?page_id=2127

http://wiredchild.org/

http://eon3emfblog.net/

http://wirelessmess.org/

In my view, the only way to protect ourselves from this technology,
which the World Health Organization has categorized as a class 2B
carcinogen (and non-industry members of the committee wanted to classify
it more strongly), is to cut our usage....stop using wireless technology
EXCEPT in emergencies....I have an old cell phone that I took off a
monthly plan and now refill it occasionally with expensive minutes...a
disincentive to use it by the way...and keep it turned off...do not take
messages on it...steer people to my landline instead...and just use it
for short logistical and emergency calls....if more people do this then
demand goes down...and they will quit constructing more and more
powerful and densely located cell towers and masts....for the internet i
use a wired connection only....

Today we are all guinea pigs in a massive experiment....we live in an
"open microwave oven" as one doctor has put it....he wrote a book on
this....there is no escape...except for a few who have moved into caves
in France and Spain to escape this radiation....the non-industry
financed studies overwhelmingly showing negative health effects....

When our young children go to school, they are spending the whole day in
an open microwave oven....with school wifi and with each and every
youngster with a cell phone "on" in their pockets or backpacks all day
long...then they leave school and ride the wired bus home, stop in at
the local wifi cafe, into the grocery for a few items and again more
rf...until eventually they land back at home and submit to the constant
home wifi and smart meter radiation....

think about it...huge experiment...hugely impacting fertility...think
the xbox wifi controllers radiating our young boys testicles for hours a
day...on top of the wifi and cell phone usage...breaking dna....opening
up the blood brain barrier....causing cancer.....

have you ever gone house or apartment hunting and tried to find a place
to live that is away from cell towers and masts? Basically mission
impossible! And yet studies show that cancer rates are much higher for
people living close to cell towers...

and again no where to hide...realistically i don't believe people will
give up these health damaging devices because they are so so addictive
(and have you ever just turned off the device while out and about and
noticed how little people are interacting in the real world...even when
they are out in public around other people so many of us are interacting
with that little device still...obviously very addictive....but the
answer if you want to protect your health from this damaging technology
is to get rid of it.....

my 2 cents...

have a great day!
Sue

[ubaru]

In response to someone asking "Is there any gizmo that absorbs this [EMF's] out of the air or something like that!?

Sue wrote: I think there are lots of such devices advertised, some swear by them,
but if you get on the online forums such as emfrefugee yahoo group and
ask about these I think you will hear that they aren't really effective...

There are lots of shielding materials for your home such as special
paints and materials to block the RF...

There are online stores that sell EMF stuff. http://www.lessemf.com/
I can't vouch for this store, never purchased anything thru it. Liz's note: I have and the customer service was a nightmare/non-existent. Look for another store if possible.

There is an EMF consultant in the North Bay who can come in and measure
several types of EMFs and recommend/implement solutions...

Michael Neuert http://www.emfcenter.com/ He measured for us and had
a couple suggestions to cut emf levels...since we rent these were both
low cost solutions, not tearing walls apart or anything.

Sue

Another responder to this query wrote: "There are some things you can do to shield your house. The Canadian smart meter group has some info. on shielding materials. 'Don't have the link handy, but it should be easy to find. If you can't find it, let me know and will find it.

the cell phones and most wi-fi operate on microwave frequency. They are called radio frequency, although microwave operates at very, very high frequency. I'm not sure if the two frequency bands overlap. Some of this may have been re-defined when microwave technology was developed. It may also be "weasel wording" to call microwave freqs. "radio waves." In other words, call it radio transmission in the hope of helping to win the public 's acceptance of the technology....

There are charts showing the frequency spectrum. It's easier to understand if you look at one of the charts.

The radiation is not something that is stored in the body. The radiation is considered non-ionizing radiation.

Being exposed to microwave frequencies is not like taking Alpha or Beta radiation particles inside the body (Cesium 137, Plutonium 239, for example). The damage is done as the waves pass through the tissues -- as non-ionizing radiation. It's literally like being cooked by a microwave, although exposure is much less powerful than sitting inside a microwave. If you get up close and personal with a microwave tower, you are exposing yourself to a LOT of energy.

There is a very interesting article written by a woman who was a cell phone tower maintenance person, early in the technology's adoption. One of the two women working together developed brain cancer. The other one authored the article. She described what happened to the two working partners when they would climb the mountain to work on the tower. It might have been a state facility; I'm not sure. Her story is very compelling. Will try to find it, if you want to read it.

Here's a link to a Wikipedia article on this (relatively straightforward discussion on non-ionizing radiation):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation

I think the article minimizes the dangers from cell phones, cell phone towers, etc., but it does discuss what non-ionizing radiation is.

Here's discussion of ionizing radiation, which is different:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation

If I'm missing something in terms of how the body absorbs this non-ionizing radiation and it is stored in the tissues, by all means let me know, anyone out there! The tissues absorb the radiation, but there are not particles that stay in the tissues. That's the chief difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation.

Here's another quote from a Wikipedia article on radiation:

"Both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation can be harmful to organisms and can result in changes to the natural environment. In general, however, ionizing radiation is far more harmful to living organisms per unit of energy deposited than non-ionizing radiation, since the ions that are produced by ionizing radiation, even at low radiation powers, have the potential to cause DNA damage. By contrast, most non-ionizing radiation is harmful to organisms only in proportion to the thermal energy deposited, and is conventionally considered harmless at low powers which do not produce significant temperature rise.

Ultraviolet radiation in some aspects occupies a middle ground, in having some features of both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Although nearly all of the ultraviolet spectrum of radiation is non-ionizing, at the same time ultraviolet radiation does far more damage to many molecules in biological systems than is accounted for by heating effects (an example is sunburn). These properties derive from ultraviolet's power to alter chemical bonds, even without having quite enough energy to ionize atoms."

The question of harm to biological systems due to low-power ionizing and non-ionization radiation is not settled. Controversy continues about possible non-heating effects of low-power non-ionizing radiation, such as non-heating microwave and radio wave exposure. Non-ionizing radiation is usually considered to have no completely safe lower limit, although at some energy levels, new exposures do not add appreciably to background radiation ..."



Speaking of yahoo groups, I ran across this one:
EMR-EMF · EMR-EMF is an open unmoderated mailing list for the discussion of electromagnetic radiation


Post message:
EMR-EMF@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:
EMR-EMF-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:
EMR-EMF-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:
EMR-EMF-owner@yahoogroups.com

and the EMFrefugee group
Post message:
emfrefugee@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:
emfrefugee-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:
emfrefugee-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:
emfrefugee-owner@yahoogroups.com

[CSummer]

A couple clarifications:

Cell phones, cordless phones, wi-fi and "smart" meters all operate in the microwave frequency range, which is within the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. See the following wikipedia articles: Radio frequency and Microwave .

We can take some comfort from the fact that the strength (power) of a transmitted signal decreases by the square of the distance from the transmitter. I.e., each time you double your distance from the source, the power level drops by a factor of 4 (so if it's 1 watt at 1 foot, at 2 feet it would be 0.25 watt). By comparison, a microwave oven operates at power levels of around 700 watts.

Cell phones, it seems to me, are the worst, with transmit power around 0.25 - 0.5 watt. The last place I would want a microwave transmitter is stuck to the side of my head! So I try to keep mine at a distance and feel especially concerned when I see a child or adolescent with one up to her/his ear. Bluetooth devices are also in the microwave range, with power levels more likely to be 1 - 3 milliwatts (0.001 - 0.003 watts), but can go as high as 0.1 watt.

CSummer

In response to someone asking "Is there any gizmo that absorbs this [EMF's] out of the air or something like that!?

Sue wrote: I think there are lots of such devices advertised, some swear by them,
but if you get on the online forums such as emfrefugee yahoo group and
ask about these I think you will hear that they aren't really effective...

and the EMFrefugee group
Post message:
emfrefugee@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe:
emfrefugee-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:
emfrefugee-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:
emfrefugee-owner@yahoogroups.com

[ubaru]

This is a repost from another forum.

Hi!
I wanted to tell everyone about some filters that I have been using for our dirty electricity.
I had tried the Stetzer filters which didn't work too well, and then tried the green wave ones which took my dirty electricity down from a 350 to between 10 and 40 depending on the room. I have one of those digital meters because I have solar so I needed to do something to mitigate that change. Now my dirty electricity is at an all-time low, lower than it was before I even got the solar.

These are Rich Lear's new filters, available at www.greenwavefilters.com
check them out!

[ubaru]

The City of Sebastopol approved a cell tower expansion to a 4G network in the heart of downtown Sebastopol. They ignored a need for a environmental report (CEQA) and based their decision on scanty evidence of safety. In fact more than half of their safety evidence was deemed inaccurate by the Verizon representative based on conflicting figures between two reporting companies. We have a lawyer, Rose Zoia who is available to sue the city and obtain an injunction against the expansion. The City has a "hold harmless" clause from Verizon, so Verizon will have to pay all legal fees for the City. It is estimated to cost about $20,000 for the legal process. We have $1,000 already pledged from one donor. In order to move forward with this lawsuit we need a local person who is willing to be a fundraising coordinator. I need to ensure that I have the help I need in order to move forward with this. Please let me know if you support the lawsuit and if you can contribute to it, or be a fundraising coordinator------ by January 9! If you are interested in following Sebastopol news, please sign up to receive Sebastopol updates. http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.c...=1105614745583 Thanks! Warm regards, Sandi Maurer www.emfsafetynetwork.org

[Glia]

thank you for this testimonial. This "dirty electricity" issue is something that I'm not familiar with. what are the units of these metrics and how are they measured?

PS: love your spot-on footer!

This is a repost from another forum.

Hi!
I wanted to tell everyone about some filters that I have been using for our dirty electricity.
I had tried the Stetzer filters which didn't work too well, and then tried the green wave ones which took my dirty electricity down from a 350 to between 10 and 40 depending on the room. I have one of those digital meters because I have solar so I needed to do something to mitigate that change. Now my dirty electricity is at an all-time low, lower than it was before I even got the solar.

These are Rich Lear's new filters, available at www.greenwavefilters.com
check them out!

[ubaru]

thank you for this testimonial. This "dirty electricity" issue is something that I'm not familiar with. what are the units of these metrics and how are they measured?

PS: love your spot-on footer!

Thanks Glia,

I didn't write this testimonial, and it poses new info that I am still learning about. Dirty electricity is another name for high EMF's. She speaks of dirty electricity from her solar power, which can be avoided if one stays on DC. I do not know the units of measurement for her EMF detector. My $25 model is in milligauss.

Here's a fragment of techno speak about how to hook up a free energy device, which is similar to solar, and I mention only to give off the grid folks some valuable info re: avoiding dirty electricity:

7. Only after you’re exhausted what you can run on DC (12 Volt direct current), then start thinking about an inverter. You can go cheap (<$50), but it will be a modified sine wave inverter. This is a bad idea if you are electro-sensitive, since it makes REALLY dirty electricity. You'll need to spend $100+ on a pure sine wave model.

8. The list could keep going, and I'd love to hear what others would add. The idea is to make it scalable, and use DC whenever possible to reduce your electromagnetic fields.

[ubaru]

what are the units of these metrics and how are they measured?

I found this today:



It's from the trailer for a new smart meter movie being made:

[ubaru]

Toronto Hospital is First to Recognize Symptoms from Wireless Radiation

• http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/757245
  
  
  Toronto Hospital is First to Recognize Symptoms from Wireless Radiation
  Canada NewsWire
  TORONTO, June 18, 2012
  
  
  TORONTO, June 18, 2012 /CNW/ - Women's College Hospital says family
  doctors must learn to detect the symptoms of exposure to wireless
  radiation.
  
  The hospital released a statement saying the symptoms include disrupted
  sleep, headaches, nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, memory
  problems, and skin rashes. These symptoms are now labelled
  Electro-magnetic Hyper-sensitivity, or "EMS".
  
  "Health-care practitioners need to better understand EMS so they can
  help their patients," said Dr. Riina Bray, medical director of the
  hospital's Environmental Health Clinic.
  
  Dr. Bray says the world is becoming dominated by wireless internet, cell
  phones and cell towers, and there can be a broad range of health
  impacts.
  
  The hospital's Environmental Health Clinic has begun holding educational
  workshops on the subject for doctors.
  
  Last year the World Health Organization placed microwave radiation from
  wireless internet and cell phones on an official Cancer watch-list.
  Since then several schools have removed their wifi systems and the
  Catholic teacher's union in Ontario has called for a moratorium on wifi
  installations in classrooms.

[Howard]

Apologies for the long article, but I think it says it all (from Slate): http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...ern_world.html

Refugees of the Modern World

The “electrosensitive” are moving to a cellphone-free town.But is their disease real?

By Joseph Stromberg|Posted Friday, April 12,2013, at 5:30 AM


Nicols Fox moved to the Radio Quiet Zone to escape electromagnetic forces
Courtesy of ChristineFitzpatrick

You can turn on your phone on in Green Bank, W.Va., but you won’t get a trace of a signal. If youhit scan on your car’s radio, it’ll cycle through the dial endlessly, neverpausing on a station. This remote mountainous town is inside the U.S. National Radio QuietZone, a 13,000–square-mile area where most types of electromagneticradiation on the radio spectrum (which includes radio and TV broadcasts, Wi-Finetworks, cell signals, Bluetooth, and the signals used by virtually everyother wireless device) are banned to minimize disturbance around the NationalRadio Astronomy Observatory, home to the world’s largest steerable radiotelescope.

For most people, thisrestriction is a nuisance. But a few dozen people have moved to Green Bank(population: 147) specifically because of it. They say they suffer fromelectromagnetic hypersensitivity, or EHS—a disease not recognized by thescientific community in which these frequencies can trigger acute symptoms likedizziness, nausea, rashes, irregular heartbeat, weakness, and chest pains.Diane Schou came here with her husband in 2007 because radio-frequency exposureanywhere else she went gave her constant headaches. “Life isn’t perfect here.There’s no grocery store, no restaurants, no hospital nearby,” she told me whenI visited her house last month. “But here, at least, I'm healthy. I can dothings. I'm not in bed with a headache all the time.”The idea that radiofrequencies can cause harm to the human body isn’t entirely absurd. Someresearch has suggested that long-term exposure to power lines and cellphones is associated with an increased chance ofcancer, although most evidence says otherwise. But what these people claim—thatexposure to electromagnetic frequencies can immediately cause pain and illhealth—is relatively novel, has little medical research to support it, and istreated with deep skepticism by the scientific mainstream.

That hasn’t stopped them from seeking to publicize the dangers of wireless technology. One of the mostprominent activists in the field, Arthur Firstenberg, gained notoriety in 2010for suing his Santa Fe neighbor for the effects of her Wi-Finetwork. But he began organizing EHS-sufferers way back in 1996—when digitalcellular networks were initially installed across the country—forming the Cellular Phone TaskForce and publishing Microwaving Our Planet,one of the first books on the topic. In the years since, a fringe movement hasgrown around the idea, with some 30 support groups worldwide for those affected byradiation. The purported “epidemic” is particularly concentrated in the UnitedKingdom and Sweden, where surveys have found that 1 to 4 percent of the population believesthey’re affected.


Here in the UnitedStates, West Virginia’s Radio Quiet Zone has become a gathering place for thehypersensitive since the mid-2000s, when they first began arriving. Most findout about the area through EHS groups, at conferences, or by reading about it in the handful of newsreports published over the last few years. Diane Schouestimates that, so far, 36 people like her have settled in and around the tinytown to escape radiation.


When you walk in the Schous’ two-story brick house, 4 miles up a forested road from the Green Bankpost office, the first item you see might be a radiation meter they keep intheir living room. She and her husband, Bert, moved here from Cedar Falls,Iowa, because they believe Diane is sensitive to very specific radiofrequencies. She first began noticing her sensitivity in 2002, she says, whenU.S. Cellular, a wireless provider based in the Midwest, built a tower neartheir farm. “I was extremely tired, but I couldn't sleep at night,” she said.“I got a rash, I had hair loss, my skin was wrinkled, and I just thought it wassomething I ate, or getting older." After she started getting severeheadaches, she heard about EHS from a friend and did some reading online, andeventually came to believe the tower had triggered her latent sensitivity. Shewent for a consultation at the Mayo Clinic, but doctors refused to consider thepossibility, and when she wrote to the FCC complaining about the tower, theysimply replied by saying it was safe.


Over the next four years, she repeatedly left the farm to search for a safe place, travelingthrough Scandinavia (where their son was studying abroad) and logging more than75,000 miles driving across the United States in their RV. She’d findrelatively safe spots but still got pounding headaches and chest pains from arange of triggers: if someone nearby turned on his phone, if she drove past asignal tower, if a neighbor next door used a coffee maker. “It would be like asledgehammer on top of my head,” she said. Initially, only U.S. Cellular phoneshad harmed her, but eventually, being near any electrical device was a risk.(Virtually all devices that use electricity, even if they don’t rely onwireless signals, emit a low level of radiation.)


Then, in 2007, she learned about the Radio Quiet Zone. When she visited, she finally started tofeel better. She and Bert sold half of their Iowa farmland and bought the housein West Virginia, unfinished, and have since installed wiring with thickinsulation to reduce radiation. (Bert—who gets much milder symptoms of EHS,including tinnitus—still goes back to their farm every summer to conduct cornresearch.) Over time, living without exposure reduced Diane’s sensitivity, andshe can now tolerate many devices without pain. The Schous use a landline andan Internet-connected computer (without Wi-Fi). But they still haven’t found arefrigerator with low enough radiation emissions, so Diane manually fills anicebox with ice each day. Even now, if she leaves the Radio Quiet Zone,exposure can set her off: “I'll say, ‘Oh, I have a headache,’ and thensomeone's cellphone will ring,” she said. “This happens time and time again.”


The Schous often host EHS-sufferers who want to test out Green Bank. One person who relies on theirhospitality is Deborah Cooney, a singer, pianist, and voice coach from SanDiego. Her problems began in 2010, she told me, when a smart electricity meterwas installed on her house; she believes this triggered her boyfriend’s heartissues, led to her own hypersensitivity, and even caused her cat to startpanting, pacing, and shaking her paws. Over time, Cooney’s symptomsintensified—they included fatigue, numbness, circulation problems, and intensejolts of pain in her heart—and she impulsively moved out one night in October2011. “I got so sick that I felt my life was in serious jeopardy, and if Ididn't leave that minute, I didn't know if I'd survive,” she said. She drovecross-country to the one friend she had who didn’t get any cell service (helived elsewhere in West Virginia) and learned about the Radio Quiet Zone soonafter she arrived.


Currently, she lives without running water or electricity in a simple one-room cabin the Schousbuilt at the foot of their driveway, because simply sleeping in a wiredbuilding makes her sick. During the day, she shares a nearby apartment withanother hypersensitive person, where she cooks, bathes, and occasionally uses acomputer. Because she has trouble finding work, she’s having money problems.Recently, she traveled to Texas and Florida to perform, sleeping in her carevery night of the monthlong trip because of the devices and Wi-Fi networks inhotel rooms. “This is a tough place to live,” she says. “I really don’t knowhow I’m going to be able to support myself.”


Some residents of Green Bank, along with the nearby town of Marlinton—also in the Radio QuietZone—apparently aren’t thrilled about this influx.* According to Schou, manylocals are reluctant to rent housing to people with EHS, perhaps a result ofthe fact that in a remote area with few job opportunities, any new arrivalsonly heighten competition—and maybe because they’re likely to ask for specialtreatment. Schou told me that since she requested to have the fluorescentlights shut off at the community center, she’s faced intense discrimination:Packages have been stolen from her porch, and she once found a dead groundhogin her mailbox. “I’ve been told, ‘We don’t want your kind of people here,’ ”she said. Cooney was banned from the radio observatory for bringing upradiation issues at a town meeting held there and says her tires have beenpunctured in the night more than once. (I tried to talk to some locals abouttheir new neighbors—but it’s hard to do a man-on-the-street interview in anarea with so few streets or proverbial men.)


Cooney, like many with EHS, is particularly angry about the rollout of smart meters by electricutilities in many parts of the country. In some places, the backlash has beenfierce, in part because of the belief that their wireless signals (used tomonitor electricity consumption in real time) are dangerous. In Maine, consumers successfully demanded opt-outs forthose who don’t want smart meters installed, while one utility in Hawaii switched to an opt-in program. But Cooney says this doesn’tgo far enough: “Those options doesn’t let me opt out of the smart meter on myneighbor’s house, 10 feet outside my door, or the bank of 100 smart meters onthe apartment building behind by house. And radiation doesn’t respect propertyrights.” She’s currently suing California’s Public UtilitiesCommission for $120 million in damages and wants a decision that bans smartmeters entirely. Cooney also believes the telecommunications industry has beenactively concealing the dangers of radio frequencies for some time. “They justwant to keep profits high,” she said. “They want to keep injuring peoplebecause they don't want to pay the money it would take to correct the problem.” It’s clear that Cooney,Schou, and the others are suffering. But the question remains: What exactly is“the problem”?


Even a skeptical thinker can be briefly entranced by the notion that researchers may have simply failed, so far, to uncover a real disease—as Carl Sagan was fond of saying, “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” It’s especially tempting when talking to someone like Nicols Fox, who reported for the Economist on food safety issues for more than a decade and wrote three books before moving to the nearby town of Renick, W.V., in 2008 in an attempt to control her EHS. A science-minded person who probably would have once scoffed at the idea of hypersensitivity, she gradually came to believe that her shooting pains, unpredictably plunging heart rates, and difficulty speaking were a result of years in front of a computer. “I got more and more sensitive, and eventually there was a day when my body just screamed when I touched the keyboard,” she said.

Now, she lives simply in a little two-bedroom house on a forested ridge and does her writing on a typewriter (she's working on a novel), mirroring the Luddite tradition she once wrote a book about. At night, she wears a shirt woven with silver fibers to reduce her radio frequency exposure, and though her house has electricity, she shuts it off and uses gas lamps whenever possible. During our conversation, her voice would occasionally get cracked and raspy if I got too close with my audio recorder. In the five years since she’s moved to the Radio Quiet Zone, she hasn't left once.

Fox’s position on the dangers of radio frequency seems to make sense at first glance. “It’s completely artificial, we've invented it, and it’s never been on this planet before, so nothing—not animals or humans—is adapted to it,” she told me. Of course, this kind of thinking (that a natural state is inherently better than an unnatural one) is a logical fallacy, and can’t replace actual evidence in proving the existence of EHS. Nevertheless, Fox and others who believe they suffer from it often compare wireless devices to tobacco—a dangerous addiction that many of us sign up for before fully understanding the risks.

Unlike many people who believe they suffer from EHS, Fox doesn’t seem particularly worried about proving it. “I don't care if there's research or not,” she said. “I've done my research. Meaning, I’ve sat in the doctor’s office and seen my heart range drop to 36 beats per minute when they turn the equipment on.” As she points out, there’s no reason why she’d turn her life upside-down—abandoning her career and selling her house on Maine’s Mount Desert Island—to fake a disease.

But “faking it” isn’t the right way to discuss EHS—both because it alienates sufferers by making them defensive and because, more importantly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to research, these people’s symptoms may be real. But—and this is the important part—radiation isn’t to blame. A 2010 meta-analysis of 46 studies concluded that “repeated experiments have been unable to replicate this phenomenon under controlled conditions,” while the World Health Organization simply says that “well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure.”

The primary way of testing is a provocation study, in which a purported EHS-sufferer is exposed to either an electromagnetic field or a sham field and asked to identify which is which. James Rubin, a psychologist at King’s College London who studies psychogenic illnesses, has analyzed the literature on provocation studies and conducted some at his own lab. His most recent meta-analysis—which covered 1,175 participants in 46 studies—found no rigorous, replicable experiment in which radio frequencies were identified at rates greater than chance. “It is definitely the case that some people experience symptoms that they attribute to electromagnetic frequencies,” he told me. “But is it really these frequencies causing the symptoms? At the moment, we can say that there simply isn't any robust evidence to support that.”

Some EHS-sufferers criticize provocation studies, saying that holding them in a lab means spillover radiation from equipment and nearby buildings even in the sham condition. They also argue that the experiments don’t necessarily use the correct radiation frequency. (“The scientist is pretending to be God, knowing what frequency that person will react to,” Diane Schou said to me.) But Rubin points out that many provocation studies start with an unblinded stage, where the participants are truthfully told whether the electromagnetic field is on. “They almost always report symptoms when they know it is on, and not when they know it is off,” Rubin said. “In the second stage, when the experiment is repeated double-blind, they report symptoms to the same extent in both conditions.” When the participants know whether the field is on, in other words, contaminant radiation and frequency specificity suddenly aren’t such big problems.

As such, the best predictor for whether a hypersensitive person will experience symptoms isn’t the presence of radio frequency—it’s the belief that a device is turned on nearby. An elegant demonstration of this on a much larger scale took place in 2010, when residents of the town of Fourways, South Africa, successfully petitioned for a cell signal tower to be taken down because of the sickness caused by its radiation—even though it was later revealed that it hadn’t been switched on during the time of their complaints.

The idea of EHS is also undermined by our basic understanding of electromagnetic radiation. The full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is divided into ionizing and non-ionizing frequencies. The former category, which includes X-rays and nuclear fallout, is energetic enough to tear electrons off our body’s atoms and cause radiation sickness; the latter isn’t. While the frequencies in this latter group (which includes visible light, cell signals, Wi-Fi, and the radiation from power lines) can burn biological tissue at extremely high intensities, our devices operate at levels well below anything considered harmful. The alluring idea that life hasn’t evolved to withstand non-ionizing radiation becomes silly when you consider that the main source of it on planet Earth is sunlight.

As Fox and others note, there is research supporting the idea that EHS is real—but scientists largely dismiss it as pseudoscience. Most well-known is the BioInitiative Report (a non–peer-reviewed publication authored by 29 self-described “scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals”), which has been widely criticized for selectively using favorable studies and data. The European Commission noted that, contrary to its claims, the report was a post facto assembly of many different papers and studies, not the consensus of a working group, and that it often ignored the conclusions of the researchers themselves in interpreting the data. A recent article in the Guardian cited a 2011 study by a team of LSU neurologists that purported to find that electromagnetic frequencies caused headaches and muscle twitching, but the study involved only one subject—and even she wasn’t able to identify if a field was turned on at rates better than chance.

Given the data, the long-hidden danger of tobacco isn’t an apt parallel for the supposed harm of radio frequency radiation. But other episodes from history are. Technology historian Genevieve Bell says that in the early days of rail travel, experts warned that if a woman traveled faster than 50 miles per hour, her uterus could suddenly fly out of her body. Bell has charged the many instances throughout history in which new technologies triggered unfounded, irrational “moral panics." She theorizes that innovations which change our relationship to time, space, and other people are the most likely to incite fear. It’s hard to imagine technologies that hit all three of these all comprehensively as smartphones and the mobile Web.

You could also view EHS as a mass psychogenic illness, in which very real symptoms arise from a socially contagious belief in a nonexistent disease. In 1962, for example, after a June bug infestation at the Montana Mills textile factory in North Carolina, workers began getting sick: They broke out in rashes, experienced nausea, and in some cases fainted and required hospitalization. A total of 62 workers exhibited symptoms, but doctors and entomologists couldn’t find any explanation. In a seminal 1968 study, a pair of psychologists who had interviewed the staff concluded that their physical symptoms had been triggered by the belief that they were at risk, reinforced by local news stories about the infestation and resulting contagion. Interestingly, those with close friends who’d gotten sick first were more likely to develop symptoms, as were those more stressed and dissatisfied with their jobs. Other episodes attributed to mass psychogenic illness include a supposed post-9/11 chemical attack at a Maryland Metro station (in which window cleaner somehow caused 35 people to develop headaches, nausea, and sore throats), and last year’s mysterious outbreak of twitching among female high school students in Le Roy, New York.

As The New Yorker recently pointed out in a blog post, EHS, along with these types of episodes, hint at the bizarre power of the nocebo effect: the flip-side of the placebo effect, in which inert substances or the suggestion of harm brings about real physical symptoms. In many studies of the nocebo effect, simply explaining to patients that a pill might trigger side effects has been enough to cause everything from back pain to erectile dysfunction. “If you believe that a substance, compound, or phenomena harms you, and you start experiencing symptoms, there's confirmation for your belief right there, and then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Brian Dunning, a prominent skeptic who hosts the Skeptoid podcast and frequently takes on pseudoscientific claims, told me. “You see that your phone has a signal or that there’s a Wi-Fi router in the room, it further increases your stress level, and you have very real and very distressing physical symptoms. Once you have this confirming experience, it becomes really difficult to sit there and be told otherwise.”

Our brains’ expectations, it turns out, have a surprisingly potent effect on the functioning of our bodies. If the people who moved to Green Bank truly suffer from piercing headaches, nausea, and dizziness when they are around wireless signals, the nocebo effect (and previous instances of mass psychogenic diseases) is as good an explanation of anything we have so far.

But what does this mean for people who believe they suffer from EHS? Probably not much. Science might say that they can’t possibly be allergic to cellular networks, but as long as they are certain they are, the Radio Quiet Zone is the one place they can get relief.

So, for now, most of them plan to stay in Green Bank, and more arrive all the time. In just the week before I visited, Bert Schou told me, they’d gotten calls from people in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Virginia asking whether they could come stay. Diane wants to raise money to build a resource center for the hypersensitive nearby, where they can be medically evaluated in a radiation-free setting and stay overnight when necessary.

Above all, they want to spread the message that electromagnetic radiation is dangerous—and that the only solution is getting away from this invisible form of pollution. "You might find a friend or someone in your workplace who's not feeling well,” Bert said to me as I stood in his driveway, getting ready to head out before it got dark. “Bring them here, and they might feel better, too."