The question that begs to be asked is "Is there a connection between the rise in electrosmog and the weakening of the bee's immune system - and can this also be related to the 80 or more human immune system disorders that have increased exponentially with the increase in background electromagnetic radiation levels?"
The fact of the matter is that it was not common for people to have herpes simplex - or other herpes-family related illnesses - back in the 70s. However, a number of herpes family viruses are now being found to proliferate in people with conditions like autism, CFS, and Alzheimer's - and members of the herpes-family viruses have infected carp in Japan, lobster off the coast of Florida, and sardines off the coast of Australia.
http://www.nids.net/pdf/slides1.pdf
http://www.nids.net/testimony.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000512083302.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031107055048.htm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=4628
http://www.faqs.org/health/Sick-V1/Chronic-Fatigue-Syndrome.html
Depending on one's level of thinking, one can conclude that it is either the virus or rather a weakening of the immune system that is the cause of these problems.
Research has actually shown that exposure to certain electromagnetic fields (EMF) - besides weakening our immune systems - will stimulate the genome of the Epstein-barr virus, a virus in the herpes family that triggers what is called "mono" in the US and "glandular fever" in other parts of the world (the UK, Australia, and NZ).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed
Can we also assume that these EMFs are stimulating the genome of the other viruses in the herpes family (e.g CMV, HH6V, and so on)? It is a logical assumption - for anyone with half a brain - to assume so, I would think. Of course, further research needs to be done - and not the research funded by the cell phone industry - which almost always with lots of fanfare tells us how safe this technology is. Unfortunately, the people doing this kind of research often have their fundings cut - as was the case with twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Robert O. Becker due to pressure from the DoD because he was trying to warn us about the dangers of this technology way back in the 1970s.
http://www.mindjustice.org/2005update.htm#5
February 27, 2007
Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 — David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.
In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable.
"I have never seen anything like it," Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. "Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home."
The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country.
Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction.
Now, in a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.
As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call "colony collapse disorder," growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.
Along with recent stresses on the bees themselves, as well as on an industry increasingly under consolidation, some fear this disorder may force a breaking point for even large beekeepers.
A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. "Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.
The bee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent; beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the offseason to be normal.
Beekeepers are the nomads of the agriculture world, working in obscurity in their white protective suits and frequently trekking around the country with their insects packed into 18-wheelers, looking for pollination work.
Once the domain of hobbyists with a handful of backyard hives, beekeeping has become increasingly commercial and consolidated. Over the last two decades, the number of beehives, now estimated by the Agriculture Department to be 2.4 million, has dropped by a quarter and the number of beekeepers by half.
Pressure has been building on the bee industry. The costs to maintain hives, also known as colonies, are rising along with the strain on bees of being bred to pollinate rather than just make honey. And beekeepers are losing out to suburban sprawl in their quest for spots where bees can forage for nectar to stay healthy and strong during the pollination season.
"There are less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate," Mr. Browning said. "While this sounds sweet for the bee business, with so much added loss and expense due to disease, pests and higher equipment costs, profitability is actually falling."
Some 15 worried beekeepers convened in Florida this month to brainstorm with researchers how to cope with the extensive bee losses. Investigators are exploring a range of theories, including viruses, a fungus and poor bee nutrition.
They are also studying a group of pesticides that were banned in some European countries to see if they are somehow affecting bees' innate ability to find their way back home.
It could just be that the bees are stressed out. Bees are being raised to survive a shorter offseason, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom begins in February. That has most likely lowered their immunity to viruses.
Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to kill mites are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many worker bees. The queens are living half as long as they did just a few years ago.
Researchers are also concerned that the willingness of beekeepers to truck their colonies from coast to coast could be adding to bees' stress, helping to spread viruses and mites and otherwise accelerating whatever is afflicting them.
Dennis van Engelsdorp, a bee specialist with the state of Pennsylvania who is part of the team studying the bee colony collapses, said the "strong immune suppression" investigators have observed "could be the AIDS of the bee industry," making bees more susceptible to other diseases that eventually kill them off.
Growers have tried before to do without bees. In past decades, they have used everything from giant blowers to helicopters to mortar shells to try to spread pollen across the plants. More recently researchers have been trying to develop "self-compatible" almond trees that will require fewer bees. One company is even trying to commercialize the blue orchard bee, which is virtually stingless and works at colder temperatures than the honeybee.
Beekeepers have endured two major mite infestations since the 1980s, which felled many hobbyist beekeepers, and three cases of unexplained disappearing disorders as far back as 1894. But those episodes were confined to small areas, Mr. van Engelsdorp said.
Today the industry is in a weaker position to deal with new stresses. A flood of imported honey from China and Argentina has depressed honey prices and put more pressure on beekeepers to take to the road in search of pollination contracts. Beekeepers are trucking tens of billions of bees around the country every year.
California's almond crop, by far the biggest in the world, now draws more than half of the country's bee colonies in February. The crop has been both a boon to commercial beekeeping and a burden, as pressure mounts for the industry to fill growing demand. Now spread over 580,000 acres stretched across 300 miles of California's Central Valley, the crop is expected to grow to 680,000 acres by 2010.
Beekeepers now earn many times more renting their bees out to pollinate crops than in producing honey. Two years ago a lack of bees for the California almond crop caused bee rental prices to jump, drawing beekeepers from the East Coast.
This year the price for a bee colony is about $135, up from $55 in 2004, said Joe Traynor, a bee broker in Bakersfield, Calif.
A typical bee colony ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 bees. But beekeepers' costs are also on the rise. In the past decade, fuel, equipment and even bee boxes have doubled and tripled in price.
The cost to control mites has also risen, along with the price of queen bees, which cost about $15 each, up from $10 three years ago.
To give bees energy while they are pollinating, beekeepers now feed them protein supplements and a liquid mix of sucrose and corn syrup carried in tanker-sized trucks costing $12,000 per load. Over all, Mr. Bradshaw figures, in recent years he has spent $145 a hive annually to keep his bees alive, for a profit of about $11 a hive, not including labor expenses. The last three years his net income has averaged $30,000 a year from his 4,200 bee colonies, he said.
"A couple of farmers have asked me, 'Why are you doing this?' " Mr. Bradshaw said. "I ask myself the same thing. But it is a job I like. It is a lifestyle. I work with my dad every day. And now my son is starting to work with us."
Almonds fetch the highest prices for bees, but if there aren't enough bees to go around, some growers may be forced to seek alternatives to bees or change their variety of trees.
"It would be nice to know that we have a dependable source of honey bees," said Martin Hein, an almond grower based in Visalia. "But at this point I don't know that we have that for the amount of acres we have got."
To cope with the losses, beekeepers have been scouring elsewhere for bees to fulfill their contracts with growers. Lance Sundberg, a beekeeper from Columbus, Mont., said he spent $150,000 in the last two weeks buying 1,000 packages of bees — amounting to 14 million bees — from Australia.
He is hoping the Aussie bees will help offset the loss of one-third of the 7,600 hives he manages in six states. "The fear is that when we mix the bees the die-offs will continue to occur," Mr. Sundberg said.
Migratory beekeeping is a lonely life that many compare to truck driving. Mr. Sundberg spends more than half the year driving 20 truckloads of bees around the country. In Terra Bella, an hour south of Visalia, Jack Brumley grimaced from inside his equipment shed as he watched Rosa PatiƱo use a flat tool to scrape dried honey from dozens of beehive frames that once held bees. Some 2,000 empty boxes — which once held one-third of his total hives — were stacked to the roof.
Beekeepers must often plead with landowners to allow bees to be placed on their land to forage for nectar. One large citrus grower has pushed for California to institute a "no-fly zone" for bees of at least two miles to prevent them from pollinating a seedless form of Mandarin orange.
But the quality of forage might make a difference. Last week Mr. Bradshaw used a forklift to remove some of his bee colonies from a spot across a riverbed from orange groves. Only three of the 64 colonies there have died or disappeared.
"It will probably take me two to three more years to get back up," he said. "Unless I spend gobs of money I don't have."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=all
Saturday, March 03, 2007
The Ecologist: Mobile Headache
ECOLOGIST
Mobile Headache
In the middle of a meeting in Westminster Silvia Wilter stood up, in
tears, pleading for a doctor that could diagnose and treat her
daughter's health problem.
Author:Maggie King
Silvia's daughter has grown up next to a cell phone tower, and over
the years she has suffered from a severe rash, fever, headache,
nausea, and strong buzzing noises in her ear. Ms. Wilter has recorded
the times of day during which the cell phone tower is active, to find
that it corresponds directly to when her daughter suffers from these
symptoms.
In the US today, seven lawsuits are pending against the cell phone
industry, brought by sufferers claiming to have been affected by the
radioactive waves created from wireless and cell phone technologies.
However, with the growing popularity of cell phones and wireless
internet technologies across the world, who is responsible for
addressing these health problems, funding treatments, and preventing
the increased risks?
The Safe Wireless Initiative is a foundation in the United States
which investigates the relationship between wireless and cell phone
radiation and human heath. They have found evidence that the
information carrying waves associated with all of these technologies
can form tumors in the human brain and eyes. Their work also suggests
that the waves may help break the blood brain barrier, causing other
serious health problems.
The increase in popularity of wireless internet technologies has led
to concern over the correlation between cell phone radio waves and
areas with wireless internet. Both areas with cell phone towers and
areas with installed wireless internet contain information carrying
radio waves. Dr. George Carlo, a leading expert in electromagnetic
radiation, argues that proteins in the human body recognize the
information carrying radio waves as an unnatural intruder.
In the 1990s, several cell phone companies commissioned Dr. Carlo to
research the relationship between wireless radioactive waves, such as
those in cell phones, and human health. The research determined a
direct correlation between tumors and radio waves, and eventually led
to the foundation of the Safe Wireless Initiative. However, despite
the fact that the findings of Dr. Carlo were peer reviewed by the
Harvard Medical Journal, the cell phone industry rejected his papers.
It was claimed that the research was `non-conclusive' on the basis of
its theoretical approach.
Today wireless and cell phone companies are not held responsible for
emitting these radio waves across cities, schools, and natural
landscapes. Dr. Carlo is calling for the UK to establish a foundation
similar to the Safe Wireless Initiative in the US, which would
attempt to regulate the emission of harmful electromagnetic
radiation. Carlo urged UK citizens to write to their local MP, asking
him or her to support the establishment of a foundation that will
protect the lives of UK citizens from the potential health effects of
wireless and cell phone technologies in the future.
Dr. Carlo told the Ecologist:
"We know enough about the disease process to be able to intervene to
prevent these conditions. That's what we need to do."
Mobile Headache
In the middle of a meeting in Westminster Silvia Wilter stood up, in
tears, pleading for a doctor that could diagnose and treat her
daughter's health problem.
Author:Maggie King
Silvia's daughter has grown up next to a cell phone tower, and over
the years she has suffered from a severe rash, fever, headache,
nausea, and strong buzzing noises in her ear. Ms. Wilter has recorded
the times of day during which the cell phone tower is active, to find
that it corresponds directly to when her daughter suffers from these
symptoms.
In the US today, seven lawsuits are pending against the cell phone
industry, brought by sufferers claiming to have been affected by the
radioactive waves created from wireless and cell phone technologies.
However, with the growing popularity of cell phones and wireless
internet technologies across the world, who is responsible for
addressing these health problems, funding treatments, and preventing
the increased risks?
The Safe Wireless Initiative is a foundation in the United States
which investigates the relationship between wireless and cell phone
radiation and human heath. They have found evidence that the
information carrying waves associated with all of these technologies
can form tumors in the human brain and eyes. Their work also suggests
that the waves may help break the blood brain barrier, causing other
serious health problems.
The increase in popularity of wireless internet technologies has led
to concern over the correlation between cell phone radio waves and
areas with wireless internet. Both areas with cell phone towers and
areas with installed wireless internet contain information carrying
radio waves. Dr. George Carlo, a leading expert in electromagnetic
radiation, argues that proteins in the human body recognize the
information carrying radio waves as an unnatural intruder.
In the 1990s, several cell phone companies commissioned Dr. Carlo to
research the relationship between wireless radioactive waves, such as
those in cell phones, and human health. The research determined a
direct correlation between tumors and radio waves, and eventually led
to the foundation of the Safe Wireless Initiative. However, despite
the fact that the findings of Dr. Carlo were peer reviewed by the
Harvard Medical Journal, the cell phone industry rejected his papers.
It was claimed that the research was `non-conclusive' on the basis of
its theoretical approach.
Today wireless and cell phone companies are not held responsible for
emitting these radio waves across cities, schools, and natural
landscapes. Dr. Carlo is calling for the UK to establish a foundation
similar to the Safe Wireless Initiative in the US, which would
attempt to regulate the emission of harmful electromagnetic
radiation. Carlo urged UK citizens to write to their local MP, asking
him or her to support the establishment of a foundation that will
protect the lives of UK citizens from the potential health effects of
wireless and cell phone technologies in the future.
Dr. Carlo told the Ecologist:
"We know enough about the disease process to be able to intervene to
prevent these conditions. That's what we need to do."
Friday, March 02, 2007
Honey Bee Crisis extends from US to Britain and Netherlands
Honey Bee Crisis extends from US to Britain and Netherlands
http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_news_article
Sally Morton
Sep 28, 2006
Science News: A study by Jacobus Biesmeijer and William
Kunin (Leeds University), showing declines in pollinators and
insect-pollinated plants in Britain and Netherlands.
In July of 2006, an article appeared in La Monde, entitled,
"The Number and Variety of Pollinating Insects in Europe
Are Diminishing Significantly." It was written by Christiane
Galus. Rating hardly a blip on the radar of the
international mainstream news, this article passed through the maze of
media sources without notice by most of the world's
inhabitants. Since I was following the Honey Bee Crisis in the US
as well, I paid attention.
Here is an excerpt:
"A study conducted by Jacobus Biesmeijer and William Kunin
(Leeds University, United Kingdom) and a team of British,
German, and Dutch researchers and published in the July 21
issue of Science confirms that the threat is serious. By
studying different areas of Great Britain and the Netherlands,
scientists observed that wild bees have paid the heaviest
toll, with a 52% reduction in their diversity with respect
to their situation in 1980 in Great Britain and a 67%
reduction in the Netherlands"
Now, those are two disturbing sentences, and it prompted me
to go search current science news and read the scientific
study cited. In conducting the investigatory scientific
study, the team of scientists considered more than one million
data points. Here is an excerpt from the abstract:
"We found evidence of declines (pre-versus-post-1980) in
local bee diversity in both countries? pollinator declines
were most frequent in habitat and flower specialists, in
univoltine species, and/or in nonmigrants. In conjunction with
this evidence, outcrossing plant species that are reliant
on the declining pollinators have themselves declined
relative to other plant species. Taken together, these findings
strongly suggest a causal connection"
See "Parallel Declines in Pollinators and Insect-Pollinated
Plants in Britain and the Netherlands" (Science, 21 July
2006: Vol. 313. no. 5785, pp. 351 ? 354).
You may listen to the Science Podcast, "Pollination in
Trouble," an Interview with Dr. William "Bill" Kunin,
University of Leeds, a co-author of the study.
A transcript excerpt from the interview:
"there were not only fewer species, there were different
species, and that?s part of what raised concern" they tended
to be losing habitat specialists, diet specialists, all the
sort of specialist bees and hover flies, and the
generalists were increasing. And then we started looking at plant; we
were surprised to see a pretty strong pattern of decline in
the vast majority of the insect-pollinated plants, while the
wind-pollinated plants and the self-pollinated plants were
either stable or increasing"
When asked, "How worried should we be about this?" Dr.
Kunin said it did not imply a global pollinator crisis,
however:
"It's the first time anyone's looked for national-scale
declines in pollinators and in both the countries we looked
for it, it was there?I?d be surprised if there aren?t some
similar patterns elsewhere, but again, people have to go
look for them."
One can only hope that similar studies will immediately
commence in the US, Canada, and other countries.
http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_news_article
Sally Morton
Sep 28, 2006
Science News: A study by Jacobus Biesmeijer and William
Kunin (Leeds University), showing declines in pollinators and
insect-pollinated plants in Britain and Netherlands.
In July of 2006, an article appeared in La Monde, entitled,
"The Number and Variety of Pollinating Insects in Europe
Are Diminishing Significantly." It was written by Christiane
Galus. Rating hardly a blip on the radar of the
international mainstream news, this article passed through the maze of
media sources without notice by most of the world's
inhabitants. Since I was following the Honey Bee Crisis in the US
as well, I paid attention.
Here is an excerpt:
"A study conducted by Jacobus Biesmeijer and William Kunin
(Leeds University, United Kingdom) and a team of British,
German, and Dutch researchers and published in the July 21
issue of Science confirms that the threat is serious. By
studying different areas of Great Britain and the Netherlands,
scientists observed that wild bees have paid the heaviest
toll, with a 52% reduction in their diversity with respect
to their situation in 1980 in Great Britain and a 67%
reduction in the Netherlands"
Now, those are two disturbing sentences, and it prompted me
to go search current science news and read the scientific
study cited. In conducting the investigatory scientific
study, the team of scientists considered more than one million
data points. Here is an excerpt from the abstract:
"We found evidence of declines (pre-versus-post-1980) in
local bee diversity in both countries? pollinator declines
were most frequent in habitat and flower specialists, in
univoltine species, and/or in nonmigrants. In conjunction with
this evidence, outcrossing plant species that are reliant
on the declining pollinators have themselves declined
relative to other plant species. Taken together, these findings
strongly suggest a causal connection"
See "Parallel Declines in Pollinators and Insect-Pollinated
Plants in Britain and the Netherlands" (Science, 21 July
2006: Vol. 313. no. 5785, pp. 351 ? 354).
You may listen to the Science Podcast, "Pollination in
Trouble," an Interview with Dr. William "Bill" Kunin,
University of Leeds, a co-author of the study.
A transcript excerpt from the interview:
"there were not only fewer species, there were different
species, and that?s part of what raised concern" they tended
to be losing habitat specialists, diet specialists, all the
sort of specialist bees and hover flies, and the
generalists were increasing. And then we started looking at plant; we
were surprised to see a pretty strong pattern of decline in
the vast majority of the insect-pollinated plants, while the
wind-pollinated plants and the self-pollinated plants were
either stable or increasing"
When asked, "How worried should we be about this?" Dr.
Kunin said it did not imply a global pollinator crisis,
however:
"It's the first time anyone's looked for national-scale
declines in pollinators and in both the countries we looked
for it, it was there?I?d be surprised if there aren?t some
similar patterns elsewhere, but again, people have to go
look for them."
One can only hope that similar studies will immediately
commence in the US, Canada, and other countries.
Honey, Who Shrunk the Bee Population?
The story on the mysterious die-off of honey bees is in
today's media. Here's an article in The Independent (UK) Sent
in by Andy Davidson:
Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?
Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their
hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin
and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows
why.
Michael McCarthy reports
THE INDEPENDENT
Published: 01 March 2007
It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There
could hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than
beekeeping, but the beekeepers of the United States have
suddenly encountered affliction, calamity and death on a massive
scale. And they have not got a clue why it is happening.
Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific,
honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and
decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and
flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without
the queen, who is always left behind).
Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable
apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination
of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin -
and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture
may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators.
Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what
is causing it.
The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when
beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the
die-offs. It was given the name of fall dwindle disease,
but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic
nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.
It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the
majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive
and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few
remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased - they
have a "tremendous pathogen load", the scientists say. But
why? No one yet knows.
The condition has been recorded in at least 24 states. It
is having a major effect on the mobile apiaries which are
transported across the US to pollinate large-scale crops,
such as oranges in Florida or almonds in California. Some have
lost up to 90 per cent of their bees.
A reliable estimate of the true extent of the problem will
not be possible for another month or so, until winter comes
to an end and the hibernating bee colonies in the northern
American states wake up. But scientists are very worried,
not least because, as there is no obvious cause for the
disease as yet, there is no way of tackling it.
"We are extremely alarmed," said Diana Cox-Foster, the
professor of Entomology at Penn States University and one of
the leading members of a specially convened colony-collapse
disorder working group.
"It is one of the most alarming insect diseases ever to hit
the US and it has the potential to devastate the US
beekeeping industry. In some ways it may be to the insect world
what foot-and-mouth disease was to livestock in England."
Most of the pollination for more than 90 commercial crops
grown throughout the United States is provided byApis
mellifera, the honey bee, and the value from the pollination to
agricultural output in the country is estimated at $14.6bn
(?bn) annually. Growers rent about 1.5 million colonies
each year to pollinate crops - a colony usually being the
group of bees in a hive.
California's almond crop, which is the biggest in the
world, stretching over more than half a million acres over the
state's central valley, now draws more than half of the
mobile bee colonies in America at pollinating time - which is
now. Some big commercial beekeeping operations which have
been hit hard by the current disease have had to import
millions of bees from Australia to enable the almond trees to be
pollinated.
Some of these mobile apiaries have been losing 60 or 70 per
cent of their insects, or even more. "A honey producer in
Pennsylvania doing local pollination, Larry Curtis, has gone
from 1,000 bee colonies to fewer than eight," said
Professor Cox-Foster. The disease showed a completely new set of
symptoms, "which does not seem to match anything in the
literature", said the entomologist.
One was that the bees left the hive and flew away to die
elsewhere, over about a week. Another was that the few bees
left inside the hive were carrying "a tremendous number of
pathogens" - virtually every known bee virus could be
detected in the insects, she said, and some bees were carrying
five or six viruses at a time, as well as fungal infections.
Because of this it was assumed that the bees' immune
systems were being suppressed in some way.
Professor Cox-Foster went on: "And another unusual symptom
that we're are seeing, which makes this very different, is
that normally when a bee colony gets weak and its numbers
are decreasing, other neighbouring bees will come and steal
the resources - they will take away the honey and the
pollen.
"Other insects like to take advantage too, such as the wax
moth or the hive beetle. But none of this is happening.
These insects are not coming in.
"This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony
itself which is repelling them."
The scientists involved in the working group were surveying
the dead colonies but did not think the cause of the deaths
was anything brought in by beekeepers, such as pesticides,
she said.
Another of the researchers studying the collapses, Dennis
van Engelsdorp, a bee specialist with the State of
Pennsylvania, said it was still difficult to gauge their full
extent. It was possible that the bees were fleeing the colonies
because they sensed they themselves were diseased or
affected in some way, he said. This behaviour has been recorded in
other social insects, such as ants.
The introduction of the parasitic bee mite Varroa in 1987
and the invasion of the Africanised honey bee in 1990 have
threatened honey bee colonies in the US and in other parts
of the world, but although serious, they were easily
comprehensible; colony collapse disorder is a deep mystery.
One theory is that the bees may be suffering from stress as
beekeepers increasingly transport them around the country,
the hives stacked on top of each other on the backs of
trucks, to carry out pollination contracts in orchard after
orchard, in different states.
Tens of billions of bees are now involved in this
"migratory" pollination. An operator might go from pollinating
oranges in Florida, to apples in Pennsylvania, to blueberries in
Maine, then back to Massachusetts to pollinate cranberries.
The business is so big that pollination is replacing
honey-making as the main money earner at the top end of the
beekeeping market, not least because in recent years the US has
been flooded with cheap honey imports, mainly from
Argentina and China.
A typical bee colony, which might be anything from 15,000
to 30,000 bees, would be rented out to a fruit grower for
about $135 - a price that is up from $55 only three years
ago. To keep the bees' energy up while they are pollinating,
beekeepers feed them protein supplements and syrup carried
around in large tanks.
It is in these migratory colonies where the biggest losses
have been seen. But the stress theory is as much
speculation as anything else. At the moment, the disappearance of
America's bees is as big a mystery as the disappearance of
London's sparrows
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=663
today's media. Here's an article in The Independent (UK) Sent
in by Andy Davidson:
Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?
Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their
hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin
and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows
why.
Michael McCarthy reports
THE INDEPENDENT
Published: 01 March 2007
It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There
could hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than
beekeeping, but the beekeepers of the United States have
suddenly encountered affliction, calamity and death on a massive
scale. And they have not got a clue why it is happening.
Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific,
honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and
decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and
flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without
the queen, who is always left behind).
Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable
apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination
of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin -
and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture
may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators.
Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what
is causing it.
The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn, when
beekeepers along the east coast of the US started to notice the
die-offs. It was given the name of fall dwindle disease,
but now it has been renamed to reflect better its dramatic
nature, and is known as colony collapse disorder.
It is swift in its effect. Over the course of a week the
majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive
and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few
remaining insects are then found to be enormously diseased - they
have a "tremendous pathogen load", the scientists say. But
why? No one yet knows.
The condition has been recorded in at least 24 states. It
is having a major effect on the mobile apiaries which are
transported across the US to pollinate large-scale crops,
such as oranges in Florida or almonds in California. Some have
lost up to 90 per cent of their bees.
A reliable estimate of the true extent of the problem will
not be possible for another month or so, until winter comes
to an end and the hibernating bee colonies in the northern
American states wake up. But scientists are very worried,
not least because, as there is no obvious cause for the
disease as yet, there is no way of tackling it.
"We are extremely alarmed," said Diana Cox-Foster, the
professor of Entomology at Penn States University and one of
the leading members of a specially convened colony-collapse
disorder working group.
"It is one of the most alarming insect diseases ever to hit
the US and it has the potential to devastate the US
beekeeping industry. In some ways it may be to the insect world
what foot-and-mouth disease was to livestock in England."
Most of the pollination for more than 90 commercial crops
grown throughout the United States is provided byApis
mellifera, the honey bee, and the value from the pollination to
agricultural output in the country is estimated at $14.6bn
(?bn) annually. Growers rent about 1.5 million colonies
each year to pollinate crops - a colony usually being the
group of bees in a hive.
California's almond crop, which is the biggest in the
world, stretching over more than half a million acres over the
state's central valley, now draws more than half of the
mobile bee colonies in America at pollinating time - which is
now. Some big commercial beekeeping operations which have
been hit hard by the current disease have had to import
millions of bees from Australia to enable the almond trees to be
pollinated.
Some of these mobile apiaries have been losing 60 or 70 per
cent of their insects, or even more. "A honey producer in
Pennsylvania doing local pollination, Larry Curtis, has gone
from 1,000 bee colonies to fewer than eight," said
Professor Cox-Foster. The disease showed a completely new set of
symptoms, "which does not seem to match anything in the
literature", said the entomologist.
One was that the bees left the hive and flew away to die
elsewhere, over about a week. Another was that the few bees
left inside the hive were carrying "a tremendous number of
pathogens" - virtually every known bee virus could be
detected in the insects, she said, and some bees were carrying
five or six viruses at a time, as well as fungal infections.
Because of this it was assumed that the bees' immune
systems were being suppressed in some way.
Professor Cox-Foster went on: "And another unusual symptom
that we're are seeing, which makes this very different, is
that normally when a bee colony gets weak and its numbers
are decreasing, other neighbouring bees will come and steal
the resources - they will take away the honey and the
pollen.
"Other insects like to take advantage too, such as the wax
moth or the hive beetle. But none of this is happening.
These insects are not coming in.
"This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony
itself which is repelling them."
The scientists involved in the working group were surveying
the dead colonies but did not think the cause of the deaths
was anything brought in by beekeepers, such as pesticides,
she said.
Another of the researchers studying the collapses, Dennis
van Engelsdorp, a bee specialist with the State of
Pennsylvania, said it was still difficult to gauge their full
extent. It was possible that the bees were fleeing the colonies
because they sensed they themselves were diseased or
affected in some way, he said. This behaviour has been recorded in
other social insects, such as ants.
The introduction of the parasitic bee mite Varroa in 1987
and the invasion of the Africanised honey bee in 1990 have
threatened honey bee colonies in the US and in other parts
of the world, but although serious, they were easily
comprehensible; colony collapse disorder is a deep mystery.
One theory is that the bees may be suffering from stress as
beekeepers increasingly transport them around the country,
the hives stacked on top of each other on the backs of
trucks, to carry out pollination contracts in orchard after
orchard, in different states.
Tens of billions of bees are now involved in this
"migratory" pollination. An operator might go from pollinating
oranges in Florida, to apples in Pennsylvania, to blueberries in
Maine, then back to Massachusetts to pollinate cranberries.
The business is so big that pollination is replacing
honey-making as the main money earner at the top end of the
beekeeping market, not least because in recent years the US has
been flooded with cheap honey imports, mainly from
Argentina and China.
A typical bee colony, which might be anything from 15,000
to 30,000 bees, would be rented out to a fruit grower for
about $135 - a price that is up from $55 only three years
ago. To keep the bees' energy up while they are pollinating,
beekeepers feed them protein supplements and syrup carried
around in large tanks.
It is in these migratory colonies where the biggest losses
have been seen. But the stress theory is as much
speculation as anything else. At the moment, the disappearance of
America's bees is as big a mystery as the disappearance of
London's sparrows
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=663
Thursday, March 01, 2007
New Budapest Building Shields Residents from Electrosmog
From Martin Weatherall:
By: CaboodleNews (Hungary)
2007-02-26 09:46:00
Hungary's first building to protect its residents from
electrosmog and radon gas was completed in November 2006.
Residents report feeling more relaxed and better rested than
they did in their previous homes.
Electrosmog is caused by everyday electronic devices such
as radios, television sets, computer monitors and microwave
ovens. The invisible electromagnetic field emanating from
these and similar devices is known to increase the chance of
developing health problems. Radon is a radioactive gas
released from soil and rock under buildings, and is known to
increase the risk of lung cancer.
The building on Berzenczei utca 39-41 in Budapest's
District IX, was designed and constructed by Quadrat Kft. The
company used a system developed in-house known as the "Quadrat
System" to protect residents in the 34 apartments from
harmful radiation. The company has submitted the technology to
the Hungarian Patent Office.
Residents of the Quadrat building are protected from the
negative effects of electrosmog by cables, walls, wallpapers
and paint that shield them from radiation. The walls of the
building also block external radiation caused by
transmission sites, for example and various automatic devices were
built into the apartment floors to provide further
protection. One of these devices cuts off unnecessary power in
bedrooms after everyone has gone to bed, said Ferenc Zettisch,
head engineer of Quadrat Kft.
Flats protected by Quadrat's system cost two to four per
cent more per square meter than regular flats. ča Széely
Varjasn? managing director of the company, said that
prospective buyers were informed about the special qualities of
the building before they purchased their homes. "We have
performed initial tests, and they have shown that radiation is
considerably lower in these apartments. The Quadrat System
is working well, and some residents have said they sleep
better than earlier," she added. Residents have also
volunteered to undergo medical tests to monitor their health.
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=658
By: CaboodleNews (Hungary)
2007-02-26 09:46:00
Hungary's first building to protect its residents from
electrosmog and radon gas was completed in November 2006.
Residents report feeling more relaxed and better rested than
they did in their previous homes.
Electrosmog is caused by everyday electronic devices such
as radios, television sets, computer monitors and microwave
ovens. The invisible electromagnetic field emanating from
these and similar devices is known to increase the chance of
developing health problems. Radon is a radioactive gas
released from soil and rock under buildings, and is known to
increase the risk of lung cancer.
The building on Berzenczei utca 39-41 in Budapest's
District IX, was designed and constructed by Quadrat Kft. The
company used a system developed in-house known as the "Quadrat
System" to protect residents in the 34 apartments from
harmful radiation. The company has submitted the technology to
the Hungarian Patent Office.
Residents of the Quadrat building are protected from the
negative effects of electrosmog by cables, walls, wallpapers
and paint that shield them from radiation. The walls of the
building also block external radiation caused by
transmission sites, for example and various automatic devices were
built into the apartment floors to provide further
protection. One of these devices cuts off unnecessary power in
bedrooms after everyone has gone to bed, said Ferenc Zettisch,
head engineer of Quadrat Kft.
Flats protected by Quadrat's system cost two to four per
cent more per square meter than regular flats. ča Széely
Varjasn? managing director of the company, said that
prospective buyers were informed about the special qualities of
the building before they purchased their homes. "We have
performed initial tests, and they have shown that radiation is
considerably lower in these apartments. The Quadrat System
is working well, and some residents have said they sleep
better than earlier," she added. Residents have also
volunteered to undergo medical tests to monitor their health.
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=658
Dangers of Second-Hand Cell Phone Radiation
Sent by Bente-Ingrid Bruun:
www.emrnetwork.org/position/kane_second_hand_radiation.pdf
On Second-Hand RF Radiation
By Robert C. Kane, Ph.D.
Former Motorola Senior Research Scientist and Technical Staff Member
Radiofrequency radiation emissions from cellular towers and handsets hold the potential for increased incidence of long-term medical effects, but of equal importance are the immediate effects of exposure to the radiation.
Unlike second-hand cigarette or cigar smoke, exposure to which has been linked to life-threatening and debilitating diseases, radiofrequency radiation exposure has, to date, successfully avoided the issue of passive personal exposure. It is extraordinary that absorption of unwanted radiation is never cited as an objectionable byproduct of the wireless
communication craze.
The reason may be that radiofrequency radiation, being tasteless, odorless and invisible, just isn't considered. But, in fact, recent research has demonstrated that even short-term exposure to radiation power densities emanating from a nearby cellular telephone is sufficient to modify brainwave patterns, affect short-term memory, and modify an individual's ability to perform physical tasks such as driving an automobile. These effects are all well and good for those who are willing to accept the risk of modified brain functions and cancer but they are not well and good for the innocent victim of the insidious
radiation - radiation that an innocent non-participant cannot even be aware is being deposited into his or her body.
Radiation emanating from a portable cellular telephone does not discriminate. It propagates through the entire environment surrounding the radiating antenna of the phone. Many people, perhaps most people, have the impression that the radiation goes only to the cellular tower receiving station. That's the cartoonish illusion passed on by the manufacturers and service providers, but the reality of the situation is that every time someone in an automobile next to you activates his cellular phone or whenever someone at a nearby table in a restaurant at which you are having lunch activates her phone your brain is being radiated. So, along with their own increased risk of memory deficits, automobile accidents, and brain cancer, the cellular phone users also include everyone nearby by bringing each into the high-risk pool.
Prior to the 1980s human exposure to radiofrequency radiating sources was pretty much restricted to the occasional
passing police car, commercial mobile radio, or the ultra low-level RF energies emitted by the sun and a sparse array of remotely located television and radio broadcast antennae. However, today it is virtually impossible to venture into a public place without being battered by unwanted radiofrequency radiations from a variety of sources, the most objectionable of which must be the personal portable cellular telephone. Without assuming any responsibility for their actions or assuming any liability for the effects, portable cellular telephone users are presently allowed to radiate nearby persons without fear of consequence, as there are no consequences, even while those unwillingly or unwittingly radiated have no recourse to remedy the unwanted exposures. Such was the case with tobacco smoke until only recently. The issue of secondhand tobacco smoke might have been resolved many years ago if adequate research had been performed to support the complaints of objecting
parties. In the instance of radiofrequency radiation the research has already been completed. The body of available research indicates that operation of a nearby portable cellular telephone will expose a non-user to radiation, some of which will be deposited into the brain of the non-user, at levels higher than necessary to elicit undesirable biological effects even though the phone may be more then ten feet away from the non-user. To put the radiation exposure into perspective let's consider that a person standing ten feet away from a portable cellular phone user can be exposed to radiation levels of more than 1 x 10-3mW/cm2 while the human body in the natural environment is exposed to about 1 x 10-15mW/cm2 of radiofrequency radiation at the same frequency as the cellular phone. Expressed in everyday numbers this becomes: for the cellular phone radiation, 0.001 mW per square centimeter of the bystander's body, whereas for the bystander's normal environment the radiation level is only 0.000000000000001 mW per square centimeter.
In many instances a person may be legally exposed, contrary to her own wishes, to radiofrequency radiation by a phone user standing or sitting immediately next to herself - perhaps as little as one foot away. It's difficult enough to limit one's hazardous environmental exposures to avoid substances which can be detected, but to have no way of protecting one's self from a hazard that penetrates to the depths of the human brain violates the most fundamental principles of our social system.
Know, then, that whenever someone makes a cellular telephone call he or she doesn't just radiate their own brain they radiate everyone's brain. Know, also, that after that cellular phone user leaves the scene he leaves behind, within the brain of each and every nearby person, the residual effects and damage. These are effects and damage known to the scientific community but not acknowledged by the industry placing their products into the commercial stream.
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=661
www.emrnetwork.org/position/kane_second_hand_radiation.pdf
On Second-Hand RF Radiation
By Robert C. Kane, Ph.D.
Former Motorola Senior Research Scientist and Technical Staff Member
Radiofrequency radiation emissions from cellular towers and handsets hold the potential for increased incidence of long-term medical effects, but of equal importance are the immediate effects of exposure to the radiation.
Unlike second-hand cigarette or cigar smoke, exposure to which has been linked to life-threatening and debilitating diseases, radiofrequency radiation exposure has, to date, successfully avoided the issue of passive personal exposure. It is extraordinary that absorption of unwanted radiation is never cited as an objectionable byproduct of the wireless
communication craze.
The reason may be that radiofrequency radiation, being tasteless, odorless and invisible, just isn't considered. But, in fact, recent research has demonstrated that even short-term exposure to radiation power densities emanating from a nearby cellular telephone is sufficient to modify brainwave patterns, affect short-term memory, and modify an individual's ability to perform physical tasks such as driving an automobile. These effects are all well and good for those who are willing to accept the risk of modified brain functions and cancer but they are not well and good for the innocent victim of the insidious
radiation - radiation that an innocent non-participant cannot even be aware is being deposited into his or her body.
Radiation emanating from a portable cellular telephone does not discriminate. It propagates through the entire environment surrounding the radiating antenna of the phone. Many people, perhaps most people, have the impression that the radiation goes only to the cellular tower receiving station. That's the cartoonish illusion passed on by the manufacturers and service providers, but the reality of the situation is that every time someone in an automobile next to you activates his cellular phone or whenever someone at a nearby table in a restaurant at which you are having lunch activates her phone your brain is being radiated. So, along with their own increased risk of memory deficits, automobile accidents, and brain cancer, the cellular phone users also include everyone nearby by bringing each into the high-risk pool.
Prior to the 1980s human exposure to radiofrequency radiating sources was pretty much restricted to the occasional
passing police car, commercial mobile radio, or the ultra low-level RF energies emitted by the sun and a sparse array of remotely located television and radio broadcast antennae. However, today it is virtually impossible to venture into a public place without being battered by unwanted radiofrequency radiations from a variety of sources, the most objectionable of which must be the personal portable cellular telephone. Without assuming any responsibility for their actions or assuming any liability for the effects, portable cellular telephone users are presently allowed to radiate nearby persons without fear of consequence, as there are no consequences, even while those unwillingly or unwittingly radiated have no recourse to remedy the unwanted exposures. Such was the case with tobacco smoke until only recently. The issue of secondhand tobacco smoke might have been resolved many years ago if adequate research had been performed to support the complaints of objecting
parties. In the instance of radiofrequency radiation the research has already been completed. The body of available research indicates that operation of a nearby portable cellular telephone will expose a non-user to radiation, some of which will be deposited into the brain of the non-user, at levels higher than necessary to elicit undesirable biological effects even though the phone may be more then ten feet away from the non-user. To put the radiation exposure into perspective let's consider that a person standing ten feet away from a portable cellular phone user can be exposed to radiation levels of more than 1 x 10-3mW/cm2 while the human body in the natural environment is exposed to about 1 x 10-15mW/cm2 of radiofrequency radiation at the same frequency as the cellular phone. Expressed in everyday numbers this becomes: for the cellular phone radiation, 0.001 mW per square centimeter of the bystander's body, whereas for the bystander's normal environment the radiation level is only 0.000000000000001 mW per square centimeter.
In many instances a person may be legally exposed, contrary to her own wishes, to radiofrequency radiation by a phone user standing or sitting immediately next to herself - perhaps as little as one foot away. It's difficult enough to limit one's hazardous environmental exposures to avoid substances which can be detected, but to have no way of protecting one's self from a hazard that penetrates to the depths of the human brain violates the most fundamental principles of our social system.
Know, then, that whenever someone makes a cellular telephone call he or she doesn't just radiate their own brain they radiate everyone's brain. Know, also, that after that cellular phone user leaves the scene he leaves behind, within the brain of each and every nearby person, the residual effects and damage. These are effects and damage known to the scientific community but not acknowledged by the industry placing their products into the commercial stream.
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=661
Dr Carlo Addresses Members of British Parliament at Westminster
Dr. Carlo Press Release (http://www.mastsanity.org/) - 26th February 2007
There were only 5 MPs present at the presentation by Dr Carlo of the
Safe Wireless Initiative, USA on mobile phone health risks at
Westminster on Thursday 22nd February. There has been a
virtual news blackout on his presentation in the UK media.
Mobile phones have been sold in the US and UK without any
pre-market testing or post-market surveillance. US
Congressional Hearings gave rise to a US$ 28 million research
program by Dr Carlo and his team at Harvard to investigate any
health effects of the technology. In 1999 the team released their findings:
1. that there was leakage in the blood brain barrier
2. genetic damage from non-thermal radiation
3. there was a doubling of risk for a certain type of cancer.
During 1999 and 2001 there was a split between the
scientists and the mobile phone industry.
Asked a question about wireless computers being installed
in British schools, Dr Carlo said 'the government should not
be conducting this experiment' on children.
Although there are studies and research for and against
health effects, the latest Interphone study does show an
increase in brain tumours and acoustic neuromas. Because of
that the German and Swedish Agencies for Radiation Protection
have issued warnings for people to keep their radiation exposure low.
He identified a lack of and urgent need for a postmarked
surveillance system to be established to collect clinical
data. Robert Flello MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent) stated at the
meeting that his constituents are concerned by a cancer
cluster and he has been trying to get data about the illnesses
and deaths but he has been sent from one agency to another
and back again. No one is collecting the data.
Dr Carlo said that primary care givers need to be alerted
to the situation and trained to recognise and treat the
symptoms of EMF radiation.
Yasmin Skelt, a volunteer with Mast Sanity and who was at
the meeting at Westminster said ?The British Government
need to urgently establish a Mobile Phone Telephony
Surveillance Unit based on the lines of the vCJD Surveillance Unit
( www.cjd.ed.ac.uk). If it can be done for vCJD then it can
be done for mobile phone and mast ill health reports.
Despite years of reports of cancer clusters near masts or a rise
the incidence in brain tumours in the UK, no authority is taking data.
Monitoring the health of workers in the mobile phone
industry would be useful also, as they would have high exposure
levels. Some early cases of vCJD were also mis-diagnosed and
the sufferers given the wrong treatment, and clusters of vCJD were identified.?
Brian Stein, who suffers from electrical hyper sensitivity
(a condition now recognised by the World Health
Organisation) asked who would be responsible when the campaigners were
all proved right. There was a deafening silence.
Dr Carlo also visited Ireland to talk to Irish doctors and
his visit has been reported in the Irish media. People can
see the Radio Telefis Eireann interview on
http://rte.ie/news/primetime/ . Or visit the Safe
Wireless Initiative website at www.safewireless.org
Press Contact: Yasmin Skelt Mast Sanity UK
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=660
There were only 5 MPs present at the presentation by Dr Carlo of the
Safe Wireless Initiative, USA on mobile phone health risks at
Westminster on Thursday 22nd February. There has been a
virtual news blackout on his presentation in the UK media.
Mobile phones have been sold in the US and UK without any
pre-market testing or post-market surveillance. US
Congressional Hearings gave rise to a US$ 28 million research
program by Dr Carlo and his team at Harvard to investigate any
health effects of the technology. In 1999 the team released their findings:
1. that there was leakage in the blood brain barrier
2. genetic damage from non-thermal radiation
3. there was a doubling of risk for a certain type of cancer.
During 1999 and 2001 there was a split between the
scientists and the mobile phone industry.
Asked a question about wireless computers being installed
in British schools, Dr Carlo said 'the government should not
be conducting this experiment' on children.
Although there are studies and research for and against
health effects, the latest Interphone study does show an
increase in brain tumours and acoustic neuromas. Because of
that the German and Swedish Agencies for Radiation Protection
have issued warnings for people to keep their radiation exposure low.
He identified a lack of and urgent need for a postmarked
surveillance system to be established to collect clinical
data. Robert Flello MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent) stated at the
meeting that his constituents are concerned by a cancer
cluster and he has been trying to get data about the illnesses
and deaths but he has been sent from one agency to another
and back again. No one is collecting the data.
Dr Carlo said that primary care givers need to be alerted
to the situation and trained to recognise and treat the
symptoms of EMF radiation.
Yasmin Skelt, a volunteer with Mast Sanity and who was at
the meeting at Westminster said ?The British Government
need to urgently establish a Mobile Phone Telephony
Surveillance Unit based on the lines of the vCJD Surveillance Unit
( www.cjd.ed.ac.uk). If it can be done for vCJD then it can
be done for mobile phone and mast ill health reports.
Despite years of reports of cancer clusters near masts or a rise
the incidence in brain tumours in the UK, no authority is taking data.
Monitoring the health of workers in the mobile phone
industry would be useful also, as they would have high exposure
levels. Some early cases of vCJD were also mis-diagnosed and
the sufferers given the wrong treatment, and clusters of vCJD were identified.?
Brian Stein, who suffers from electrical hyper sensitivity
(a condition now recognised by the World Health
Organisation) asked who would be responsible when the campaigners were
all proved right. There was a deafening silence.
Dr Carlo also visited Ireland to talk to Irish doctors and
his visit has been reported in the Irish media. People can
see the Radio Telefis Eireann interview on
http://rte.ie/news/primetime/ . Or visit the Safe
Wireless Initiative website at www.safewireless.org
Press Contact: Yasmin Skelt Mast Sanity UK
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=660
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Calcium ion influx and efflux - a true biological effect - EMR should be treated as chemicals
Calcium ion efflux
The subject of the paper presented at the workshop by Dr Carl Blackman was calcium ion efflux - calcium ions flowing out of cells when exposed to pulsed and modulated EMR. This was first identified in about 1974 by American researchers, Susan Bawin and Ross Adey. Under some conditions the RF induces a flow of calcium ions into the cell.
Dr Blackman has conducted far more experiments in his laboratory on this influx/efflux than anyone else. They have shown that calcium ion alteration occurs at particular carrier frequencies, particular signal strengths, particular modulation frequencies and in particular temperature ranges, but not in others which lie between them.
After summarising these hundreds of experiments Carl Blackman stated that EMR must be treated as chemicals (plural) because we have made the mistake of treating it as a single chemical looking for single effects across the whole spectrum, when it is clear that the effects are very significant and occur at particular combinations of variables, but do not occur at a nearby different combination.
He finished by stating that it is very well established that there is a biological effect called calcium ion efflux and influx that can be caused by EMR at levels that are not involving heating but involving a frequency which has nothing to do with the energy levels. This is therefore a true biological effect, not a consequence of heat but produced by particular combinations of EMR and thus is a separate biological change.
Dr Repacholi accepted that this is a biological effect at low level exposure, but claimed that there was not a health effect. Dr Blackman's response was that such a statement meant that Dr Repacholi was re-writing history. The history of the research is that it began because of the concern that workers working with microwaves had a changed response time and changed behaviour which was identified with an altered EEG (brain scan).
http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/cellphones2.html
The subject of the paper presented at the workshop by Dr Carl Blackman was calcium ion efflux - calcium ions flowing out of cells when exposed to pulsed and modulated EMR. This was first identified in about 1974 by American researchers, Susan Bawin and Ross Adey. Under some conditions the RF induces a flow of calcium ions into the cell.
Dr Blackman has conducted far more experiments in his laboratory on this influx/efflux than anyone else. They have shown that calcium ion alteration occurs at particular carrier frequencies, particular signal strengths, particular modulation frequencies and in particular temperature ranges, but not in others which lie between them.
After summarising these hundreds of experiments Carl Blackman stated that EMR must be treated as chemicals (plural) because we have made the mistake of treating it as a single chemical looking for single effects across the whole spectrum, when it is clear that the effects are very significant and occur at particular combinations of variables, but do not occur at a nearby different combination.
He finished by stating that it is very well established that there is a biological effect called calcium ion efflux and influx that can be caused by EMR at levels that are not involving heating but involving a frequency which has nothing to do with the energy levels. This is therefore a true biological effect, not a consequence of heat but produced by particular combinations of EMR and thus is a separate biological change.
Dr Repacholi accepted that this is a biological effect at low level exposure, but claimed that there was not a health effect. Dr Blackman's response was that such a statement meant that Dr Repacholi was re-writing history. The history of the research is that it began because of the concern that workers working with microwaves had a changed response time and changed behaviour which was identified with an altered EEG (brain scan).
http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/cellphones2.html
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