Bird Flu and Microwaves: Are we Killing Birds with Radiation?

Bird Flu and Microwaves: Are we Killing Birds with Radiation?

Are we killing our feathered friends with radiation? The question might seem far fetched, but it really is not a big stretch of the imagination. Microwaves do cause heating and other, more subtle changes of biological tissues. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of ISIS says: "Birds near mobile phone base stations do not breed well" in a recent article titled Mobile Phones & Vanishing Birds - Where did all the sparrows go?

In addition to birds, bees have been getting sick and disoriented, and whole hives are being deserted - we even have a new name for the phenomenon: Colony Collapse Disorder or Vanishing Bee Syndrome. The mysterious illness has decimated the honeybee population in several nations. There are some links to pesticides, genetically modified crops producing poisons are a hypothesis, but also microwave radiation as used in communications equipment has been implicated. In a case of disappearance of bee hives documented in Germany a few years ago, the bees disappeared from hives where they were exposed to the microwaves from nearby cell phone relay towers, while other hives, situated behind sheet aluminium shielding, stayed put.
Agriculture and Agri-Food, Blackhall says that the avian virus catastrophe may well be the undesired result of the interaction of two related technologies:
A. Modern technological poultry production factory systems introducing the application of chemicals, medicines, biological agents and Electromagnetic radiation techniques, and;
The growth or maturing period from egg to market-ready chicks in the high tech factory system has been reduced from a natural 8 weeks to now less than 5 weeks (average 34 days) in a time-span of approximately 20 years. This has been accomplished by the unnatural application of chemicals, biological and medicinal agents as well as radiation and controlled physiological and psychological overload stresses. These impair the immune systems of chicks as well as other living systems, including human beings, particularly vulnerable during young growing stages of development. This has been established in science by the NRC of Canada.
The harmful effects of cumulative radiation on living systems, with particular reference to birds, has been empirically demonstrated by Canada’s National Research Centre (NRC) as outlined by documents held in their archives. There is a growing body of global scientific evidence supporting this research.
During the initial stabilizing period the egg production of each colony was the same, but following the onset of radiation the egg production of the radiated colony increased to a higher level at which it remained essentially constant. In terms of the total number of eggs produced the difference amounts to an increase of 13.7% - an increase that could be of economic significance in raising poultry provided other, and undesired, interaction effects do not appear.
However the mortality rate of the radiated colony was almost double that of the control colony through each of phases A and B.
Conclusion: The results obtained in this experiment indicate that microwave radiation has an aversive effect on birds in flight comparable to that previously observed in caged birds. This leads the way to a possible solution of the bird hazard problem in aviation.
Depending on many factors the use of microwave radiation can be detrimental or beneficial to humans. One beneficial use of microwave radiation is to reduce the hazards of birds to aircraft. This forms part of an extensive program designed to shed some light on the complex nature of the interaction of microwave radiation with biological systems.
1. Comprehensive monitoring and recording of background radiation in a geostatic pattern of vital locations particularly in the areas of density of factory livestock production and of high density human population.
The paper accompanied testimony before the Committee and it was entered in the record of the enquiry, but unfortunately the recommendations do not seem to have been implemented.
Personal view
"On an island in the Azores (Terceira) I have a house where we spend between one and two months a year, where a mobile phone antenna was constructed very nearby. Once the antenna was put in operation, we had numerous birds fall from the sky (I say numerous, because there were several just on the terrace of our house, so I assume that in the vicinity there must have been many more). The birds were heavily disoriented and half unconscious. Many of them revived after about half an hour of calm, but others died. My opinion is that the birds flew or perched close to the emission antennas of the mobile phone mast, and received too high a dose of microwave radiation.

See also related:
The sparrows have disappeared completely from the cities at least four years ago in Britain, as mobile phones grew in popularity. Third generation (3G) mobile phones were introduced in 2003, and there were over 65 million users in the UK by the end of 2005, more phones than people. Did mobile phone transmitters cause the sparrows to disappear?
Phone masts blamed for pigeons' lost art
Phone masts blamed for pigeons' lost art
Article by Milt Bowling, published in Health Action Magazine, Canada.
Milt Bowling is a consultant and member of HANS, the Canadian Health Action Network Society, a non-profit consumer organization that investigates methods, types and systems of preventative health care and natural therapeutics. Milt is also president of the Clean Energy Foundation, which works with the public, industry and government for better regulation and safer technology.
A new analysis by the National Audubon Society reveals that populations of some of America’s most familiar and beloved birds have taken a nosedive over the past forty years, with some down as much as 80 percent. The dramatic declines are attributed to the loss of grasslands, healthy forests and wetlands, and other critical habitats from multiple environmental threats such as sprawl, energy development, and the spread of industrialized agriculture. The study notes that these threats are now compounded by new and broader problems including the escalating effects of global warming. Species on Audubon’s list of 20 Common Birds in Decline have seen their populations plummet at least 54 percent since 1967.
I got interested in the question of whether RF/microwave radiation was affecting birds about a dozen years ago. I searched the published literature, and there was more to be found than I had supposed, though of course there has been no definitive study done.

A presentation of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Concerns Over Potential Radiation Impacts of Cellular Communication Towers on Migratory Birds and Other Wildlife...(PDF 2.8 MB)

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updated on Wednesday May 7 2008
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Apart from birds getting disoriented and dying in the vicinity of cell phone towers, could the radiation be responsible for the persistence of what we call the bird flu? The illness has been killing chickens and other fowl and is officially attributed to a common virus with the designation H5N1. Former Royal Canadian Navy officer Larry Blackhall thinks there may be a connection. Apart from the appalling and very stressful conditions of the birds caged in huge factory farms, there may be another factor that has not been considered enough.

In a paper he submitted to the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on

B. Cumulative background electromagnetic radiation.

- - -

Discussing the bird flu disaster in BC, Canada, in early 2004 when 19 million birds (the entire provincial stock) were destroyed, Blackhall gives some further specifics:

the connection

The rapid buildup of high tech method factory system poultry production began in the early 1990's with a doubling in the number of barns in the key years of 1998 to 2001. This was coincidental with the equally rapid buildup of microwave radiating towers which began to appear in the mid-1990s with accelerated buildup reaching a pace of 457% during the years 1997 to 2004 with a total of 32 (known) towers being built in this period. I believe this pace will continue through to 2007 when it will 'plateau' as suggested by a forecast done by industry.

the science

A.

B.

National Research Centre of Canada - (NRC)

Scientific peer reviewed and archived laboratory controlled studies done by the NRC of Canada demonstrates conclusively the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation on living systems. These studies are available through the NRC archives. To obtain copies by telephone call             1 800 668 1222       or visit their website at www.nrc.ca/cisti. There is a nominal charge of approximately $12 cdn. Here are three brief relevant extracts from three of the studies:

1. Extract from LTR-CS-113 by Dr J Bigu, 1973, titled; "Interaction of electromagnetic fields and living systems with special reference to birds."

2. Extract from LTR-CS-18 by Dr J A Tanner, 1969, titled; "Effects of microwave radiation on Parakeets in Flight"

3. Extract from LTR-CS-89 by Dr. J A Tanner, 1973, co-authored by Dr. Romero-Sierra, Dept of Anatomy, Queens' University, Kingston, Ont., titled; "Bird Feathers as Dielectric Receptors of Microwave Radiation."

Conclusions

The avian virus was plausibly caused by misadventure with either disregard, or ignorance of, the cumulative effects over time of continuously increasing exposure to harmful electromagnetic radiation, particularly microwave, in tandem with the practices of the modern hi-tech factory system of poultry production.

Recommendations

2. Implement the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) 'Precautionary Principle' as a National Standard for any further adventures in electromagnetic applications.
3. Ensure general public access to radiation information.

Certainly the industry in question here is extremely powerful, and there may well have been suppression of data. There are huge profits involved in communication technologies as well as interests of governments as the use of microwave communication and detection technologies clearly has national security implications. Apart from communication technologies, military and civilian radar uses high power microwave pulses and the infamous HAARP ionospheric heating project in Gakona, Alaska, and other similar facilities across the world emit microwaves at gigawatt power levels, reflecting them from the ionosphere down to widely dispersed locations on the planet.

Migratory patterns of birds and even their health may well be compromised by the "cumulative effect" of such radiation, as cited by Blackwell. This should be looked into and reported in the press, but so far our media has been unable - or perhaps unwilling - to bring that information out into the open in any substantial way, or to make the connection with the bird flu.

Let me add my own personal observation as far as it supports the idea that birds suffer near mobile phone repeater stations. As I wrote to a friend today, who had sent a copy of Mae-Wan Ho's article "Where did all the sparrows go?"

Seeing such a heavy effect on birds (also insects such as bumblebees are affected) I have no doubt that nesting close to a mobile phone mast can influence their reproduction. Coming to think of it - I also found some birds nests that were abandoned and where the young had starved to death. May well have been the nests of some of the birds that didn't make it after exposure to the antenna's radiation.
Of course this isn't "evidence", merely my personal observation."

So how could microwave radiation cause a problem that - for all intents and purposes - seems to be caused by a virus?

Think "contributing factor", think "weakening of the immune system". In the collapse of bee colonies, we see the presence of many microbes and parasites, none of them prevalent or exclusive. A possible explanation is that microwave radiation generally weakens the immune defenses and the biological equilibrium of birds, insects and - yes - people. So perhaps, rather than looking for a virus to blame, we should be looking at the general condition of organisms, and at factors that are capable of influencing that general condition. Microwaves are definitely a candidate - they are becoming ubiquitous and have increased in strength by orders of magnitude in just the last few decades. It is getting more and more difficult to find a spot where they aren't doing their insidious but quite invisible damage.

Mirrors in the Sky is the book that inspired me to write this article. A work of fiction, to be sure, but not without that kernel of truth that characterizes any good novel. A fast-paced, gripping account about a sinister plot mixing ionospheric heating and mind control called HAARP. By Graham Zimmatore. It certainly is worth a read, and not only for the entertainment value...

Birds vs. Towers: Ornithologists fear growth of communications industry

Mobile Phones & Vanishing Birds

Immune system 'attacked by mobile phones'

Animal Study - EMF RADIATION

Birds suffer from biological effects of GSM, 3G (UMTS), DECT, WIFI, TETRA

Cell phone tower radiation may be killing plants and animals

‘Phone mast link to lost sparrows’

A possible effect of electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone base stations on the number of breeding House Sparrows

Where are the Birds and Bees?

Disappearing Common Birds Send Environmental Wake-up Call

Effects of RF/microwaves on birds

I got interested again 5 or 6 years ago, when a dairy farmer in western Wisconsin (USA) attended a state-sponsored meeting and claimed that animals on his farm were being adversely affected by microwave radiation from cellular phone towers. I wasn't sure he was correct, but I thought his claim ought to be taken seriously and investigated, and I knew nobody from the state would investigate, so I took on the task myself.

posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Tuesday May 29 2007

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The Cell Phone Experiment: Is Mobile Communication Worth The Risk?

Nuking your food - microwaves wreak destruction

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/05/29/bird_flu_and_microwaves_are_we_killing_birds_with_radiation.htm