All I Really Need to Know About EMF I Learned After My Wife Got Sick
A Brief History of Electrosmog
BY JONATHAN MIRIN
Published: May 26, 2015
"Doubt is our product
since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in
the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a
controversy." — Tobacco executive internal memo, 1969
"There really are
people who feel pain, etc., related to EMF, etc., and rather than have them
becoming hysterical, etc., I would quietly leave them alone." — Former
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey in an email to Pacific
Gas & Electric's Brian Cherry seized by California authorities, 2010.
History was never my
favorite subject. I preferred English, theatre, religion — subjects where the
imagination seemed unrestricted by the weight of historical facts. Of course, I
had heard the truism about not being able to understand the present without
knowing the past. I appreciated the idea intellectually. But it wasn't until my
wife Godeliève Richard, a Swiss dancer/choreographer and visual artist, became
sick in the spring of 2010 and we came to understand, after three torturous
years, that the root of her suffering was her sensitivity to RF (radio
frequency) wireless radiation of the sort emitted by cell towers, cell phones,
computers trying to pick up Wifi, Wifi enabled routers, cordless phones,
tablets, our electric meter, etc., etc., etc., that I became an avid student of
history.
We began reading books,
articles, websites. We watched documentaries. We spoke with activists. It took
me several months to completely accept that EHS (Electromagnetic
Hypersensitivity) was what had derailed our lives and stolen time and energy
from our now three-year-old son. Members of our family and friends quietly
confided their belief to me that this must be a mental problem. In a way, I
wished they were right. How would we live? How would she survive?
Sometimes at four in the
morning after another sleepless night when we were deciding whether or not to
go to the emergency room, it seemed like death was a possible final outcome.
Luckily, we found a solution for our home that has allowed her to sleep well
again and begin to heal, however she still can't leave the house for more than
a few hours at a time. Among other adjustments we have made, a doctor
recommended a company making biotuners, a small rectangular casing placed on
the fuse box in order to deactivate the harmful information from electrosmog.
One of my many layers of
resistance to accepting that electromagnetic pollution or electrosmog was what
had destroyed her health was a simple, naive faith in the regulatory powers of
the U.S. government. This radiation is literally everywhere. If it could be so
dangerous, how could it be allowed on such a massive scale? But after I found
the startling analogy between RF and asbestos and cigarettes laid out on more
than one advocacy group site, things began to click.
The tobacco industry’s
manipulation of the science and the U.S. court system began in the 1950s. In
1981, Japanese researcher Takeshi Hirayama definitively established the link
between cancer and second hand smoke. Every year that passed added to the death
toll in America. Why the lag time? One reason was that the tobacco industry had
hired product defense firms that specialized in one product: doubt. If you can
define the parameters of a scientific study that you pay for, it turns out
there is quite a good chance the scientists you have hired will reach a
conclusion that supports your position that there is no problem. Cell phone
companies have hired, literally, some of the same supporting cast used by the
tobacco industry.
In May, 2014, tobacco
scientist Peter Valberg of product defense firm Gradient, testified in
Worcester, MA, to the Worcester Zoning Board of Appeals about the safety of
National Grid's smart meter pilot program. Smart meters are two-way RF
transmission devices that the Massachusetts of Department of Public Utilities
issued an order for utility companies to install on June 12, 2014. The Mass DPU
relied on Valberg's testimony in their assessment that the radiation emitted from
smart meters was safe because it is below FCC limits. A fraud complaint was
filed with the MA Attorney General's office against the DPU in March.
It turns out our electric
meter was installed in the late 90's already equipped to pulse RF radiation
every couple of seconds from the meter to the street. I called our electric
company and told them that radiation made my wife sick and asked that they pull
in to our driveway as they drive by and read the meter in person. I was told
this was not possible. I suggested that we could simply shield the meter and
they could lift the shielding off to take the readings. But this, they warned,
would lead to potentially more expensive "estimated readings" when
their truck got back to headquarters without a reading from our meter.
Telecom Companies Hold A
Legislative Trump Card
Between 1994 and 1998,
telecom companies made nearly $12 million in campaign contributions to members
of Congress. In 1996, they helped write the Telecommunications Act, which
stipulates that "no state or local government . . . may regulate the
placement, construction and modification of personal wireless facilities on the
basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent
that such facilities comply with the [Federal Communication Commission's]
regulations concerning such emissions."
This provision stripped my
town's Zoning Board of Appeals, not to mention every U.S. individual, local and
state government, of the ability to say “no” to a cell tower proposal on the
basis of health concerns. The result is that although the now more than 6,000
independent studies demonstrating health risks may be mentioned during the hearing
process, the tower AT&T proposed on our road had to be denied on some other
grounds, like its proximity to a road designated as a Scenic Byway or perhaps
the average of 15 percent drop in property value for those unfortunate enough
to live next to it.
Luckily for us — and even
better for the elderly people and children who would have been living about 150
feet from the tower — AT&T withdrew their proposal. They didn't say why,
but looking at the pattern of new cell tower placement around the U.S., we can
surmise that this was a business decision based on their strategy of following
the path of least resistance. In other words, putting a new tower on the road
of a publicly known person suffering from EHS probably looked a little too
costly. My wife and I make plays for a living and our latest, Innocenzo,
tells the tale of a clown who, after visiting many doctors and healers, finally
realizes that he has become electro-hypersensitive. We didn't have to do much
research.
Cell companies have become
adept at hiding their antennas and AT&T wanted to stash the one designated
for our road in an oversized barn silo. In Switzerland, where we tour our plays
in French, there is a tower hidden in a church steeple not far from our
apartment. Consequently, although Switzerland has the lowest RF limits in the
world, Godeliève has a harder time leaving the house there than the rural road
where we live in the U.S. Unfortunately, hiding cell towers or decorating them
as trees does nothing to change health impacts.
A German study published
in 2004 (Eger, et al), found that living within 400 meters of a cell tower
increased the likelihood of developing cancer by 300%. These results are
typical of the growing number of studies being done outside the U.S. where the
distinctive lack (read $0) of federal funds being spent on RF safety research
seems unsurprising given the "over 400 million dollars in political
contributions and lobbying [by the wireless industry]," according to
lawyer Andrew Campanelli who now specializes in preventing unwanted cell tower
installation after starting his career as a telecom lawyer.
Everyone is
Electro-sensitive
It might seem, at first
glance, that people like Godeliève should be shipped off to an island so that
the rest of the un-sensitive population can enjoy their wireless lives.
Although countries are establishing radiation free zones for people like her,
everyone is electro-sensitive. Everyone's melatonin production (the substance
which cleans up cancer-causing free radicals, among other things, while we
sleep) is inhibited when exposed to levels of RF currently deemed safe. Humans
are electrical beings composed of cells that have been proven damaged by much,
much lower levels of RF than you would experience in your typical coffee shop
or elementary school.
One key historical moment
concerns the Federal Communication Commission standards themselves. Back in
1953, researcher Herman Schwan, a former Nazi scientist imported in 1949 to
work for the U.S. Navy, suggested a thermal (heat) exposure limit for RFs based
on heating effects he had noted when radar operators cooked hot dogs in their
microwave beams. In other words, if your cell phone doesn't measurably heat
your skin, it must be okay, even if you are a fetus, newborn or otherwise more
vulnerable being than the top 10% of U.S. military recruits in 1989, the skull
of whom the FCC bases its SAR (specific absorption rate of RF by the brain)
calculations upon.
The patently absurd idea,
if you are a biologist, of no cellular damage happening below the thermal limit
has been challenged by the American Pediatric Association, the U.S. Department
of the Interior (who are concerned about effects on migratory birds), the
American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the California Medical Association,
Swisscom (in a patent application), and many others. The FCC standard is so
high that telecom companies have had no incentive to engineer anything that
might be even a little bit safer. Isn't it every person's right to stream an HD
movie on his/her phone while waiting in line at the post office? How about two
at time? How about 16?
Nothing like the changes
in federal policy that are needed have ever come as an initiative from the
corporations or government. It has only happened, as Ralph Nader likes to
remind us, because people came together in the common wish for a place where
people can drink clean water, breathe clean air, share the same rights as other
citizens and, in this case, be able to live their lives without having their
health damaged in the relative safety of their own homes.
Global RF Reduction
Efforts
One of the ironies of the
RF radiation puzzle is that there are many straightforward steps that can be
taken by individuals, governments and corporations to reduce this multiple
source 24/7 exposure. This year France and Taiwan became the first countries to
pass national legislation aimed at protecting the public from wireless
emissions. In this case, they took their cue from emerging health research and
primarily defined the public as very young children, whose thinner skulls allow
lower levels of RF to penetrate deeper into the brain. There will be no more
wi-fi in French nursery schools; in elementary schools it will be turned off
except when needed.
National legislation of
this sort, besides being progressive and forward-thinking also happens to be in
the financial self-interest of governments around the world. Insurance
companies have quietly stopped offering coverage for wireless-related health
problems. Who is going to pay for skyrocketing rates of cancer, Alzheimer's,
ADHD, autism, and burn-out leading to missed work days? Since there can be no
definitive 1-to-1 correlation for the multiple environmental factors weighing
on our systems, how are you going to make anyone pay the bill for what Swedish
researcher Lennart Hardell descibes as "the world's greatest biological
experiment ever"?
The makers of wireless technology
are in a terrible spot. Like the tobacco companies, they have to keep denying
the existence of a problem or face major legal and financial repercussions.
The 2011 World Health
Organization classifies RF as a Class 2B "possible carcinogen," along
with lead and car exhaust. In the 2014 French documentary "Ondes, Science,
Manigances" (Microwaves, Science and Lies), director Jean Heches
demonstrates that despite this classification, the WHO is extremely influenced
(to put it politely) by the telecom industry. Sweden, the first country where
EHS is officially recognized as a functional impairment, offers a cell phone
network and a provider of health care coverage to around 300,000 people with
the sensitivity. Lennart Hardell's 2014 research on long term cell phone use in
that country suggests that RF should be re-classified as a Class 1 "known
carcinogen." However, this reclassification is a financial impossibility
(from a certain privileged point of view) as there are trillions of dollars and
hefty sections of the ecomony depending on the perpetuation of doubt.
Unsurprisingly, Hardell has become the victim of a smear campaign.
The makers of wireless
technology are in a terrible spot. Like the tobacco companies, they have to
keep denying the existence of a problem or face major legal and financial
repercussions. Utility companies and the state bureaucracies charged with
regulating them (or abetting them in California's case), after having installed
RF-emitting transmitters on our homes, are in the same bind. So you can bet no
corporate movement will be made towards protecting the public until we create a
financial incentive for them — or they have no choice. That is, if history has
anything to teach us.
Jonathan Mirin's plays
have been performed around the U.S. and internationally. He co-founded Piti
Theatre Company with his wife Godeliève Richard in 2004, whose recent
productions include 28 FEET (about growing up with Crohn's disease), To Bee or
Not to Bee (about honeybee disappearance) and Innocenzo. For more about Piti
Theatre Company's production Innocenzo visit www.ptco.org/innocenzo. Upcoming tour
dates include: June 2, 2015: Greenfield Community Television live taping,
Greenfield MA, and June 6, 2015: Shelburne Falls' Riverfest, at the Shelburne
Senior Center, 1 pm.
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