29 December 2013
Switzerland: Electrosmog
Exposure: Are We Preparing the Way for the Next Disease of Civilization?
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Memorial to the insatiable hunger for data:
a mobile phone antenna |
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Swimming in a sea of rays
by Jürg Steiner, Berner Zeitung, 22 December 2013
(translated from German by Google and the Editor of this blog)
We are
sending ever faster and bigger data packets through our mobile and wireless
network. We are doing so through electromagnetic radiation. Are we preparing
the way for the next disease of civilization?
Casting WLAN networks like
fishing nets, the Spitalgasse in Bern would be impassable. From the street, via
a smartphone, one can locate dozens of pulsating wireless screens within a
confined area. There are no benefits but everyone is irradiated, also by the
mobile antenna covering the city center at full strength.
In the train, the
same picture: from left and right, pulsating electromagnetic waves from private
phones and laptops, while travelling through the sea of rays of the mobile
phone network.
Omnipresent radiation
And that's just the beginning. By
the end of 2014, the CFF [Swiss Railway] wants to guarantee the best internet
connections and optimal cell phone reception in all its cars on long-distance
traffic. In train stations, free Wi-Fi is the standard. The city of Bern is
driving the development of a nationwide free Wi-Fi network. Postal buses move
along the periphery like rolling Wi-Fi islands.
Hospital beds without WLAN
coverage will be perceived as an imposition. In residential areas, routers from
each apartment building overlap into a WLAN jungle. The Swiss mobile providers
are upgrading their networks with more efficient LTE technology so that one can
rapidly upload photos to Facebook, download PDFs smoothly, and stream YouTube
movies.
Everything, everywhere, always. One can no longer escape the radiation
coverage of wireless and cellular networks. Most of the news and information
appearing on the concentrated display of one’s smartphone is being transmited
using electromagnetic waves, whether via WLAN or mobile.
And that is why we
are producing increasing electromagnetic pollution. Invisible. Impalpable. But
very close to our bodies.
Conflict comes to a head
Are we therefore at
serious risk of illness? Or are fear mongers, skeptics of progress, and health
fetishists merely plowing their next stomping ground?
Jürg Baumann moves
almost daily in this area of conflict, where economic interests collide with
health concerns with more and more violence. He is head of the non-ionizing
radiation section of the Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU-FOEN).
Together with Andreas Siegenthaler, an expert on issues in the high frequency
range, he now wants to draw a different picture of the electromagnetic problem
in the boardroom of the BAFU administration building in Ittigen. And first
visits the fundamentals of radiation physics.
Altered brain waves
In
contrast to X-rays, the waves from the non-ionizing radiation of cellular
technology or Wi-Fi cannot directly change the atoms or molecules of living
things. They do, however, generate heat such as is used in concentrated form in
the operation of microwave ovens. One is now already leaving the scientifically
physical knowledge about the consequences of WLAN and cellular radiation. It is
undisputed that electromagnetic radiation has biological effects on the human
body - for example, changing brain activity.
But we do not know how this comes
about, and also whether it is physically significant. "These
uncertainties," says Baumann, "have been included in the
determination of radiation exposure limits for federal government
regulations."
Roughly speaking, the radiation limits for mobile
telephony, radio or radar systems are firmly set to protect the population not
only from the unhealthy heating effect of the radiation, but also with a
precautionary safety margin for any other biological effects.
In comparison
with Europe, Switzerland has, according to Baumann, strict limits – which is becoming
increasingly a thorn in the side of the mobile industry, pushing their networks
to capacity limits.
"Extremely dynamic»
Regarding health, Baumann
sees no cause for concern at the moment. On average, the exposure of the
population is low, and also, the highest exposures would be “reliably limited,
thanks to the strict Swiss regulations."
But he does not want to commit
long-term, given the duration of exposure over the last few years at home, on
the train, on the platform, in the office, in cafés. “Mobile communications are
developing extremely dynamically," he says - "not only quantitatively
and technologically."
That is very exciting, but the impact of new
technical solutions on radiation exposure is hardly predictable. Also, how
bio-medical knowledge is changing - for example, when more experiences become
available of people moving in dense electromagnetic pollution over a period
years.
Diffuse hypersensitivity
Sleep disturbances, fatigue,
nervousness, headaches, tinnitus, dizziness - diffuse health complaints and
more often associated with non-ionizing radiation.
Critical doctors believe
that the human body would be broken, like a bioelectrical system, sensitive to
the continuous electromagnetic load. Weak radiation, really safe wireless
networks, for example, are pulsing with the same vibrations as alpha brain
waves.
Hypersensitivity has established itself as a collective term for vague
symptoms of possible radiation sensitivity, but it is not as yet an objective
medical diagnosis with generally accepted, physically verifiable criteria.
Electrohypersensitivity
(EHS) is often reduced to psychological problems, but there are research groups
in the U.S. who have demonstrated neurological changes in electrohypersentive
people. "The picture is too inconsistent for one to draw clear
conclusions," says Jürg Baumann. Because of the big knowledge gaps, it is
sometimes a bitter struggle for the truth amongst stakeholders. On the one
hand, for economic reasons, network operators want to satisfy the growing
hunger of users for data at any time, anywhere.
On the other hand, there are
advocacy groups which are against the permanent expansion of mobile
communications networks, such as "Gigahertz" which includes
Bernese activist Hans-Ulrich Jacob, who 15 years ago, fought the shortwave
transmitter at Schwarzburg.
Home-generated electrosmog
Among the
critical spokespersons is the California group, Bioinitiative, which in 2012
presented its report on major global scientific knowledge for electromagnetic
hypersensitivity.
Their conclusion: electrosmog weakens the immune system,
reduces fertility, can cause abnormalities in cells, and promotes diseases such
as cancer or Alzheimer's. Even very small doses of chronic radiation exposure
are sufficient to cause adverse health effects.
We must keep in mind one
thing, says Jürg Baumann. That we are often exposing ourselves to the most
electrosmog. Radiation exposure not only increases in public spaces, but is
also very strong at home, where at the family table, several smartphones are
often transmitting at the same time and in the basement, a wireless base
station is flashing.
If one finds oneself in the basement, "One of the
most efficient ways to avoid electromagnetic radiation is to keep one’s
distance from the radiation sources," says Baumann. Even one meter’s
distance reduces the burden significantly.
Data on how much the average
population is being exposed today to non-ionizing radiation and exactly how
much it is increasing, is not being collected systematically. Based on a
postulate by the Thurgau green party National Councillor Yvonne Gilli, the FOEN
is now preparing a monitoring program. Financing has yet to be decided by the
Bundesrat [Federal Council].
Live experiment
Whether the persistance
of electrosmog raises electrohypersensitivity to a disease of civilization, is
open. The widespread feeling of taking part in a self-inflicted live experiment
on long-term radiation exposure, can be difficult to shake off.
It is clear
that the possible permanent accessibility of mobile and wireless technology
could promote the diseases of civilization that we know of: stress, exhaustion,
burn-out. And mobile phone use while driving is, in contrast to radiation, an
unequivocally proven risk for serious accidents.
(Berner Zeitung)
Original
article in German
