BioInitiative Member Letter Expressing Concern About Views Expressed by Wireless Company CEOs

BioInitiative Member Letter Expressing Concern About Views Expressed by Wireless Company CEOs

September 22, 2014

On behalf of the BioInitative Working Group, we are writing to express our concern about the views expressed by CEOs from Google, Dell, Apple, Adobe, eBay, Facebook, the George Lucas Educational Foundation and others to the FCC supporting wireless technologies in schools.

Your letter to the FCC dated July 7, 2014 titled Education Superhighway, states:

“Today, we are writing to you to urge swift bi-partisan action at your July 11, 2014 meeting to adopt the E-Rate modernization proposal set forth by Chairman Wheeler.” “By responsibly investing $2 billion of unused funds and providing predictable ongoing support for Wi-Fi, the plan will make dramatic progress in bringing high-speed connectivity to our classrooms.”

No one denies that bringing high-speed connectivity to our classrooms is important. But it can be a wired connection and does not have to be WiFi. It does not reflect well on the ethics of your corporations to encourage the FCC to provide $2 billion dollars for new wireless classroom infrastructure and devices for school children, knowing that wireless emissions have been classified as a Possible Human Carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (2011). To promote wireless technologies in schools is to
deliberately and knowingly disregard current health warnings from international science and
public health experts.

Saturating schools with wireless technology will likely create unnecessary liability for municipalities and result in a loss of public trust and confidence in the corporations that push their wireless products with a blind eye toward health concerns.

Epidemiological studies show links between radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure and cancers, neurological disorders, hormonal changes, symptoms of electrical hypersensitivity (EHS) and more. Laboratory studies show that RFR exposure increases risk of cancer, abnormal sperm, learning and memory deficits, and heart irregularities. Fetal exposures in both animal and human studies result in altered brain development in the young offspring, with disruption in learning, memory and behavior. The brain development of a fetus can be impaired by in-utero exposure to a pregnant woman. The evidence for these statements is based on hundreds of published, peerreviewed
scientific studies that report adverse effects at levels much lower than current FCC public safety limits. WiFi is schools, in contrast to wired internet connections, will increase risk of neurologic impairment and long-term risk of cancer in students. Corporations cannot avoid responsibility simply by asserting compliance with existing legal, but outdated and inadequate FCC public safety limits.

Today, corporations that deal with educational technology should be looking forward and helping school administrators and municipal leaders to access safe, wired solutions. Your corporations can reasonably foresee and offer alternatives to potentially hazardous exposures to wireless radiation by choosing to support wired educational technologies.

Thank you for your attention to this letter.
Cindy Sage, MA, Tel: (805) 969-0557 Email: sage@silcom.com
David O. Carpenter, MD, Tel: 518-­‐525-­‐2660 Email: dcarpenter@albany.edu
Co-Editors, BioInitiative 2012 Report For the BioInitiative Working Group

Copies: CEOs signing Education Superhighway letter to the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The White House, President Obama
US Secretary of Education Secretary Arne Duncan
Contributing Authors of the the 2007 and 2012 BioInitiative Working Groups
Jitendra Behari, PhD, India
Carlo V. Bellieni, MD, Italy
Igor Belyaev, Dr.Sc., Slovak Republic
Carl F. Blackman, PhD, USA
Martin Blank, PhD, USA
Michael Carlberg, MSc, Sweden
David O Carpenter, MD, USA
Zoreh Davanipour, DVM, PhD USA
Adamantia F. Fragopoulou, PhD, Greece
David Gee, Denmark
Yuri Grigoriev, MD, Russia
Kjell Hansson Mild, PhD, Sweden
Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD, Sweden
Martha Herbert, PhD, MD, USA
Paul Héroux, PhD, Canada
Michael Kundi, PhD, Austria
Henry Lai, PhD, USA
Ying Li, PhD, Canada
Abraham R. Liboff, PhD, USA
Lukas H. Margaritis, PhD, Greece
Henrietta Nittby, MD, PhD, Sweden
Gerd Oberfeld, MD, Austria
Bertil R. Persson, PhD, MD, Sweden
Iole Pinto, PhD, Italy
Paulraj Rajamani, PhD, India
Cindy Sage, MA, USA
Leif Salford, MD, PhD, Sweden
Eugene Sobel, PhD, USA
Amy Thomsen, MPH, MSPAS, USA

http://www.bioinitiative.org/ceo-wireless-letter/