Recently in Electromagnetism Category

CTV.ca News Staff

May 27, 2009

A Columbia University professor is warning the public about the negative health effects of man-made electromagnetic fields, which come out of cellphones and power lines.

Dr. Martin Blank, a professor with the school's Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, compared the EMF waves to the ripples caused by dropping a pebble into a quiescent pond.

"The water doesn't move, it just carries the energy further and further out," Blank told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday.

"It's the same thing about these waves. These waves are generated in all kinds of charges that are present anywhere.

"When you get an electromagnetic field that's coming out of a power line, or it's coming out of a cellphone antenna or a cellphone tower it's going to do things to the molecules in our body."

Blank says EMFs in the environment may lead to brain tumours, Alzheimer's disease, dementia and breast cancer.

The following article by Andrew Goldsworthy, a retired biology professor, was written to help the residents and City Council of Leyland in the UK decide about the installation of a town-wide WIFI network to allow wireless access to the internet.

It explains in laypersons' terms, how living cells depend heavily on electricity, carried in the form of ions, and how this makes them susceptible to damage by electromagnetic fields without the need to to generate significant heat.

YahooNews
July 23, 2008
By JENNIFER C. YATES and SETH BORENSTEIN,
Associated Press Writers Wed Jul 23, 7:47 PM ET

PITTSBURGH - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now — especially when it comes to children.

"Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," Herberman said.

No other major academic cancer research institutions have sounded such an alarm about cell phone use. But Herberman's advice is sure to raise concern among many cell phone users and especially parents.

In the memo he sent to about 3,000 faculty and staff Wednesday, he says children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.

2 Billion may suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020: Study

ANI/Business Wire India

NEW DELHI: The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost one-third of world population (about two billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy.

According to the reports the tissues of children are tender and are likely to be more effected by use of any wireless gadget and devices and they should not be encouraged to use mobile phone.

CNews.ru: Top Headlines
April 18, 2008

Handsets pose danger for children and teen-agers, state experts of the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection having carried out experiments with animals of different age. The oncoming generation is recommended to reduce communication through handsets, as their nerves might be badly injured.

The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) has expressed its opinion regarding the possible influence of handset electromagnetic field on children and teen-ages. The experiments, consultations and discussions held led to the resolution ‘Children and handsets: future generations’ health is under threat’. The given resolution comprises opinions of leading Russian scientists in hygiene and radiobiology of Non-Ionizing Radiation. The given resolution is based on modern scientific knowledge and fundamental submission generated in many years of research into the influence of electromagnetic fields on human health.

David Hambling
NewScientist.com
March 21, 2008

A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads.

The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on this website (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound.

Released by US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, US, the 1998 report gives an overview of what was then the state of the art in directed energy weapons for crowd control and other applications.

Independent.co.uk
By Geoffrey Lean
Sunday, 30 March 2008

Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

The Independent
By Geoffrey Lean
July 8, 2007

Two-thirds of Britons believe radiation from mobile phones and their masts has affected their health, a startling official survey shows. And huge majorities are dissatisfied with government assurances about the potential threat.

The survey is the result of a giant European Union exercise that polled more than 27,000 people across the continent, 1,375 of them in Britain. It shows that concern about the radiation is far greater than even the most ardent campaigners had dared to believe, and that official attempts to downplay the issue have backfired.

RCRWireless News
By Jeffrey Silva
May 30, 2007

WASHINGTON—A federal judicial panel has conditionally remanded a brain cancer lawsuit and class action headset lawsuit against mobile phone companies to courts in Florida and Pennsylvania respectively.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake of Baltimore earlier this month recommended to the Judicial Panel on Mulitdistrict Litigation that the brain cancer lawsuit—Louther v. AT&T Inc.—return to federal court in Florida and the headset lawsuit—Farina v. Nokia Corp. et al.—be sent back to a federal court in Pennsylvania.

PhysOrg.com
June 4, 2007

After a warning from a government watchdog group, schools and families in Britain are scrambling to remove Wi-Fi systems.

In April, a chief health watchdog official called for a "timely" review of Wi-Fi technology and its possible radiation effects, the Independent on Sunday reported. Since then, the public reportedly has rushed to remove Wi-Fi systems, particularly from elementary schools.

Science Daily
May 27, 2007

Science Daily — Some cancers seem to be linked to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields, suggests research published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The findings are based on more than 20,000 Swiss railway workers, who were monitored for 30 years.

The researchers opted to study this group, because railway workers in Switzerland tend to change jobs infrequently and are exposed to much higher levels of electromagnetic field radiation than the general population.

RNN.com
May 15th, 2007

MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - A group of Russian scientists from Tomsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow have developed a series of unique compact generators capable of producing high-energy pulses of hundreds and even thousands of megawatts.

This compares with the capacity of a major Soviet hydropower station on the Dnieper or an energy unit at a modern nuclear power plant. The new generators are sources of electromagnetic radiation rather than electricity. Their main feature is a capacity to produce enormous power in a matter of nanoseconds. The impulses can be generated with a very high frequency.

The Independent
May 13, 2007
By Marie Woolf and Geoffrey Lean

'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".

They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools.

GNN
guerrilla news network
May 2, 2007
By Peter Dearman

Please Lord, not the bees
It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one, they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

thisislondon.co.uk
Nicholas Cecil
April 23, 2007

Homes and schools could be banned from being built near power lines

A secret report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer.

The confidential study, obtained by the Evening Standard, urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high-voltage power cables because of possible health risks.

It says a ban is the best way to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid system.

Bees have been going missing by the millions, leaving their hives never to come back, in what the experts have termed "Colony Collapse Disorder". Speculation is rife over what may be the cause of the trouble. Toxins from genetically modified crops and pesticides are prime suspects, but the question has also been raised, whether electromagnetic radiation - such as the mobile phone signals that cover most of the globe by now - may be to blame.

This latter hypothesis seems to get more credence from a report of three years ago from Germany, which Paul Doyon has translated into English.

The original in German can be found on the site of Eurotinnitus - as a PDF. Here is the translation into English by Paul Doyon:

Apr 19, 2007

Here are photographs of Cell Phone Transmission Towers camouflaged as natural trees which are springing up all over... birds seem to avoid them, however! http://waynesword.palomar.edu/faketree.htm

CVBT
MERCED
April 12, 2007
by Ching Lee

• Beekeepers baffled, farmers worried

• Colony collapse disorder now found in 24 states, Canada

Beekeepers nationwide are opening their hives and finding them empty, a baffling phenomenon that has researchers scratching their heads and farmers worrying about their crops.

The bees are mysteriously vanishing and no one is sure why. Instead of thriving colonies, beekeepers say they're typically finding only a queen and a few attendants left -- but no trace of the other bees, not even their bodies.

Omega News
March 9, 2007
By Dr. Gerald Goldberg

As concerns the pineal, the role of calcium in general and the role of crystals within the pineal gland reveal some interesting points. As in radio and other transmitters, crystals act to convert certain discrete frequencies into electrical signals. Before we had all of the electro-pollution, animals could simply orient themselves to the earths electromagnetic signature. Additionally animals could store into memory at a subconscious level the discrete signatures of subtle variations in electromagnetic signalling from various regions. This would explain the highly specific nature of migratory behaviour seen in certain animals. What has not been appreciated is the ability which has probably evolved over time to see, complex patterns that are generated from the earth's electromagnetic signature.

Four years ago, I was fab, fit and in my 40s with a dynamic marketing and media business, exciting social life and active sporting schedule. My lifestyle was exciting and affluent. I had energy and dynamism. Without noticing too much, I gradually succumbed to a host of symptoms which sapped my energy and stole my memory. I kept myself going but as insomnia, erratic high blood pressure and heart palpitations joined the list, I got nervous.

Two years ago, my right body tingled and I had numbness in patches down my right leg, hip and right hand. I could hear buzzing in my right ear and I suddenly lost 40% my right eye-sight overnight.
I tried my doctor, various complementary practitioners, a Chinese doctor and then as I felt more and more unwell I paid what seemed an enormous sum to visit a private 'doctor' on Harley Street. Not one of them told me what was wrong with me. This so-called 'doctor' is now being investigated by his accrediting Board. They have been unable to trace his medical qualifications and fear that he may have misrepresented his background. He diagnosed radiation on the basis of a hair test and prescribed large doses of one brand of supplements which I took religiously only to find that my health deteriorated further and that the loading on my system eventually gave me liver damage. He totally failed to diagnose the complexity of my condition.

Here is an updated and expanded version of the article in PDF format

Many people have a hard time fathoming that something that they cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear - sense with the five senses - can harm them so much. But if people did really know the facts regarding the dangers of cell phones and WiFi and the masts that emit a pervasive level of microwave radiation, would they still be willing to use them? Would they still be willing to allow the antennas to be built in vicinity of their homes, work places, schools, and hospitals?

Dr. George Carlo, who used to run a multi-million dollar research program for the cell phone industry and went public regarding the dangers posed by cell phones, uses the analogy of putting a frog in water. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. However, if you put a frog in cold water and gradually heat the water, you can cook the frog because the frog's body will adjust to the slight changes in temperature and it will not notice it is being cooked. Well, the same thing might be happening to an unsuspecting public - a public that has not been informed about the real dangers of microwave radiation from cell phones, WiFi and other high-frequency-radiation emitting devices and antennas.

The Times
January 20, 2007
Alice Miles and Helen Rumbelow

• It's right to have worries, says expert
• Don't buy phones for primary pupils'

If we came expecting reassurance from this bearded, 6ft 4in grandfather, the emeritus professor of physics who heads the Government’s mobile phone safety research, we are about to be a little shaken.

We begin by asking if this isn’t all a bit old hat. Haven’t we all got into an unnecessary lather about the dangers of mobiles, and wireless technology? There are all these vague concerns — “There should be,” Lawrie Challis cuts in.

Common ground
CG : Archive : December 2006
by Amanda Brown PhD

Few people would be surprised to hear that cell phones are unhealthy. But how many of us actually know the degree of damage they cause, the extent of the cover-up by the industry, or that there is a viable solution? Dr. George Carlo, a mobile phone industry whistleblower, recently presented a talk in Vancouver about how electropollution from wireless technology can cause brain damage, cancer and an array of mental illnesses.

December 08, 2006
Kommersant
Russia's daily Online
By Anna Geroeva

The largest electromagnetic energy emission in the last 30 years has been recorded on the Sun, the Shernberg State Astronomy Institute said on Thursday. This energy outburst may damage equipment of space satellites, the scientists say. Doctors warn that the emission is dangerous for those afflicted with cardiovascular illnesses as well as for healthy people.

Mobile phone technologies are using microwaves to allow voice communication as well as transmit messages. Practically, we can no longer do without them, although major adverse health effects of these handy transmitters have been suspected and are being documented by different researchers.

Paul Raymond Doyon, an Associate Professor at Kyushu University has collected the available evidence on the health effects of microwave radiation and its effects on human health, especially in relation to chronic fatigue and ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy). Here is his paper: