What will be the health impacts from Johannesburg being Wi-Fi ?
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Forward this one please Magda as I corrected one word and resent. Thank you for responding – I am delighted it met with your approval. Means a lot coming from you. I have sent to all the parliament emails I could find. Great if it goes out on the networks. I am still shy of my knowledge so send it to you to see if I have made any blatant errors.
Warmest regards
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter "
Martin Luther King Jnr
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Subject: What will be the health impacts from Johannesburg being wifi ?/
Broadband Contract with Ericsson with no EIA or investigation.
Importance: High
Open Letter.
Date : 6th August 2010.
Attention :
Mr Amos Masondo
Executive Mayor
City of Johannesburg
Dear Mr Masondo,
We are a relatively newly formed foundation in South Africa, that has been formed to create the long overdue awareness in South Africa on the subject of microwave radiation.
We are writing to you to convey our concern at the prevalence and effects of electromagnetic pollution in Johannesburg already and the recent report that the City of Johannesburg has signed a billion something deal with Ericssons to wifi the whole of Johannesburg – over 900 kms. This has been done with no thought as to the health and safety of the residents of Johannesburg.
What EIA has been done and what voting protocol implemented for the residents of Johannesburg to see who actually consents to being radiated further than they already are 24 / 7?
It has been known since the 1950s that microwave radiation – as employed by cellphones/wimax/wifi/broadband – may be extremely dangerous to health. The first reported symptoms were blindness and infertility in military radar operators. There are now literally thousands of clinical and scientific papers showing a vast range of illnesses and conditions linked to microwave radiation. From the 1960s, a disease known as “microwave sickness” has been on Russian clinical diagnosis books; a syndrome which includes blood pressure and heart rhythm problems, nervous tension, headaches, neurological disorders, irritability, anxiety and nervous tension, concentration problems, eye pain, sleeplessness, fatigue, heart disease and cancer.
Recently, the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Foundation of South Africa hosted a visit by retired British military intelligence scientist, Barrie Trower. He was involved for many years in “stealth” warfare using microwaves, and compiled a list of frequencies and the effects they would have on health and psychological wellbeing. This was based on his interrogation of spies from the Soviet bloc who had been infiltrated into the West to radiate senior politicians and affect their health and performance. He stressed that the radiation used in cellphone / wifi technology is identical in every respect to the radiation that was used as a weapon: the same pulsed frequencies, the same intensities, the same carrier waves. He has particularly highlighted depression and suicide in young people as one of the first symptoms of exposure to microwave radiation from cell phones/cell masts/wifi.
May I refer you to the attached document - Analysis of proposed San Francisco WIFI network that was decided against as the wise city officials did their homework first. Professor Magda Havas did the analysis that clearly indicates the dangers. It should be noted that a private school here in South Africa had a serious spate of illnesses following the installation of wifi in the school and the children suffered from nausea, headaches, rashes, dizziness, vomiting and unexplained allergic type reactions. In addition it appeared that the concentration levels were affected and children may have become more agitated in existing ADD cases. Several documents are attached from Professor Havas in this regard.
France has removed wifi from their schools and public libraries and is hardwiring with optic fibre cable at a cost of 123 Million Euros. France is leading the way not just in the awareness but also showing that they have taken concern of the health factors and are not taking risks with their citizens anymore.
http://www.next-up.org/pdf/FranceNationalLibraryGivesUpWiFi07042008.pdf
Another article from Germany/
The German Gov is already advising its citizens to use wired internet connections instead of wifi and landlines instead of mobile phones.
http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/niemr/bundesregierung.php
Attached also find a press release from the Verum foundation where Professor Adelkofer advised that UMTS ( wifi/broadband masts/wimax ) signals were more damaging than GSM radiation – cell phone signals. UMTS base stations were banned in Holland in 2006.
The World Health Organisation and other agencies list electromagnetic radiation as a “possible environmental carcinogen”, with childhood leukaemia as the strongest indication.
Barrie Trower by 2006 had logged over 200 leukaemia clusters around cellphone masts, each cluster consisting of more than ten children under the age of 11, in the UK, Spain and France. Most of these children died. We are also finding suspicious clusters of leukaemias in children near masts in South Africa. World best practice is NOT to locate masts near schools – as in the UK, Russia, Austria Switzerland, Taiwan and India. In South Africa, schools seem to be the preferred site for operators, and we have measured the full beam of masts falling directly on classrooms, playgrounds, dormitories and staffrooms.
According to the Precautionary Principle – signed by South Africa at the Rio Summit in 2002 – even when there is not yet full proof of danger, steps should be taken to minimise particular risks. We feel that removing masts from schools immediately would be a step in the right direction and then certainly not radiating them with wifi without the study of the potential impact.
It should be noted that Taiwan removed 1500 masts already in 2007 from near schools and residential areas to protect the future of their children.
Taiwan removes 1500 masts to reduce radiation levels and protect children in schools / 2007.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2007/11/06/129715/1500-cellphone.htm
There are hundreds of studies such as the Naila study that I attach for your perusal that show the increase of cancers near masts and concluded “ that the risk of newly developing cancer was three times higher among those patients who had lived during the past ten years within a distance of 400 metres from a cellular transmitter, in comparison to those that had lived far away.
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/who_and_pubmed_epidemiological_studies_on_base_stations_2006.pdf
To date FOURTEEN epidemiological studies on mobile telecommunication base stations have been published and are referenced either on the EMF WHO database and/or on PUBMED. 10 studies (80%) DID find significant increases in the symptoms being analysed. A letter was written to WHO – attached an SOS from South Africa.
Further concerns :
1 The levels of cancer and leukaemia have increased dramatically in South Africa in children including babies from birth. In order- leukaemia, brain,eye,kidney.
2. It was noted recently in The Star that suicide amongst our youth is up by 21% - indeed an area for concern.
3. A large portion of the population are HIV positive and microwave radiation dramatically affects immune systems therefore compromising the quality of life of these individuals.
4. Attention deficit disorder has increased dramatically in our children
There appears to be no control or regulation force that is effective in South Africa. In fact we have been unable to find a body that has a record of every mast or antennae in South Africa, including ICASA or GDARD. Masts and antennae have been put up in many cases without any EIA especially on top of shops, apartment buildings and hotels.
Furthermore the industry here hides behind adhering to WHO and ICNIRP and its levels, but as far back as 2007 The Bioinitiative report has advised that those levels are not acceptable and outdated. The Bioinitiative report was a review of 2000 peer reviewed scientific and medical papers on the dangers and impacts of non-ionising radiation and an interim safer measurement was set for guidelines.
http://www.mcsresearch.net/bioinititiativetable.pdf ( a brief summary)
http://www.bioinitiative.org/report
http://www.next-up.org/Newsoftheworld/BioInitiativeIntro.php
(It should be noted that these guidelines may not be low enough for electrosensitive individuals and some researchers feel that these are just interim safer measures to be immediately adopted as advocated by the European Parliament and adopted by 8 countries already. No safe level has been determined for children.)
The European parliament has questioned the WHO's decision-making and has advised its 27 member states not to follow the WHO's recommendations but to follow the Bioinitiative Report's recommendations. 522 Votes were recorded in favour of restricting exposure of populations to microwaves and 16 votes were recorded against. The European parliament has thus resoundingly discredited the WHO and ICNIRP's recommendations, and laws are now being revised and implemented to take down or turn off technologies that use microwaves.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2009-0216+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
It should also be noted that Botswana seems to be more educated on the fact and one village headed by the Royal Bakgatla tribe has just “removed” a mast that was causing illness and cancers. At a recent presentation, where we were invited to present at least 70 key officials attended. The king, who is also a lawyer is a prime example of a man who has done the investigation and is concerned about the welfare of his people and not the financial rewards – truly refreshing.
The City of Windhoek is currently busy with an investigation into the health impacts of EM Radiation and has a moratorium on any further masts.
In South Africa, our constitutional rights are being violated by these experiments on us and this is against the Nuremberg treaty.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has only started looking at studies on children as of 2009 and has stated that it is unsure as to the present status on microwave radiation exposure and will only provide an estimate in 2015. This contravenes the UN convention as based on the Nuremberg Code for Human Experimentation - ethics provisions, where a person has a right not to be experimented on and in fact has to provide formal consent to all inconveniences, hazzards and effects on health in order to be a part of that experiment. (The WHO does acknowledge that 3% of people are sensitive to Electromagnetic radiation. )
http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberghtml
We bring your attention once again to the Precautionary principle. Why is this not being applied by our government or any political parties ? Has no-one done their homework or is the money involved behind the scenes that has kept the implications of the results of this electrosmog damage buried.
What choice has been given to the constitutional rights of protection on both our health and safety ? Have you considered the children of South Africa who are more susceptible to electromagnetic radiation. Already we have many cases where communities are already being affected by cell and broadband ( wifiwimax/Iburst) masts.
Professor Magda Havas has said “ Radio frequency radiation and other forms of electromagnetic pollution are harmful at orders of magnitude well below existing guidelines. Science is one of the tools society uses to decide health policy. In the case of telecommunications equipment, such as cell phones,wireless networks,cell phone antennaes,PDAs,and portable phones, the science is being ignored. Current guidelines urgently need to be re-examined by government and reduced to reflect the state of science. There is an emerging public health crisis at hand and time is of the essence”
We therefore request as a public official you kindly answer the following questions urgently :
When was this contract signed with Ericsson, who are already advertising it in the paper ?
Where is the EIA or a potential health assessment of the project?
What was the exact value ?
Where has the role out commenced ?
What is the frequency and pulse rate?
What is the recognized name of the network ?
Where is the public’s consent / vote to be subjected to this radiation ? Have you advertised this will be done and notified the public as to the potential dangers ? No notices have been seen.
What will you do about accommodating people who are already electrosensitive and those whose medical conditions will be weakened further by this continuous pulsing and radiation?
A minimum of 3% of the world’s population are EHS ( Electrohypersensitive) and a further 35% partially sensitive. >From severe exposure to all these different forms of electrosmog, this number is increasing and white zones are being set up in countries such as Sweden and France. In South Africa we already have many people recorded in our support group for EHS sufferers. Some of our founding members have been made electrosensitive by exposure to EM Radiation. Attached is a document by Professor Olle Johannsen a highly respected researcher in the field of EM radiation on EHS. – Electrohypersensitivity. It is a recognised disability by the UN and certainly the EHS are well noted and allowances made for them in Sweden.
We will point out that Section 28 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution says: “A child's best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.” We feel that exposing our children to microwave radiation in order to make money cannot be in accordance with this constitutional principle.
We would be happy to present a further extensive presentation as to the dangers of electromagnetic radiation.
We implore that this rollout is stopped till a full investigation is done. New laws are desperately required in South Africa in this regard.
Your attention and response to this would be greatly appreciated and we appeal to you to address this concern as a matter of priority for all of us in South Africa with full disclosure to the public of the contents of the contract.
Sincere regards
Tracey-Lee Dorny Faiza Dawod
Chairman Legal advisor.
On behalf of The Foundation Committee.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter "
Martin Luther King Jnr
Affiliated to the EM Radiation Research Trust UK
http://www.radiationresearch.org/
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