Electroshocker: A Prevention Special Report [on cellphones, Wi-Fi, related dangers]
Carol
Electroshocker: A Prevention Special Report The 'electrosmog' that
surrounds usbfrom cell phones, WiFi, and commonplace modern
technologybmay be seriously harming our health. Here's how to
minimize your exposure.
By Michael Segell, Prevention
11 Ways to Protect Yourself from Dirty Electricity
Exposure to electromagnetic fields from cell phones and other
appliances may hurt your health. Here are easy ways to minimize the
damage.
By Michael Segell b" Why Are Electromagnetic Fields Dangerous?
b" 1. Avoid wireless when possible b" 2. Pick safer
lightbulbs b" 3. Stay away from the circuit breaker b" 4.
Choose an old-school landline phone b" 5. Ban Bluetooth headsets
b" 6. Skip your cell when the service is spotty b" 7.
Don't wear your phone like a beeper b" 8. Keep your laptop off
your lap b" 9. Unplug what youbre not using b" 10. Think
LCD over plasma b" 11. Get your home tested
Why Are Electromagnetic Fields Dangerous?
Several developments have highlighted the growing hazards of EMF
pollutionband the crucial need to address them. A report that cited
more than 2,000 studies found that chronic exposure to even low-level
radiation (like that from cell phones) can cause a variety of
cancers, impair immunity, and contribute to Alzheimerbs disease and
dementia, heart disease, and many other ailments. One likely way:
EMFs open the blood-brain barrier, causing blood vessels to leak
fluid into the brain and damage neurons.
Whatbs more, a lessbwell known kind of EMF, known as "dirty" or
transient electricity, may play an even more damaging role. Transients
are largely by-products of modern energy-efficient electronics and
appliancesbfrom computers, refrigerators, and plasma TVs to compact
fluorescent lightbulbs and dimmer switchesbwhich tamp down the
electricity they use. This manipulation of current creates a wildly
fluctuating and potentially dangerous electromagnetic field that
essentially charges up the electrons in every cell of your body.
Some research suggests that by overlapping the bodybs signaling
mechanisms, transients may interfere with the secretion of insulin,
drown out the call and response of the immune system, and cause
other physical havoc.
Luckily, there are some things you can do to protect your health.
Environmental consultant Cindy Sage recommends these simple steps
to limit your exposure to electromagnetic fields from all sources.
1. Avoid wireless when possible EMF in the radio range accumulates,
so if possible, choose wired Internet instead of wireless, a wired
home security system, and wired entertainment systems. If you do
use WiFi, plug in only when needed, and disconnect during sleeping
hours. Keep the router as far as possible from your desk and
childrenbs rooms.
2. Pick safer lightbulbs Avoid compact fluorescent bulbs, which
emit dirty electricity. A CFL saves energy by turning itself on and
off repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per second. Use LED or
incandescent bulbs instead. Do not install dimmer switches (rheostats)
for the same reason.
3. Stay away from the circuit breaker Main electrical and circuit
breaker panels give off high EMF within 3 to 4 feet. Make sure your
bed is safely distant, and keep in mind the panel may be on the
floor above or below you or on the other side of a wall.
4. Choose an old-school landline phone Cordless phones can emit
just as much radiation as mobile phones, although only when youbre
using them. Consider reinstalling corded (landline) phones. Avoid
very powerful digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT)
phonesbthe kind with a base station and satellite handsets.
5. Ban Bluetooth headsets When on a cell phone, use the speakerphone
or a wired earpiece (hollow cord types are preferable). Do not use
a Bluetooth wireless headset; combined with the phone, it can exceed
even the current inadequate safety limits.
Give text messaging a try, especially in place of short calls. Itbs
safer than holding the phone to your head. Do not allow children
to use cordless or cell phones, except for emergencies.
6. Skip your cell when the service is spotty If you struggle to get
a signal or tend to drop calls in a certain area (common in elevators,
buses, cars, and other enclosed spaces), wait until the signal is
stronger. When handling a weak signal, the phone increases power
to a maximum, irradiating you and those around you.
7. Donbt wear your phone like a beeper A better place for your cell
or BlackBerry is in your purse or briefcase, because electromagnetic
field exposure diminishes rapidly beyond 3 feet. Itbs okay to carry
it on you if the device is in "flight" or "off-line" mode. If you
must carry it while fully on, keep the keypad positioned toward
your body, so that the battery pack faces outward.
Another safety tip: Switch which side of the head you use your phone
on from call to call so you spread out exposure.
8. Keep your laptop off your lap Curling up on the couch with your
laptop may be convenient, but EMF experts recommend against it.
Many laptops produce a strong electromagnetic field, especially
when you use one while itbs plugged into an outlet (that means the
battery is charging close to where your hands are). Youbre better
off unplugging and using the laptop on battery power, then staying
away from it while it recharges.
9. Unplug what youbre not using If your kitchen counter is cluttered
with a coffeepot, slow cooker, food processor, or other convenient
culinary appliances, keep them unplugged whenever youbre not currently
using them. Same goes for alarm clocks, lamps, iPod chargers and
other various devices around your home. Anything plugged into an
electrical outletbeven a lampbemits an EMF; if unplugged, it will
not.
10. Think LCD over plasma When itbs time to upgrade your TV, choose
an LCD (liquid crystal display) instead of plasma or the old CRT
(cathode ray tube) models. LCDs emit much less radiation, and plasmas
can give off transient pollution on your electrical wiring.
11. Get your home tested If you suspect that your home has high-EMF
fields, check if your utility company conducts a room-by-room survey.
Itbs usually free. Hot spots can be completely shielded with special
coverings. If you discover high levels of dirty electricity, consider
installing filters (capacitors) that plug into electrical outlets
($35 at lessemf.com).
For more information on the dangers of electromagnetic fields, read
our full investigative report here:
The California Cluster In 1990, the city of La Quinta, Calif.,
proudly opened the doors of its sparkling new middle school. Gayle
Cohen, then a sixth-grade teacher, recalls the sense of excitement
everyone felt: "We had been in temporary facilities for 2 years,
and the change was exhilarating." But the glow soon dimmed. One
teacher developed vague symptomsbweakness, dizzinessband didn't
return after the Christmas break. A couple of years later, another
developed cancer and died; the teacher who took over his classroom
was later diagnosed with throat cancer. More instructors continued
to fall ill, and then, in 2003, on her 50th birthday, Cohen received
her own bad news: breast cancer. "That's when I sat down with another
teacher, and we remarked on all the cancers we'd seen," she says.
"We immediately thought of a dozen colleagues who had either gotten
sick or passed away." By 2005, 16 staffers among the 137 who'd
worked at the new school had been diagnosed with 18 cancers, a ratio
nearly 3 times the expected number. Nor were the children spared:
About a dozen cancers have been detected so far among former students.
A couple of them have died.
Prior to undergoing her first chemotherapy treatment, Cohen approached
the school principal, who eventually went to district officials for
an investigation. A local newspaper article about the possible
disease cluster caught the attention of Sam Milham, M.D., a widely
traveled epidemiologist who has investigated hundreds of environmental
and occupational illnesses and published dozens of peer-reviewed
papers on his findings. For the past 30 years, he has trained much
of his focus on the potential hazards of electromagnetic fields
(EMFs)bthe radiation that surrounds all electrical appliances and
devices, power lines, and home wiring and is emitted by communications
devices, including cell phones and radio, TV, and WiFi transmitters.
His work has led him, along with an increasingly alarmed army of
international scientists, to a controversial conclusion: The
"electrosmog" that first began developing with the rollout of the
electrical grid a century ago and now envelops every inhabitant of
Earth is responsible for many of the diseases that impairbor killbus.
Milham was especially interested in measuring the ambient levels
of a particular kind of EMF, a relatively new suspected carcinogen
known as high-frequency voltage transients, or "dirty electricity."
Transients are largely by-products of modern energy-efficient
electronics and appliancesbfrom computers, refrigerators, and plasma
TVs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and dimmer switchesbwhich
tamp down the electricity they use. This manipulation of current
creates a wildly fluctuating and potentially dangerous electromagnetic
field that not only radiates into the immediate environment but
also can back up along home or office wiring all the way to the
utility, infecting every energy customer in between. With Cohen's
help, Milham entered the school after hours one day to take readings.
Astonishingly, in some classrooms he found the surges of transient
pollution exceeded his meter's ability to gauge them. His preliminary
findings prompted the teachers to file a complaint with the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which in turn ordered
a full investigation by the California Department of Health Care
Services.
The final analysis, reported by Milham and his colleague, L. Lloyd
Morgan, in 2008 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine:
Cumulative exposure to transients in the school increased the
likelihood a teacher would develop cancer by 64 percent. A single
year of working in the building raised risk by 21 percent. The
teachers' chances of developing melanoma, thyroid cancer, and uterine
cancer were particularly high, as great as 13 times the average.
Although not included in the tabulations, the risks for young
students were probably even greater.
"In the decades-long debate about whether EMFs are harmful," says
Milham, "it looks like transients could be the smoking gun."
30 tips to cancer-proof your life. Go to Prevention:
http://www.prevention.com/health/health/conditions-treatments/prevent-cancer-prevention-com/article/682650d1fa803110VgnVCM10000013281eac____/?cm_mmc=MSN-_-Electroshocker-_-Article-_-Cancer%20Proof%20Your%20Life
The Case Against EMFs:
Cancer and electricity Could a disease whose cause has long eluded
scientists be linked to perhaps the greatest practical discovery
of the modern era? For 50 years, researchers who have tried to tie
one to the other have been routinely dismissed by a variety of
skeptics, from congressional investigators to powerful interest
groupsbmost prominently electric utilities, cell phone manufacturers,
and WiFi providers, which have repeatedly cited their own data
showing the linkage to be "weak and inconsistent." Recently, however,
in addition to the stunning new investigations into dirty electricity
(which we'll return to), several developments have highlighted the
growing hazards of EMF pollutionband the crucial need to address
them.
***The evidence showing harm is overwhelming*** In 2007, the
Bioinitiative Working Group, an international collaboration of
prestigious scientists and public health policy experts from the
United States, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and China, released a
650-page report citing more than 2,000 studies (many very recent)
that detail the toxic effects of EMFs from all sources. Chronic
exposure to even low-level radiation (like that from cell phones),
the scientists concluded, can cause a variety of cancers, impair
immunity, and contribute to Alzheimer's disease and dementia, heart
disease, and many other ailments. "We now have a critical mass of
evidence, and it gets stronger every day," says David Carpenter,
M.D., director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at
the University at Albany and coauthor of the public-health chapters
of the Bioinitiative report.
Fears about the hazards of cell phones seem justified:
"Every single study of brain tumors that looks at 10 or more years
of use shows an increased risk of brain cancer," says Cindy Sage,
M.A., co-editor of the report. A recent study from Sweden is
particularly frightening, suggesting that if you started using a
cell phone as a teen, you have a five-times greater risk of brain
cancer than those who started as an adult. The risk rises even more
for people who use the phone on only one side of the head. While
defenders of cell phone safety claim no scientist can explain why
EMFs may be harmful in humans, a body of reliable and consistent
animal research shows that electromagnetic fields, equal to those
generated by mobile phones, open the blood-brain barrier, causing
blood vessels to leak fluid into the brain and damage neurons.
Ironically, that research (by renowned Swedish neuro-oncologist
Leif G. Salford, M.D., Ph.D.) began with the goal of finding a way
to deliver chemotherapy to brain tumors.
Other countries are revising exposure standards:
Members of the European Union, which has led the way on EMF
investigations, are moving quickly to protect their citizens,
particularly children and pregnant women. In the past 2 years alone,
France, Germany, and England have dismantled wireless networks in
schools and public libraries, and other countries are pressing to
follow suit. Israel has banned the placement of cellular antennae
on residences, and Russian officials have advised against cell phone
use for children under 18.
Electrical hypersensitivity (EHS) is becoming more widespread:
Symptoms of EHS, a recently identified condition, include fatigue,
facial irritation (resembling rosacea), tinnitus, dizziness, and
digestive disturbances, which occur after exposure to visual display
units, mobile phones, WiFi equipment, and commonplace appliances.
Experts say up to 3 percent of all people are clinically hypersensitive,
as many as one-third of us to a lesser degree.
Electrical pollution is increasing dramatically:
"For the first time in our evolutionary history, we have generated
an entire secondary, virtual, densely complex environmentban
electromagnetic soupbthat essentially overlaps the human nervous
system," says Michael Persinger, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Laurentian
University who has studied the effects of EMFs on cancer cells. And
it appears that, more than a century after Thomas Edison switched
on his first lightbulb, the health consequences of that continual
overlap are just now beginning to be documented.
A history of harmful effects:
Until Edison's harnessing of electricity, humans' only sources of
EMF exposure were the earth's static magnetic field (which causes
a compass needle to point north) and cosmic rays from the sun and
outer space; over our long evolution, we've adapted to solar EMFs
by developing protective pigment. "But we have no protection against
other EMF frequencies," says Andrew Marino, Ph.D., J.D., a pioneer
in bioelectromagnetics who has done extensive EMF research and a
professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the Louisiana
State Health Sciences Center. "How quickly can we adapt our biology
to these new exposures? It's the most important environmental health
questionband problembof the 21st century."
Research into the hazards of EMFs has been extensive, controversialband,
at least at the outset, animated by political intrigue.
A sampling:
The Russians first noticed during World War II that radar operators
(radar operates using radio frequency waves) often came down with
symptoms we now attribute to electrical hypersensitivity syndrome.
In the 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, they secretly
bombarded the U.S. embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation (a
higher-frequency RF used to transmit wireless signals), sickening
American employees. Radio wave sicknessbalso called microwave
sicknessbis now a commonly accepted diagnosis.
When television (also radio wave) was introduced in Australia in
1956, researchers there documented a rapid increase in cancers among
people who lived near transmission towers.
In the 1970s, Nancy Wertheimer, Ph.D., a Denver epidemiologist
(since deceased), detected a spike in childhood leukemia (a rare
disease) among kids who lived near electric power lines, prompting
a rash of studies that arrived at similar conclusions.
In the 1980s, investigators concluded that office workers with high
exposure to EMFs from electronics had higher incidences of melanomaba
disease most often associated with sun exposurebthan outdoor workers.
In 1998, researchers with the National Cancer Institute reported
that childhood leukemia risks were "significantly elevated" in
children whose mothers used electric blankets during pregnancy and
in children who used hair dryers, video machines in arcades, and
video games connected to TVs.
Over the past few years, investigators have examined cancer clusters
on Cape Cod, which has a huge U.S. Air Force radar array called
PAVE PAWS, and Nantucket, home to a powerful Loran-C antenna.
Counties in both areas have the highest incidences of all cancers
in the entire state of Massachusetts.
More recently, the new findings on transientsbparticularly those
crawling along utility wiringbare causing some scientists to rethink
that part of the EMF debate pertaining to the hazards of power
lines. Could they have been focusing on the wrong part of the EMF
spectrum?
Transients: the postmodern carcinogen
Some earlier, noteablebalbeit abortedbresearch suggests this may
be the case. In 1988, Hydro-QuC)bec, a Canadian electric utility,
contracted researchers from McGill University to study the health
effects of power line EMFs on its employees. Gilles Theriault, M.D.,
Dr.PH., who led the research and was chair of the department of
occupational health at the university, decided to expand his focus
to include high-frequency transients and found, even after controlling
for smoking, that workers exposed to them had up to a 15-fold risk
of developing lung cancer. After the results were published in the
American Journal of Epidemiology, the utility decided to put an end
to the study.
That research commenced at a time when energy-efficient devicesbthe
major generators of transientsbwere beginning to saturate North
American homes and clutter up power lines. A telltale sign of an
energy-efficient device is the ballast, or transformer, that you
see near the end of a power cord on a laptop computer, printer, or
cell phone charger (although not all devices have them). When plugged
in, it's warm to the touch, an indication that it's tamping down
current and throwing off transient pollution. Two of the worst
creators of transient radiation: light dimmer switches and compact
fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Transients are created when current
is repeatedly interrupted. A CFL, for instance, saves energy by
turning itself on and off repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per
second.
So how does the human body respond to this pulsing radiation? "Think
of a magnet," explains Dave Stetzer, an electrical engineer and
power supply expert in Blair, Wis. "Opposite charges attract, and
like charges repel. When a transient is going positive, the negatively
charged electrons in your body move toward that positive charge.
When the transient flips to negative, the body's electrons are
pushed back. Remember, these positive-negative shifts are occurring
many thousands of times per second, so the electrons in your body
are oscillating to that tune. Your body becomes charged up because
you're basically coupled to the transient's electric field."
Keep in mind that all the cells in your body, whether islets in the
pancreas awaiting a signal to manufacture insulin or white blood
cells speeding to the site of an injury, use electricitybor "electron
change"bto communicate with each other. By overlapping the body's
signaling mechanisms, could transients interfere with the secretion
of insulin, drown out the call-and-response of the immune system,
and cause other physical havoc?
Some preliminary research implies the answer is yes. Over the past
three years, Magda Havas, Ph.D., a researcher in the department of
environmental and resource studies at Trent University in Ontario,
has published several studies that suggest exposure to transients
may elevate blood sugar levels among people with diabetes and
prediabetes and that people with multiple sclerosis improve their
balance and have fewer tremors after just a few days in a transient-
free environment. Her work also shows that after schools installed
filters to clean up transients, two-thirds of teachers reported
improvement in symptoms that had been plaguing them, including
headache, dry eye, facial flushing, asthma, skin irritation, and
depression.
Transients are particularly insidious because they accumulate and
strengthen, their frequency reaching into the dangerous RF range.
Because they travel along home and utility wiring, your neighbor's
energy choices will affect the electrical pollution in your house.
In other words, a CFL illuminating a porch down the block can send
nasty transients into your bedroom.
Something else is sending transients into your home: the earth.
From your high-school science texts, you know that electricity must
travel along a complete circuit, always returning to its source
(the utility) along a neutral wire. In the early 1990s, says Stetzer,
as transients began overloading utility wiring, public service
commissions in many states told utilities to drive neutral rods
into the ground on every existing pole and every new one they
erected. "Today, more than 70 percent of all current going out on
the wires returns to substations via the earth," says Stetzerbencountering
along the way all sorts of subterranean conductors, such as water,
sewer, and natural-gas pipes, that ferry even more electrical
pollution into your home.
A pragmatic proposal:
Of course, these small studiesbfrom Milham, Hydro-QuC)bec, and
Havasbhardly constitute a blanket indictment of transients. "We're
still early in this part of the EMF story," says Carpenter. Does
that mean as evidence of their harm accumulates, officials will
raise a red flag? Not likely, if past EMF debates are any indication.
Power companies have successfully beaten back attempts to modify
exposure standards, and the cell phone industry, which has funded
at least 87 percent of the research on the subject, has effectively
resisted regulation. One good reason has had to do with latencybhow
long it takes to develop a particular cancer, often 25 years or
more. Cell phones have been around only about that long.
But does that mean we avoid any discussion of their possible dangers?
Again, if the past is a guide, the answer appears to be "probably."
American scientists worried about the hazards of smoking, the DES
(diethylstilbestrol) pill (given to pregnant women, it caused birth
defects), asbestos, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)bthe list is
lengthybbut officially warned about exposure only after they could
say with absolute certainty that these things were harmful. As for
protecting ourselves from toxic radiation, we have a laxband
laughablebhistory. In the 1920s, just a few years after medical
imaging devices were invented, physicians were known to entertain
their guests by X-raying them at garden parties. In the 1930s,
scientists often kept radium in open trays on their desks. Shoe
stores used X-ray machines in the 1940s to properly fit children's
feet, and radioactive wristwatches with glowing hour hands were
popular in the 1950s.
All of which means that, absent prudent safety standards from both
public officials and manufacturers (adding a protective filter would
add 5 cents to the cost of making a CFL and $5 to the cost of a
laptop), you'll have to protect yourself from EMFs. Here's a
reasonable proposition: Practice what is known in Europe as the
precautionary principle, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
Don't expose yourself unnecessarily to EMF hazards. Don't buy a
home next to a WiFi tower. Get a corded telephone instead of a
cordless one. Don't let your teenager sleep with a cell phone under
her pillow. Don't use your laptop computer in your lap. Treat your
EMF-emitting devices with the same cautious respect you do other
invaluable modern devices, like your car, which is also dangerousband
can kill. You don't drive in an unnecessarily risky fashionbat high
speed or while talking on a cell phone (right?).
The sad truth is that until we have more epidemiologic evidencebwhether
from disease clusters like the ones at La Quinta and on Cape Cod
or from long-term analyses of the health of the world's
4-billion-and-growing cell phone usersbwe won't know definitively
whether electrical pollution is harming us. And even then, we are
unlikely to know why or how. "In this country, our research dollars
are spent on finding ways to treat disease, not on what causes
itbwhich is to say, how we can prevent it," says Marino. "And that's
a tragedy."
But that's also another story.