Recommendation to limit Maryland school Wi-Fi based on 'junk science'

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Mar 11, 2017, 9:39:19 AM3/11/17
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De: Devra Davis
Objet: please share on social media etc...
Date: 11 mars 2017 à 01:21:03 UTC−5

Just wanted to share my latest screed so that you might make some use of it ..

I have also submitted this as letter to editor...and offered to provide a shorter tighter oped calling for retraction

Here is my 'published' comment online


Those of you that know how to use social media please do so

[In the past the Baltimore Sun has done a decent job of reporting on the subject.  We need to defend the Maryland advisory HOPE you can go online and add comments to my own..]..


herewith a full copy of what I separately sent to the editor

The authors (Berezow and Bloom, Baltimore Sun)
are gravely mistaken and seriously misinformed regarding the latest research on wireless radiation and health and about biophysics.  The recommendation to reduce or eliminate schoolchildren's exposures to wireless radiation by the Maryland Children's Environmental Health and Protection Advisory Council (CEHPAC), an agency within Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene rests on the same public health principles underlying smoking prevention, seat belts and bike helmets:  prevention of harm is always better than treatment of damage.  

Their first serious error concerns the nature of wireless emitted from the two-way microwave radios that cell phones constitute and that also tie tablets to the internet unless they are hard wired through ethernet cables.  All radiation exists on an electromagnetic spectrum.  The fastest highest and shortest electromagnetic frequencies constitute ionizing radiation that operates between 3 x 10 to the 16th to 19th power (termed exoHerz) times a second.   X-rays are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers and energies in the range of 100 eV to 100 keV.
(Source: Boundless. “X-Rays.” Boundless Physics Boundless, 08 Aug. 2016. Retrieved 11 Mar. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-textbook/electromagnetic-waves-23/the-electromagnetic-spectrum-165/x-rays-597-11175/)  

The high power of ionizing radiation can break the ionic bonds that hold together the basic building blocks of DNA.  In contrast, the impact of wireless radiation is not linked to its energy but to the pulsed erratic nature of its signals.  Thus, the authors are correct that cellphones are weak in power, but they fail to understand that this weak power is pulsed erratically sometimes with 4 different antennas operating at the same time at between 800 million to 2.4 billion cycles a sec (800 MHz to 2.4GHz); this weak radiation can break membranes and induce a cascade of cellular damage tied with increased risk of cancer and other chronic diseases.  Thus, relatively weak wireless radiation, also termed microwave radiation, consistently damages human sperm and induces serious behavioral deficits according to numerous independent studies that can be found on our website www.ehtrust.org  

As proof of the capacity of weak wireless radiation like that emitted by today's cellphones to have serious biological impact, consider the largest best-designed study yet conducted on the subject. The acclaimed U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) regularly conducts studies with uniformly validated protocols to detect health impacts on rodents in order to predict and prevent human harm.  Such tests are used by industry and the government to inform decisions about pharmaceuticals as well as to identify and evaluate chemical or physical environmental hazards.  At a cost of $25 million the NTP released its final but partial technical report in May of 2016 finding significant increases in relatively rare tumors of the brain and heart in animals exposed in their lifetimes to the same types of radiation to which humans are regularly exposed.  Because these results stunned Dr. John Bucher, Director of the NTP, they were released after blinded pathology review involving numerous experts.   Not a single one of these same tumors occurred in the control group.  In the NTP study both groups of animals were housed in a facility created by the Swiss national institute for technology that prevented any extraneous exposures to electromagnetic fields. 

The allegation that the only confirmed impact of phones is psychosomatic ignores the substantial independent literature that comes from infertility clinics finding damage to sperm quality and quantity, such as that amassed by Cleveland Clinic chief of infertility, Ashak Agarwal MD PhD, or Distinguished Vice Chancellor of Newcastle University Sir R. John Aitken MD PhD.  Others have confirmed that independently funded studies tend to find an effect, while those funded by industry consultants such as those from Exponent tend to find no such problem.   

The NTP results confirm earlier findings from German and Finnish government researchers as well as the Officer of Naval Research indicating that microwave radiation can induce an array of biochemical markers such as increases in reactive oxygen species, leakage of blood brain barrier and damage to mitochondrial DNA.  To use such tests in evaluating drugs, but deny their validity for environmental exposures endangers public health.   

The public is poorly served by publishing attacks on the independent scientists and pediatricians that serve gratis on the committee by industry-supported young scientists Berezow and Bloom. The authors have a total of ten scientific publications to their names in fields such as dental microbes and yeast genetics and not a single publication in the field of bioelectromagnetics.  Those who hold themselves out to be promoting solid science have a duty to be better informed and to fully disclose the nature of the financial support of the institution in which they work.  


In light of the major flaws and serious errors in this oped, its failure to take into account a substantial scientific and engineering literature on the topic, the lack of transparency in financial reporting of their institution*, and documented bias of the organization that has been described as " I call on the editors to retract it.

*In violation of IRS requirements for form 990 for nonprofits they do not name their contributors but list them solely by number.


I would be glad to write a shorter less techy oped to explain further and more clearly and believe you do have an obligation to do due diligence on your contributors and you can certainly delete any of the opaque stuff above especially the second paragraph.

Here's what a group of experienced reporters have written about their group.


The American Council on Science and Health is a front group for the tobacco, agrichemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and other industries.

Personnel
ACSH’s longtime “Medical/Executive Director” was Dr. Gilbert Ross.[2] In 1993, according to United Press International, Dr. Ross was “convicted of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy,” and was “sentenced to 47 months in jail, $40,000 in forfeiture and restitution of $612,855” in a scheme to defraud the Medicaid system.[3]
ACSH’s Dr. Ross was found to be a “highly untrustworthy individual” by a judge who sustained the exclusion of Dr. Ross from Medicaid for ten years.[4]
Funding
ACSH has often billed itself as an “independent” group, and has been referred to as “independent” in the press. However, according to internal ACSH financial documents obtained by Mother Jones:

“ACSH planned to receive a total of $338,200 from tobacco companies between July 2012 and June 2013. Reynolds American and Phillip Morris International were each listed as expected to give $100,000 in 2013, which would make them the two largest individual donations listed in the ACSH documents.”[5]
“ACSH donors in the second half of 2012 included Chevron ($18,500), Coca-Cola ($50,000), the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation ($15,000), Dr. Pepper/Snapple ($5,000), Bayer Cropscience ($30,000), Procter and Gamble ($6,000), agribusiness giant Syngenta ($22,500), 3M ($30,000), McDonald’s ($30,000), and tobacco conglomerate Altria ($25,000). Among the corporations and foundations that ACSH has pursued for financial support since July 2012 are Pepsi, Monsanto, British American Tobacco, DowAgro, ExxonMobil Foundation, Philip Morris International, Reynolds American, the Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Dow-linked Gerstacker Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Searle Freedom Trust.”[6]
ACSH has received $155,000 in contributions from Koch foundations from 2005-2011, according to Greenpeace.[7]



Devra Davis, PhD MPH
Fellow American College of Epidemiology
Visiting Prof. Hebrew Univ. Hadassah Medical Center & Ondokuz Mayis Univ. Medical School
Associate Editor, Frontiers in Radiation and Health
President Environmental Health Trust
P.O. Box 58
Teton Village, WY 83025






Devra Davis, PhD MPH
Fellow American College of Epidemiology
Visiting Prof. Hebrew Univ. Hadassah Medical Center & Ondokuz Mayis Univ. Medical School
Associate Editor, Frontiers in Radiation and Health
President Environmental Health Trust
P.O. Box 58
Teton Village, WY 83025

Please Sign up for the EHT Newsletter
Follow me on Twitter @DevraLeeDavis

See our new music video: "A Little Chat" 

Disconnect:the truth about cell phone radiation

The Secret History of the War on Cancer



On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 9:18 PM, Mary Redmayne <mary.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Paul and Lloyd

I see the part Devra and I are hoping you'll have some feedback on was buried in this email chain, so here it is as a stand-alone:

Another thing I want to test and you may have the contacts who can  do this: I'm concerned about out telling people to put the phone in stand-by to store on the body. Even the industry doesn't recommend this. I think the reason may be that the CPU and GPU operate on RF, some much lower frequency (eg  200 MHz for Samsung Galaxy GPU). This I think is the basic, regular clock rate. They go up to GHz in some phones.  The CPU and I think the GPU go on operating when the phone is in stand-by. They're not 'transmitting' ie not the same type of exposure, and John thought it would be too low to pick up, but I've wondered for ages why my radio picks up interference from the phone when it only operates in the KHz and  MHz range, and this probably explains it. Please experiment with cell phone in stand-by and a radio set on AM and away from a channel and see what you find. 

As you know, low frequencies travel further into the body so we really need to get this checked asap. I'm concerned that the advice EHT are giving could be misleading people carrying a stand-by phone in the pocket, or worse against the skin where sweat will make matters worse where exposure will continue

all the best
Mary 

On 1 March 2017 at 12:33, Mary Redmayne <mary.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Paul and Lloyd

I look forward to hearing your opinion about this (see my comments in the email to Devra). 
I realise the trouble will be actually measuring CPU and GPU output/exposure in standby or flight mode without SAR equipment due to the proximity problem. Do you have suggestions? 

Regards
Mary

all the best
Mary 

On 1 March 2017 at 12:09, Devra Davis <dda...@ehtrust.org> wrote:
you are raising VERY important questions about whether keeping phones in pocket on airplane mode may be ill-advised....

please talk with Lloyd and Paul about how we can resolve this question about whether carrying a stand-by phone in the pocket, or worse against the skin where sweat will make matters worse 


. 









Devra Davis, PhD MPH
Fellow American College of Epidemiology
Visiting Prof. Hebrew Univ. Hadassah Medical Center & Ondokuz Mayis Univ. Medical School
Associate Editor, Frontiers in Radiation and Health
President Environmental Health Trust
P.O. Box 58
Teton Village, WY 83025

Please Sign up for the EHT Newsletter
Follow me on Twitter @DevraLeeDavis

See our new music video: "A Little Chat" 

Disconnect:the truth about cell phone radiation

The Secret History of the War on Cancer
On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 5:55 PM, Mary Redmayne <mary.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
It's just occurred to me that my visit to Melbourne next week would be a good opportunity to meet with my main contact there in the unions to discuss the requirements given in the Standard about warning employees. 
Must do some background first. Will let you know if a meeting goes ahead, otherwise will do it by email. I get back Thursday afternoon so a catch later than that would be good. I like skype for most efficient exchange. I haven't contacted NZ unions yet, and that clause is not in our Standard. 
Another thing I want to test and you may have the contacts who can  do this: I'm concerned about out telling people to put the phone in stand-by to store on the body. Even the industry doesn't recommend this. I think the reason may be that the CPU and GPU operate on RF, some much lower frequency (eg  200 MHz for Samsung Galaxy GPU). This I think is the basic, regular clock rate. They go up to GHz in some phones.  The CPU and I think the GPU go on operating when the phone is in stand-by. They're not 'transmitting' ie not the same type of exposure, and John thought it would be too low to pick up, but I've wondered for ages why my radio picks up interference from the phone when it only operates in the KHz and  MHz range, and this probably explains it. Please experiment with cell phone in stand-by and a radio set on AM and away from a channel and see what you find. 

As you know, low frequencies travel further into the body so we really need to get this checked asap. I'm concerned that the advice EHT are giving could be misleading people carrying a stand-by phone in the pocket, or worse against the skin where sweat will make matters worse where exposure will continue. 
Mary

all the best
Mary 

On 1 March 2017 at 11:08, Devra Davis <dda...@ehtrust.org> wrote:
EHT will be happy for YOU to take the lead with the trade unions on our behalf...Let me know if you can do this.  I am dealing with some personal medical treatment issues.

will catch up next week.






Devra Davis, PhD MPH
Fellow American College of Epidemiology
Visiting Prof. Hebrew Univ. Hadassah Medical Center & Ondokuz Mayis Univ. Medical School
Associate Editor, Frontiers in Radiation and Health
President Environmental Health Trust
P.O. Box 58
Teton Village, WY 83025

Please Sign up for the EHT Newsletter
Follow me on Twitter @DevraLeeDavis

See our new music video: "A Little Chat" 

Disconnect:the truth about cell phone radiation

The Secret History of the War on Cancer
On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 3:03 AM, Mary Redmayne <mary.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Devra. 

On the bright side, I discovered this in the Australian Standard: 

5.3 PROVISION OF INFORMATION TO EMPLOYEES
Employees must be advised about the following:
(a)  The precautions and procedures to be followed if they become
pregnant, or have/receive metallic implants or medical devices
during the time they are engaged in RF work.
(b)  The known biological effects of RF fields as summarised by the World
Health Organization (WHO 1993), preferably with a written
explanation see (d) below.
(c)  The procedures to be followed in the event of any over-exposure,
including a contact point (medical specialist knowledgeable in
medical effects of RF field exposures).
(d)  That if they become sick they should attend their own General
Practitioner (as for any illness or medical condition) and inform their
doctor that they work with RF fields and give the doctor the
information about RF fields referred to above (b).

I think alerting Trade Unions to this could stir the pot a bit...

all the best
Mary

all the best
Mary 

On 18 February 2017 at 17:19, Devra Davis <dda...@ehtrust.org> wrote:
sorry to hear you were played by this reporter....& that Croft gets the last word....

he is a scourge on this issue...

will do what we can...

all the best...






Devra Davis, PhD MPH
Fellow American College of Epidemiology
Visiting Prof. Hebrew Univ. Hadassah Medical Center & Ondokuz Mayis Univ. Medical School
Associate Editor, Frontiers in Radiation and Health
President Environmental Health Trust
P.O. Box 58
Teton Village, WY 83025

Please Sign up for the EHT Newsletter
Follow me on Twitter @DevraLeeDavis

See our new music video: "A Little Chat" 

Disconnect:the truth about cell phone radiation

The Secret History of the War on Cancer



On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 8:44 PM, Mary Redmayne <mary.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Devra

At last I can send you a media release for my paper. I'm very irritated by the newspaper that asked for a  'scoop' - she got the Monash release and I gave her a half hour interview. She then kept it for nearly a month and then did a lousy short bit with an error and a quote from Rodney Croft (both wrong and misleading - as welll as irrelavant). It's here (see the comments that have been posted on it too)  http://online.isentialink.com/heraldsun.com.au/2017/02/15/c0a23ebc-b0d8-4403-a23c-fcc09c1afc52.html

But the release prepared by Monash which is better is now online here https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/monash-health-research-asks-where-women-keep-their-smartphones which you could use, or I've attached one with more information which I prepared which you could use instead. Sorry about the long wait. Very frustrating

all the best
Mary 


Informant: André Fauteux








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