EU Watchdog Calls for Urgent Action on Wi-Fi Radiation
Europe’s top environmental watchdog is calling for immediate action to reduce exposure to radiation from Wi-Fi, mobile phones and their masts. It suggests that delay could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking and lead in petrol.
The warning, from the EU’s European Environment Agency (EEA) follows an international scientific review which concluded that safety limits set for the radiation are “thousands of times too lenient”, and an official British report last week which concluded that it could not rule out the development of cancers from using mobile phones.
Professor Jacqueline McGlade, the EEA’s executive director, said yesterday: “Recent research and reviews on the long-term effects of radiations from mobile telecommunications suggest that it would be prudent for health authorities to recommend actions to reduce exposures, especially to vulnerable groups, such as children.”
The EEA’s initiative will increase pressure on governments and public health bodies to take precautionary action over the electromagnetic radiation from rapidly expanding new technologies. The German government is already advising its citizens to use wired internet connections instead of Wi-Fi and landlines instead of mobile phones.
The scientific review, produced by the international BioInitiative Working Group of leading scientists and public health and policy experts, says the “explosion of new sources has created unprecedented levels of artificial electromagnetic fields that now cover all but remote areas of the habitable space on Earth”, causing “long-term and cumulative exposure” to “massively increased” radiation that “has no precedent in human history”.
It says “corrections are needed in the way we accept, test and deploy” the technologies “in order to avert public health problems of a global nature”.
© 2007 The Independent
Buyer beware: it’s also up to each of us to react to the “signals” (sensory, if not also technical) we receive and protect ourselves from obvious harm-signals. Like the slight warming and tingling in the ear and side of the head after a longish conversation on a mobil phone.
Of course partly boiling the brain with microwaves many times a day will have accumulative negative effects - whatever they may be.
How nice and fitting, then, that radiation-devices - wi-fi, mobile phones etc. - are so popular with financial actors, brokers and causers in the current financial market turmoil. Excess undermines itself.
In the mean time, minimizing use of radiation-devices is a good idea.
Here we go again.
Microwave ovens. Cellphones. Power lines.
One after another, the public has been blasted with scare stories about alleged hazards of low-level, low-frequency electromagnetic fields, despite the fundamental fact, which should be understood by anyone who has studied physics at even the high school level, that these fields cannot damage living organisms in the way that high-energy radiation such as from nuclear sources (or even sunlight) can. The energy of these fields is too low to break chemical bonds, and is lower than the typical energy that is present due to heat. Nothing that could be damaged by these fields could possibly exist at body temperatures. The only way you could be harmed by these electromagnetic fields is if they were strong enough to cook you or give you an electric shock, and these fields are not.
One time after another, these stories have come out, often due to the idiocy or incompetence of people who should know better (regulators, degreed scientists, etc.). Enterprising journalists jump on the story. Leftists who think ideology and the question of “who benefits” ought to trump science jump onto the bandwagon denouncing corporate interests for again exposing the public to unknown hazards.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in needless lawsuits, protection measures, and studies chasing down hints of possible harmful effects which finally disappear into a cloud of statistical noise.
Sigh.
Mark, you’re going to want to get that brain tumor looked at.
time for the government issue tinfoil hats for everyone.
I’m sure as hell not giving up my cell and wi fi
Is Thalidamide good for a Wi-Fi headache?
Members of my species previously used X-rays to check the fit of shoes.
“The Body Electric” by Robert Becker, M.D. is an excellent, albeit somewhat dated, book on the effects of electricity.
Time to break out the aluminum foil hats again! That’s my immediate reaction, but I’d like to see some scientific specs on it. Can it be worse than living under high voltage power lines?
I’ve been wondering about the effects of wi fi myself. Personally, I always keep my cell phone in my left leg pocket, and where it usually rests, my leg seems to always twitch there. As far as wi fi is concerned, when my connection starts acting up, I grip my external card/receiver in my hand, which obviously helps the connection out. I swear, when I hold it longer than a minute, my hand starts throbbing and actually hurts. It’s 100% from holding it, as it probably gets bombarded with the wireless signal. Just my two cents from personal experience, which is infinitely more important to me than what someone else tells me.
Mark, I believe you are correct. We had this issue at my school and I spent a significant amount of time looking into the health related issues of this and I couldn’t find anything really substantial. I work in conservation so I’m all for taking a precautionary approach to things but it’s difficult to fight for the theory of evolution and at the same time completely disregard the laws of physics.
There is a lot of scare mongering about this issue which is really unfortunate. People have a difficult time coming to terms that we are bathed in high levels of natural radiation every day (ie the sun). The amount of radiation coming from these devices is minuscule in comparison.
A bigger issue with cell phone safety is driving while taking on the cell phone. That has legitimate safety issues and I think should be illegal. Discussing this topic certainly gave me an appreciation about how people perceive and (or do not) accept risk.
whatfools September 17th, 2007 2:23 pm
Is Thalidamide good for a Wi-Fi headache?
Only during pregnancy.
It will be interesting when the State of Mississippi sues the Telecoms for reimbursement of medical costs from cell phones use.
But that’s a decade away, so not to worry
As someone who works with people who have had parts of their brains removed from tumors, I can tell you that brain damage isn’t something to be messed with or taken lightly. Little is really known about our brains and damage is typically permanent. Who we are is in our brains. Once that’s gone, it’s gone.
Those crying “tin foil hat” over and over at the mere mention of even looking into the effects of such devices put reckless political and person agendas over public health. Of course, what else is new?
They attempt to snuff out all investigation, the same as those in power now, unless it involves a stain on a dress. No name-calling there, no nuttery claims from them then.
It’s an information war and they will attack anyone and anything that strikes even the slightest fear in them, destroy our basic democratic principles, for the sake of protecting their own personal world view, or worse.
>>We had this issue at my school and I spent a significant amount of time looking into the health related issues of this and I couldn’t find anything really substantial.
This is Europe’s top environmental watchdog talking. You are saying you know better because you ‘looked into it.’ Was your study a meta-analysis? Were the methods consistent?
Sad to see how many are ’sure’ they have all the answers and consequently stifle even the ability of investigation, not fear-mongering.
We need to talk science, not politics and ‘fears.’ The EU is not afraid to act to protect it’s public.
>>This is Europe’s top environmental watchdog talking.
True; however: “Although the EEA does not have specific expertise in EMF… ” from the report…..
So I would say “yes” I know at least as well as they do. Was my study a meta-analysis? I’m afraid not. Probably for the best because meta-analyses are much harder to do properly than most people realize and they frequently end up weighting one study far too much and end up reaching incorrect conclusions. Lots of people doing these without even sitting down with a statistician first.
“were the methods consistent”. Yes, everything I read (WHO, FDA, CHO) was in English.
It’s been investigated and as Mike put it is in goes against the laws of physics. Might as well be investigating flat earth concepts. Just because something is above background it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. Hell, it’s 20oC in my house which is about 10oC above background and I think I feel much better for it!
There are enough real issues (species declines, endocrine disruptor’s, drug resistant bacteria) that need attention. I don’t think we have time to jump on every bandwagon regardless of how improbable it is. I don’t know about you but I have to chose my battles.
The radiation is a serious risk and is already causing health problems; but yes, putting the cell phones right up to your ear and the toxic microwaved food into your body is even worse then just having the waves around. We don’t need this technology, and it is going to seriously harm us if we let it.
Ullen: - that’s probably what happened to the Fed’s Greenspan.
Jokes aside, - re all the heated argument - would it hurt to examine the situation before taking sides? Maybe that’s the difference between the EU and US that really matters: they’re less prone to deciding that a few thousand casualties are still cheaper than some careful, rational research.
Wifi is definitely unsafe:
http://www.tech.co.uk/computing…
Panorama did an excellent doco on Wifi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/6674675.stm
More on the dangers of this microwave technology at this site:
http://www.mast-victims.org/
Lots of articles on wifi here:
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/?cat=29
scroll down
ALSO, the technophiliacs have been out in force defending this technology…They have no regard to the hazards and dangers to children and people in general.Such is there addiction.
Or… for those less inclined to get their news from blogs and would like to rely on a bit of science:
http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs304/en/index.html
There’s lots more out there. All of the sites, however, do say that there is no absolute proof that RF does NOT cause cancer. It’s just highly improbable. (much like smoking does NOT cause cancer, it just massively increases your chances of getting it — the smoking industry hid behind those semantics for years).
This is hysteria. This is a non-issue.
brianct’s link is less a blog than a list of further links on the subject.
If this is such a “non-issue”, why are a powerful government agency and an international scientific review raising concerns on the issue, involving many professionals who presumably care about their reputations? That alone indicates to me that the science isn’t conclusive. Many, many technologies/products/drugs are introduced with cocksureness, later to be found harmful, after *further* science is done (and oftentimes secret company research to the contrary revealed).
I believe it’s good to always keep in mind that once a useful, popular product is introduced into society and embraced by it, there is a huge momentum by everyone - public, business, government, and often even science - not to go looking for problems too much. It’s often only when the problems are in-your-face-stupid obvious that opinion is turned and the issue is taken seriously.
Dr. Zimmerman Robert September 17th, 2007 5:36 pm
Thanks Doc. My headache went away but I can’t reach my ears now…
Oh, my! The last sentence is the give-away: these people are frightened of new technology. They are kind of like Luddites. Let hysteria rule!!
I have some plastic sheeting and duct tape left over from the “War on Terror” plan to outlast all you bozos. Code Orange anyone?
Sure, getting an occasional x-ray is probably not harmful. But what if you had x-rays 25 times a day, every day? I am sure my kid talks on his cell phone 25 times a day, and it is always on and in his hand, pocket or up to his ear (he even sleeps with it). And what if you live under powerlines, work in a building with Wi-Fi and talk on your cell phone all the time? What is your exposure then? I don’t have a clue, but just like with chemical additives, etc. these things are not usually studied for their cumulative and combined affects with other environmental toxins.
I can’t believe that people intellectually capable of posting to this site would even consider a matter as trivial as this. What about the dangers involved in driving a car or even being a pedestrian? It sure is easy to instill fear in the sheeple.
> Sure, getting an occasional x-ray is probably not harmful.
Wrong. Every x-ray is a little bit harmful, because x-ray photons have energies of 10,000 volts (electron volts, to be pedantic) or more, and chemical bonds have energies of a few volts. So, one x-ray photon carries enough energy to rip up hundreds of your body’s molecules, including DNA. Damaged DNA = cancer and birth defects. So, every x-ray carries a little added risk.
> But….my kid talks on his cell phone 25 times a day
The same is not true for using a cell phone, because cell phones emit photons with energies of a few millionths of a volt.
In contrast, the typical energy of room-temperature heat is 10,000 times greater, a few hundredths of a volt. So, any molecule that could be damaged by a cell phone photon would be instantly destroyed by the violent energy of the body’s warmth.
So cell phone photons cannot cause the same kind of damage that x-rays do, and that damage cannot accumulate as it does if you have many small exposures to x-rays, nuclear radiation, or ultraviolet sunlight.
Cell phones and other sources of low-energy electromagnetic fields do induce small electric currents in the body, but it turns out that these currents are generally smaller than the random electric currents that exist due, again, to heat, as well as the much larger currents produced by the brain, nerves, and muscles, especially the heart.
But of course, these elementary facts are of no interest to those who think entirely in terms of political ideology about evil technology and evil corporations and evil government coverups.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of evildoing going on.
But this kind of knee-jerk reaction from the Left is the mirror image of the Right’s reflexive rejection of scientific evidence about pollution, global warming, weapons that don’t work, and so on. On the one hand, scientists are just whores for the corps and the military; on the other, they’re all liberals who’ll say anything to get another government grant.
Sigh.
Also, note that the “hand-held radiation detection device” shown in the photo someone chose to illustrate this story is apparently a detector for high-energy (e.g. nuclear) radiation, which has nothing to do with cellphones or wi-fi.
Idiocy like this is why, while generally sympathizing with a lot of their positions, I keep a comfortable distance to the environmentally-concerned political left
Wi-Fi radiation is harmless. So are cellphones.
Hey Mark- What about the wave resonance relative to the frequencies used and their harmonic relationship to the physical size of molecular bonds? I am thinking here of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, where winds created a standing wave that tore the bridge apart. I think perhaps EM phenomena cannot be solely described by their electron-volt values…
Just my 2 cents.
JK- Typical molecular bond vibrational resonances are in the infrared range. Rotational resonances are in the microwave range, and contribute to the absorbtion that heats food in microwave ovens.
But this is irrelevant, because the molecules in food and in living tissue exist in a highly damping environment consisting of liquid water, fats, proteins and other biomolecules that they are constantly in contact with; hence the energy in any given molecular vibrational or rotational mode is quickly shared with other modes and dissipated in the thermal bath. The “resonances” are correspondingly broad; this is the low-Q limit.
Another way of saying this is that the energy from microwaves accumulates not as coherent motion within a single resonator mode but as heat, and does not do any harm unless there is enough of it to actually raise the temperature, and then the harm that it does is exactly that done by the resulting elevated temperature.
In contrast, the Tacoma Narrows bridge was a relatively high-Q resonator which could store energy accumulated from the wind in a coherent wave mode (although it was probably pretty nonlinear by the time it collapsed).
I’m not trying to give people cheap physics lessons or show off how much I know. I’m just trying to communicate that all this is very well understood and there is no plausible physical mechanism or reason to suspect an effect, as well no consistent statistical evidence of any effect after decades and many millions of dollars worth of epidemiological studies.
So that is why my ear heats up after a hour of someones talk-a-thon on the cell call that you can’t get off of!? I wondered if the heat and the “Photons” could do damage together? One minute vs. one hour, could the testing be off for all sides? I remember the batteries in the first cell phones giving kids tumors that where square down the side of the face. My folks worked at the local kids hospital. That was twenty years ago and it wasn’t common but it happened. The batteries where known for it, later on.
What about the EUs ban on knob and tube wiring? As a precaution they banned the system due to irradiation, I don’t know if they could even test it properly then, but they did it. (Probably had less fires too! Like a ban on cell phones would do for US driving! Just a coincidence?) I heard the nokia cheap phones could hard boil an egg if two were left on for a full day, or something, sandwiching an egg. Mythbusters Ho!? I understand looking at the science first but find me some links to look at! The guys up-page did! Inform me! And Hey, Whats the statistics say?! One in what?
From the article:
“The warning, from the EU’s European Environment Agency (EEA) follows an international scientific review which concluded that safety limits set for the radiation are “thousands of times too lenient”, and an official British report last week which concluded that it could not rule out the development of cancers from using mobile phones.”
The scientists informing the international review, then, don’t understand the cheap physics lessons which you do, Mark Abram; or it’s all bad science (bs) and jockeying for grants and personal enrichment; or it’s those pesky, anti-technology partisan European regulators; or there may be more scientific facets to a complex phenomenon worth looking into than can be glibly listed and dismissed by one guy on a damn blog. What’s your vote?
A particularly relevant part of the review report upon which the EU’s decisions are being made:
http://www.bioinitiative.org/report/docs/section_14.pdf
The entire report:
http://www.bioinitiative.org/report/index.htm
Jungleboy: TO answer your statement: “So that is why my ear heats up after a hour of someones talk-a-thon on the cell call that you can’t get off of!” is the same reason your ears get warm after wearing earmuffs indoors for an hour, or what happens when you put on a sweater. Most cell phones use 0.6 watts of power. To put this in perspective, a microwave usually uses a little less than 2000 times that or about 1000 Watts. Such little power comes from these devices is what makes this subject so ridiculously improbable.
Yohocoma: It does appear as if the scientists don’t understand first year physics lessons, that my criticism (and Marks). This information can be gleaned from high school physics class, conservation of energy, laws of thermodynamics (pretty simple stuff in this day and age). Also, if you look at the report it is quite poorly formatted. Totally off topic but you can surprisingly use that as an indicator as the the professionalism of an organization. When is the last time you saw a crappy formatted press release from FDA or moveon.org? It’s a useful proxy (although a little esoteric in context I guess)
I’m pretty annoyed with this because I’ve been reading commondreams.org for years. I don’t know a lot about the deep history of the middle east or complex American constitutional issues. Therefore, in these cases I’ve really had to take the authors word as gospel. I wonder if I’ve been deluding my self with some of these… I’m still a fan of Ralf Nader and Noam Chompsky though…
In summary, it looks like that bioinitiative report is bogus.
Very little is known about the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. The immense complexity of living systems (in this case molecular cell biology) cannot be understood by simply using a mechanistic approach. Biology is a lot more than physical laws and chemical analysis.Try this website for more information:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FOI4.php
As tests have shown continuous cell exposure to microwaves can lead to breaks in DNA strands and cause chromosome aberrations…..
Think of a 100-watt microwave transmitter 10 inches from your head as being a lot like a 1-watt cell phone (they can go up to four watts) one inch from your head. The field strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
Yes, my leg has started twitching exactly under the spot where my new GSM cell phone sits in my left pocket.
WereInThisTogether: I think you answered you own question there. It takes about 1 watt to run a super energy efficient LED light. Think of how hot it would make you if you were 1 inch away from it. You wouldn’t be able to feel it at all.
I think a more likely explanation for your twichy leg is the size of your pants. Poor circulation by tight pants by having pockets filled with objects would quite obviously cause circulation issues. Try buying larger pants and I think your problem will be solved.
minitru: Microwaves as well as radiowaves are non-ionizing and as such are not able to break chemical bonds They are however, able to vibrate bonds (ie heat) if sufficient energy is supplied (ie a microwave can heat your food). If you want to take on the laws of physics and tell us all how the laws of thermodynamics somehow don’t apply to cell phones and EMF radiation I would love to hear it.
So well fitting pants and good circulation prevent brain tumors. Hmm… Sound crazy but I`ll give it a good college try!!
t_davies, unless you actually know what you`re talking about…
As far as the E.E.A. vs the E.P.A. I`ll take the word of the one actually banning carcenogens from lipstick and perfume as opposed to the one being run by the guy who spent the Clinton years lobbying against Superfund.
And as usual the reason why this is all being burried and hushed up is because it would cost sooo much money to fix now what will just end up costing too much to fix anyways. We`ll just have accept living with the damage anyays. Cause there`s nothing you can do. So just give up fighting and everything will be so much better of everyone envolved. Especially you.
Angry yet? Obviously not nearly enough.
I’m not angry at all. I just find it amazing that people will spend so much of their time complaining about something without at least reading a high school physics textbook. It’s not terribly hard stuff.
Better fitting pants will likely help the persons circulation problems.
I find it odd that people are afraid of minuscule amounts of radiation. Again, this is non-ionizing radiation, all it can do is heat stuff up. These things use such little power that they can’t heat things up to any biologically significant level. It simply shows a lack of understanding of the subject matter.
Everything isn’t a big conspiracy. Yes, Iraq is about oil, I doubt 911 was an orchestrated event. I’m a fan of parsimony.
Dangerous or not, nobody, not even EU regulatory bodies, are putting these genies back in the bottle. Personally, I have never had a cellphone, and don’t intend to get one.
t_davies
I suppose you did not bother to look at the website I suggested. I also assume that you do not know the first thing about molecular cell-biology, biochemistry, immunology or genetics, let alone quantum physics otherwise you would not keep repeating the “thermodynamics” message ad nauseam.
Biological organisms are complex, interconnected and interdependent systems. To even begin to understand how they work you must forget the mechanistic perspective derived from classical physics. To illustrate my point here is an excerpt from the i-sis article:
“The “thermal threshold” is usually taken to mean the level at which burning or heating occurs. But there is a more important meaning that comes from classical thermodynamics, a subject area that deals with energy transformation. Here, the “thermal threshold” refers to the small fluctuation in energy that occurs at random in a population of molecules at thermodynamic equilibrium.
Some biological effects are indeed associated with electromagnetic fields so weak that the energies in those fields are below the energy of random thermal fluctuations, and thus, according to classical physics, cannot possibly have any effect.
The big f a l l a c y is to assume that living systems are at thermodynamic equilibrium, which they are not. Systems at thermodynamic equilibrium are devoid of organised activities or structures, such as the mixture of gases in a closed airtight container that one finds only in textbooks.
Organisms, in contrast, are open systems maintained far away from thermodynamic equilibrium by virtue of their ability to capture and store energy.
Systems full of non-equilibrium energy are excitable, ie, they need only the slightest provocation to give, at times, disproportionately large effects. Unlike typical mechanical processes where effects are proportional to, and determined by the magnitude of the force, living processes are highly non-linear and unpredictable.
The weather is an example of non-equilibrium, non-linear process. It is predictable locally in the very short-term, but not in the medium and long-term, as typical of systems exhibiting deterministic chaos. Edward Lorenz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered deterministic chaos in the 1960s while trying to write down mathematical equations that could predict the weather; only to discover that his equations said predictions are impossible.
The weather is ‘deterministic’ because one can write down equations that describe the process; but the equations give unpredictable, chaotic behaviour. The equations cannot be solved mathematically, but they can be simulated on a computer. Computer simulations clearly show that a slight perturbation, or the tiniest difference in starting conditions, and there is no telling where the system will go. This is the ‘butterfly’ effect: a proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest could affect the weather in London.
Living processes are the same. The healthy heartbeat, the electrical activities of the brain, the behaviour of ant colonies, ecosystems, and a host of other living functions, all exhibit chaotic dynamical behaviour.”
The upshot is that many of the standard statistical tools are inadequate to cope with biological behaviour. And special statistical techniques have already been borrowed from non-linear physics in order to describe and analyse biological activities. An emerging discipline of ‘dynamic diseases’ is based on detecting deviations from the chaotic dynamics of healthy biological rhythms. Heartbeat and other biological rhythms can be read in rather the way that traditional Chinese practitioners read an individual’s status of health from the person’s pulse.
Andrew Marino, a pioneer investigator of the non-thermal effects of electromagnetic fields (see “Non-thermal effects of electromagnetic field”, this series), also initiated the use of statistical methods to analyse his experiments on the basis that the biological phenomena under investigation are non-linear.
Robert Becker, Marino’s supervisor, had done a series of experiments beginning in the 1950s showing that the body of all organisms has a Direct Current (DC) field, and that electric currents produced all over the body are involved in controlling growth and regeneration. By the 1960s, Becker had already proposed that an electrical communication system exists within all living things, and demonstrated that externally applied fields could influence the processes of growth and regeneration.
The fields and currents identified by Becker were actually found much earlier by another US biologist Harold Saxton Burr. He had proposed in the 1930s that all living things, from men to mice, from trees to seeds, are moulded and controlled by electro-dynamical fields, which he had measured and mapped extensively.
These fields are in addition to the now well-known and accepted electrical activities of the brain that can be measured as electroencephalograms (EEG) and in the pace-maker of the heart as electrocardiograms (ECG).
Electrical activities and ionic currents have also been measured in cultured cells and tissues. And the weak magnetic fields generated by current flows all over the body can now be measured non-invasively with the extremely sensitive Super Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) magnetometer. The evidence is overwhelming that electro-dynamical fields and currents are involved in intercommunication within the body. These fields and currents are connected to and correlated with the EEG and ECG that are a routine part of conventional biomedicine.
The body uses electromagnetic signals of different frequencies and extents to intercommunicate. Hence it would be surprising if external electromagnetic fields did not have an effect. As Gerard Hyland points out, electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones and computers are well known to interfere with electronic medical devices such as pace-makers and telecommunication systems of airplanes. To deny that these radiation could influence the body’s own electro-dynamical intercommunication system is irrational to say the least. He is particularly worried about the similarity of mobile phone frequencies to the major EEG frequencies such as alpha and delta waves, and frequencies that could trigger epileptic fits in people suffering from epilepsy.
——————
Although the precise mechanisms are unclear, Hyland pointed to an “undeniable consistency between some of these non-thermal influences and the nature of many of the health problems reported”, such as headache, sleep disruption, impairment of short term memory, increases in the frequency of seizures in some epileptic children when exposed to Base-station radiation, and of brain tumours amongst users of mobile phones.
Thus, reports of headache are consistent with the effect observed on the dopamine–opiate system of the brain, and the increase in permeability of the blood-brain barrier, both of which have been medically connected with headache. The reports of sleep disruption are consistent with the observed effect of the radiation on rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and on melatonin levels; whilst memory impairment is consistent with the finding that microwave radiation targets the hippocampus. Epileptic seizures are known to be induced by visible light flashing at a certain low frequency, and there is no reason to suppose that microwave radiation, which can access the brain directly through the skull, flashing at a similar frequency, cannot cause the effect. Indeed, exposure to such microwave radiation is known to induce epileptic activity in certain animals; and there have been reports of increased seizures in some children suffering from epilepsy that were exposed to base-station radiation.
Finally, mobile phone users show statistically significant increase (by a factor of between 2 and 3) in the incidence of a rather rare kind of tumour (epithelial neuroma) on the side of the brain nearest the mobile phone.”
That the process (how electromagnetic waves /fields effect biological systems) is not yet understood does not mean there can be no effect.
Biological organisms do not “behave” like machines (though that is what modern science wants us to believe)they are open, fault-tolerant systems, able to “learn”, to repair damages and adapt (unlike mechanistic systems)to a different environment.
Our uncritical pursuit of technical “progress” (who profits from a new invention?)has led to the illusion that we can “control” and even improve nature. Not the laws of physics should be our priority but the laws of ecology.(4 billion years of biological experience.. not good enough?)
minitru:
I harp on the thermodynamics since that is central to the issue and well established in science. Not the Psuedoscience that a lot of people spew while fear mongering about this issue.
Well, I am a biologist & Ecologist (who has taken physics courses) after all so I do think I know some things about biological systems…. So here are a few points some of the silly things in your post:
>>”The big fallacy is to assume that living systems are at thermodynamic equilibrium”:
–That’s silly. Many living organisms spend a lot of energy trying to maintain constant body temperature. I know of no one that has ever claimed that organisms are at thermodynamic equilibrium, that’s why we sweat when we’re too hot or shiver when too cold.
>>”The equations cannot be solved mathematically, but they can be simulated on a computer. Computer simulations clearly show that a slight perturbation, or the tiniest difference in starting conditions, and there is no telling where the system will go.”
–So computer don’t use math?? WTF? I think you mean that probably distributions cannot be fully described with mathematical equations and need to be approximated using particle filters and Monte-Carlo methods.. or the other author does at least. There are some problems that do require that approach (like the mathematical models I run) but the way that it is written display a very simple and poor understanding of these models. I do agree that if you set up a random walk model it will take a different pathway each time. Of course the pathway it takes can be predicted within certain bounds.
“The upshot is that many of the standard statistical tools are inadequate to cope with biological behaviour”
– True, I don’t think the WHO and FDA used t-tests to look at these problems
And yet in contradiction to the above statement– stats is useful! “Andrew Marino, a pioneer investigator of the non-thermal effects of electromagnetic fields (see “Non-thermal effects of electromagnetic field”, this series), also initiated the use of statistical methods to analyse his experiments on the basis that the biological phenomena under investigation are non-linear.”…. blah blah blah
“increases in the frequency of seizures in some epileptic children when exposed to Base-station radiation”
– I am currently sitting below a base station about 30 meters away. We had a consultant come in to measure the radiation. Guess what? It was far, far less than that given off by the sun. Am I worried, no because (insert thermodynamics argument here..)
You know what? I don’t have time for this, there’s only so much one can do to try to educate the ignorant. Microwaved food isn’t poison! It tastes crappy because all is does is effectively boil food. I’ve done what I can. I hope those willing to do some reading from credible sources will disregard the ignorant posters above.
As I said before if you really want to reduce your risk of dying — STOP DRIVING TO WORK AND TAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT! — That will reduce your risk by orders of magnitude above what any cell phone radiation could possible ever do.
t_davies:
Nice rebuttal. It is very hard to get people to understand that risk is a continuous variable, not a binary condition. The potential health effects of spending time in the sun without adequate UV protection far exceed those associated with cell phones. People in general spend way too much time worrying about things that are a negligible threat (microwave radiation, terrorist attacks, etc.) and not enough time trying to avoid the real threats (saturated fats, car accidents, etc.).
minitru’s post is pseudoscience, a mash of obscurantist nonsense.
>Some biological effects are indeed associated with electromagnetic fields so weak that the energies in those fields are below the energy of random thermal fluctuations, and thus, according to classical physics, cannot possibly have any effect.
What effects are those?
Perhaps you mean the effects of radio waves when mediated by radio and television receivers?
Or perhaps you mean the large-scale DC fields you refer to in your post. If such fields exist and play a role such as you describe (and I think this is a controversial claim), then the weak rf fields due to cellphones and wifi would not interfere with them, any more than would the larger AC fields due to thermal fluctuations and the much larger fields due to nerves and the heart. In fact, the only reason such a claim is at all plausible is because DC fields can exist (i.e. have well-defined and potentially meaningful values) after all the AC noise is averaged out.
The rest is not worth engaging. Of course you can always say things like, “could have some effect”, “complex”, “unknown” and so on. Fear of the unknown is a good reason to stay in bed. What we lack here is any good reason to fear wifis or cellphones.
t_davies wrote:
“It does appear as if the scientists don’t understand first year physics lessons, that my criticism (and Marks). This information can be gleaned from high school physics class, conservation of energy, laws of thermodynamics (pretty simple stuff in this day and age).”
While I’m not the kind of person to be automatically impressed by fancy titles and famous names, the list of the contributors and reviewers for the report (http://www.bioinitiative.org/participants/index.htm) strikes me as containing its share of respected institutions. While there is a chance this report might have gotten the chaff from each organization, and they could all be plotters from a seedy Yahoo message board, parsimony leads me to believe otherwise.
Whenever I see a claim from detractors that X sizable group of scientists and professionals can only be saying something because they don’t understand basic teachings in their field, I tend to write the detractors off as the loonies.
t_davies continues:
“Also, if you look at the report it is quite poorly formatted. Totally off topic but you can surprisingly use that as an indicator as the the professionalism of an organization. When is the last time you saw a crappy formatted press release from FDA or moveon.org? It’s a useful proxy (although a little esoteric in context I guess)”
“Poor formatting” (how exactly? it looks crisp to me) - is this the scientist version of typo putdowns? To me, yours and others’ remarks here smack of the contempt of professional peers more than anything substantial.
As a non-scientist I roll my eyes and shake my head at a lot of the claims people make about the world. But I also know there are very valid reasons to challenge and re-challenge accepted science when it comes to interactions of technology and living organisms. I don’t expect a thorough professional review of the content of the Bioinitiative report here; I don’t expect dismissiveness about an issue that is as much social as it is scientific, either.
A quick glance at the Bioinitiave report, which is the source of this flap, leaves little doubt as to its true nature.
This sloppy report is the work of a few scientists, a few journalists, and a few bureaucrats, all of whom have long-established interests in promoting fears of and research on “bioelectromagnetic hazards.” Ignoring mounds of research which has refuted their claims, these are the bitter enders of this controversy. To the extent that there are scientists among them, and even physicists, they resemble the cold fusion crowd, still at it after almost two decades with nothing to show that can power a flashlight.
Just three quotes from their highlighted summaries suffices to show that this is pathological science at best:
“It appears it is the INFORMATION conveyed by electromagnetic radiation (rather than
heat) that causes biological changes - some of these biological changes may lead to loss of
wellbeing, disease and even death.”
What the hell is this spooky “INFORMATION conveyed by electromagnetic radiation” and how is it supposed to cause “biological changes”? We’re in homeopathy territory here. The fact that they can make such a vague and patently implausible claim without even attempting to explain its meaning is characteristic of pathological science.
“There may be no lower limit at which exposures do not affect us.”
This is one of the hallmarks of pathological science, as described by Irving Langmuir - the claim that an effect persists even at arbitrarily low levels of the affecting agency, so that there is no consistent dose-response relationship. Again, you have to believe in spooks (such as “INFORMATION conveyed by electromagnetic radiation”) to credit this.
“There is little doubt that exposure to ELF causes childhood leukemia.”
This statement ignores several large and hugely expensive studies which have conclusively shown that there is no evidence of any connection between ELF fields and childhood leukemia, contrary to the inconsistent findings of earlier, smaller and more poorly-designed studies.
And on it goes.
It looks like you analyzed their report by reading the blue highlighted boxed short points in the summary section at the very beginning of the report - all of your quotes are from the colorful words - and you seem not to have read or considered the supporting material developed in the weighty remainder of the report.
The report’s main thrust, which is openly acknowledged at the start and acknowledged to be at odds with the established standards, is that biological changes from RF are more than a factor of thermal breakdown, and it appears that the rest of the report is an attempt to justify that statement. Perhaps the whole report should be analyzed before conclusions are drawn.
For any of you seriously concerned about the dangerous effects of low level radiation I would suggest you Google DU or depleted uranium, something much more serious than several trillion cell phones or WiFi. Holding a block of it in your hand likely won’t do you much (or any) harm, but even a microscopic speck allowed inside your body can cause your demise. The dust from the DU munitions we are using in the middle east right now can (and does) spread around the entire globe in a matter of weeks, and it virtually NEVER GOES AWAY. It’s also considered internationally a WMD. Sure, there are WMD in Iraq (now), but guess what? We took them there!!!
Let’s get our priorities straight, ok?
It would be wiser to discuss these issues in a reality based context of the here and now 2007. Many times I am struck how these kind of debates seem, or neglect to provide a context. It would seem there is an under lying assumption that we live in a perfect enviormental lab of a clean planet with little or no pollution.
The context I am suggesting is this: We live in a degraded world now where chemical and radioactive pollution are now at levels not seen in past human history. To ignore this fact as PaulMagillSmith points out in his post is part of the larger probelm we face as a spieces and the problem of even discussing these kinds of issues with any hope of reality grounded facts.
One only need look at the cancer rate from 100-125 years ago to see the evidence staring us in the face. This degraded enviroment we now live in has tell-tail signs everywhere, longer periods people take to fight off colds,odd and prevasive rise of many new auto-immune illness and the rise of resistant new germs to our drugs.
Granted some of these changes can be explained by the overuse of certain types of drugs, but given all thing are more or less equal we should strive to understand that there is more at work here than the simple overuse of drugs- given the larger context of the rise in auto-imume illness and cancer rates.
The levels of Chlorine now in the enviorment and chemicals that mimic hormones are very disturbing and the effects are as common as girls maturing at increasing younger ages and low sperm counts seen more and more in every quarter of the globe.
This total enviormental stage we are in by itself does not point to the possibel ill effects of low energy fields,
produced by cell phone but it does raise the question can humans as a group take, yet another assult of unknow outcomes on their bodies.
Yes skepticism is called for, but not just the possible overreaction to cell phone radiation, but the whole thrust of technology worship without limits other than what is good and what is not good for the bottom line or defending a consumer culture in many ways based on technology much of which has not been around long enough to draw any conclusion ay or nay.
Must I remind us all humans can still not sovle the basic problem that irrgation leads to a build of salts in soil and all irrgation based cultures will eventually collasp - so a bit of alarm and prespective should be balanced.
It would also help the discussion if the nay sayers would do the common discussion good by admitting that there is more than one type of radiation use in the telecon industry. The point to point microwave dish and towers which contain millions of calls operate at orders of magnitude higher freqency than the radio waves used to transmit the individual call and it is the microwave transmissions that worry me more that plain old radio waves.
But then again based on simple observation the rise of cancer in the human population does mirror the wide spread rise and use of radio waves with a slight delay of one or two generations - who had lived most of their lives without said radio waves.
Yes ancient humans evloved in an enviorment with background radiation and sunlight, but it did not contain 20 years of a-bomb tests, 100 years of chemical pollution, 70 years of background radio waves and now new forms of chemical and DU pollution that no one has any real interest in seeing or even consdering as the one of the many straw that just might break the back of the ability of the human race to continue to reproduce - let alone live.
We should reserve our skepticism for all the bullshit artists whether they be people who insist all technology is bad, as well as those who think corporate driven R&D and technology are always good for general well being and health. And yes, pick your battles - trouble is the global corporate system has a lock on the debate and the research money - all of which does not bood well for our collective future.
Stefour (second post) should have looked at least at the news release from the study group, which highlighted, first of all, exposure to high tension power lines. If these comment forums are to be worth anyone’s reading, participants should do their homework before they blog.
Traven,
Very thoughtful comment and appreciated. I agree with the vast majority of what you wrote. The one caveat I would add is to your statement in the second to last paragraph “…as the one of the many straws that just might break the back of the ability of the human race to continue to reproduce - let alone live.”.
I see your point and I would concede that EF may be (or even is) one of those straws. My point is, if you want to save the camels back you should set your sights on removing a piece of straw, you would be better served by removing the 50 lb Monkey riding on its back. Endrocrine disruptors, drug resistant bacteria, climate change, resource over exploitation etc. etc. etc. are real issues and not fictitious distractions like the health effects of EF. In the context of almost all other health or environmental issues, EF and cell phone pollution indeed sounds like a straw.
t_davies:
I appreciated your comments also during the length of this small debate and I agree one must choose the bigger and more established threats to the environment as issues to take a stand on.
If I may quote your own post back:
“Endocrine disruptors, drug resistant bacteria, climate change, resource over exploitation”, are serious threats little understood and given way little attention as opposed to the almost hysterical fear associated with EF.
But given the corporate culture we live in none of the important, really important issues are given the weight deserved because so many times – time after time, a serious look at three dozen important issues debated in a open and fore right manner would lead to large sections of the corporate business class and/or the government as being a party to criminal neglect and out right murder.
Whether we point to the over use of chemicals that mimic hormones, heavy metal leeched from mining operations slipping into water supplies world wide, acid rain, mercury pollution from coal burning electric plants and the endless list of ways we are overloading the food chain with unknowns has to make even the most pro development minded wonder what the fuck are we doing as a species.
A case in point that is potentially much more of a threat to human health is the almost careless way the U.S. government disposed of many forms of radioactive waste in the 1940s and 1950s and it is unclear whether this practice is still done.
On a trip down the Colorado River in the 1980s with my brother, we, at some point came upon a section of the river, in Utah, where along side the river, was a five mile section of Uranium mine tailings from the forty years A-bombs construction.
The guide we were with had quietly taken his bandanna and wetted it down and tied over his face only so that the eyes were exposed. Everyone made fun of him, he stated that he was just playing it safe as he could not predict if at any point during this five mile section if the winds would kick up and blow and big gust of radioactive dust into our faces and since he had to make this trip many, many times per summer season, so it made sense from his point of view to do so….as exposure is a question of total load over time.
Funny thing was with in the next tem minutes every one in my raft and the 7 other rafts had all followed suit as no one wanted to take a chance – just in case.
The point of this little story is not pack mentally of tourists on the river, the point is these tailings have been blowing and leeched into the drinking water of million upon millions of people for the last fifty years and might be, just might be, the one of the largest reasons why millions of people from here to Mexico die from cancer. But we will never know, because no one has taken the time and effort and money to see if and how the levels of threat to human health change over time and at what levels can this waste enter the food chain and at which points – if at all.
I bet the millions who have got colon cancer and breast cancer would beg to differ and would have wanted a more long term mind set to have governed these very obvious brain farts by a whole generation of leaders.
This is just one example of hundreds where a misinformed public lied to by an uncaring industry and government who have found it convenient to ignore very long term out comes because these generations of business and government leaders exhibit the same thoughtless ignorance as those who get up in arms about EF.
As for EF itself, yes the frequencies of a individual phone may be no big deal, but in Europe, England and Taiwan whole communities have revolted against Telecoms who place large receiver stations in neighborhoods who only find out a few years later that there are indeed cancer clusters associated with the very high energies of the big communication hubs severing large areas.
I repeat one must draw a distinction between the low level frequencies of a cell phone and the very high energy outputs of receiver stations – these are as different as 18th century grenade and modern munitions in the relative strength of the out comes faced.
It would seem there is a large problem with some type of leakage – which may be due to just sloppy maintenance of the degree to which a signal is allowed to drift off a few degrees off center of the dish, and rather then send out crews to fix the problem they just amplify the signal strength.
Just another example of a thoughtless industry once again not giving a rats ass about the public which feeds the fears further of a skeptical and fearful public, and in the end I can not blame anyone if we do over react sometimes.
Given the lousy track record of past business leaders and their paid reps who swear everything is fine – as long as any real long term thoughtful studies are prevented from ever gaining traction - as a goal we might want to under take and fund them, it would seem the evidence either way is always just out of reach on a range of literally dozens of issues.
But that is the point of corporate control of defining the debate is it not?
If we lived in a world of infinite time and money I would agree. Let’s fund everybody’s research no matter how improbable or unlikely. Unfortunately, we live in a real world where real problems are under funded, and as a consequence, understudied. You need to choose your battles. When resourced are limited, I don’t see the wisdom in funding a battle when it’s unlikely that the other army will show up, or worse, even exist.
I’d know this is a difficult area since many people who love their technology do not want to believe there is a problem with it. However the microwave radiaiton emitted by cell phone towers, WiFi and cordless phones is trillions of times higher than the natural background levels in the microwave spectrum.
The ‘information’ referred to in the Bioinitiative report is the ‘data’ (ie the conversation or the photos, etc) that is sent along the high frequency microwave which results in a ‘pulse’ at low frequencies. Scientists think it may be this ‘pulse’ that is responsible for some or all of the adverse effects. however there is also evidence for a dose dependency.
The official agencies charged with looking at the evidence are funded by the industry.
There is evidence of cancer clusters appearing around cell phone towers after only 5 to 10 years exposure.
The radiation intensity in the vicinity of WiFi transmitters (routers) is of the same order of magnitude as that in the main beam from cell phone towers.
Already there are reports of teachers and pupils suffering adverse health effects (such as headaches, nausea, concentration problems, etc) when WiFI was installed in their school. This is not just a theory, it is actually happening to people and there is research evidence pointing to why it may be.
Neither mobile phones, nor WiFI were ever pre-market tested for safety.
In Germany 1000’s of medical doctors have signed petitions to their government to halt this technology as they have noticed increasing sickness in their patients when exposed to the radiation.
There is a lot of evidence in the form of 1000’s of research papers.
An example of some important reviews is below.
Please take the time to read these with an open mind
The Stewart Report 2000
The Stewart Report was one such. Performed in 2000, it highlighted gaps in knowledge and that there is evidence for adverse health effects from exposures below the guidelines.
http://www.iegmp.org.uk/report/text.htm
The ICNIRP guidelines are only meant to protect against short term heat shocks and burns, not long term, exposure to ‘pulsed’ microwave radiation.
http://www.icnirp.de/documents/emfgdl.pdf .
The Ecolog Report, 2000
This was commissioned by T Mobil. It only reviewed peer reviewed and published research and looked at over 220 papers. It concluded that there is clear evidence for cancer and genetic damage at current exposure levelshttp://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/niemr/ecologsum.php
Dr Cherry, 2000
Criticism of the health assessment in the ICNIRP guidelines for radio frequency and microwave radiation. (100 kHz - 300 GHz)
Lincoln University
31/1/2000
Excerpt:
‘….the ICNIRP guideline exposure level is set many orders of magnitude too high to accomplish this (protection of public health). ….This (view) has been intransigently maintained in the face of compelling laboratory and epidemiological evidence of adverse health effects that would have had a chemical declared carcinogenic, neuropathogenic, cardiogenic and teratogenic for humans many years ago. ‘
http://www.emfguru.org/CellPhone/cherry2/ICNIRP-2.htm