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Findings often hidden in research
Electromagnetic fields reduce levels of the mood
hormone melatonin
Microwave risks long
known
British gas to add to electronic smog
Power lines double
leukaemia
Power lines concentrate pollution
Microwaves carcinogenic
Radio and microwave damage need not involve
heating
Human
electrical field
Microwave cancer mechanism
Degenerative brain diseases more common
among workers exposed to EMF's
Microwave ovens banned in Russia in the 1970's
Book from Powerwatch on reducing the health
risks
Mobile phone dangers
(click for mobile phone news page)
Hiding the findings
Even when a research paper has been peer-reviewed and published in a reputable
journal it is important not to take its conclusions on trust - especially
when the research has been wholly or part-funded by an organisation, including
the Government, which may have a vested interest in a certain outcome.
Even here such so-called ‘independent bodies’ may be dependent
on Government funding for their very existence and work. Then there are
obstacles to objectivity like the medical establishment status quo and
scientists’ careers. This is one of the reasons single studies are
rarely accepted as sound evidence.
A good example is a study on the effects of exposure to radiofrequency
fields by R.W. Morgan and colleagues, part-funded by Motorola, the mobile
phone and radio manufacturers, and published in Epidemiology (2000;11/2:118-27).
The study compared the health outcomes of 195,775 Motorola employees with
those of a sample of the general public in four American states -Arizona,
Florida, Texas and Illinois - but focused particularly on brain cancers,
lymphomas and leukaemias. The authors of the study eventually concluded
that working for Motorola and being exposed to radiofrequency fields whilst
at work brought no increased risk of these three key illnesses. When,
however, the information provided by the researchers themselves is analysed
more closely it suggests the opposite.
Given the typically highly educated, upper social class status of the
Motorola employees, one would have expected them to have experienced lower
mortality rates than the general public control group. This was the case,
except for leukaemia and lymphatic system cancers, where the incidence
was the same as the control group, enabling the researchers to draw the
conclusion above. The same was true for most other cancers except brain
cancer. It would have been more honest to flag up the contrast between
the cancer mortality rates and those of the other causes of death as a
possible indication that exposure to radiofrequency fields had removed
the health advantages bequeathed by a higher standard of living.
The contrast was particularly clear in the case of the lymphatic system
cancer Hodgkin’s disease, but this was not flagged up either.
Secondly, the report clearly demonstrates that the Motorola employees’
risk of developing most types of cancer increased the longer they worked
for the company - again, not mentioned in the conclusion. People who had
worked there for more than five years had a 50% - 100% greater risk than
those who had worked there five years or less. Molly Scott Cato wonders
how many members of Government committees and panels actually analyse
the researchers’ results, rather than rely on their conclusions which
are often carefully worded for the funder’s or public consumption,
and how many would even know what to look for.
(7532-38) Molly Scott Cato. Ecologist
1.9.00 p41
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Depressing fields
A US study of 138,905 male workers in the electricity industry suggests
that higher exposure to electromagnetic fields led to up to double the
risk of suicide. Dr. Savitz and colleagues from North Carolina University
believe that exposure to electromagnetic fields can reduce levels of the
mood hormone melatonin, leading to depression.
(7197) Nigel Hawkes. Times 29.8.00 p10
Women exposed to relatively high electromagnetic fields in a garment factory
produced less melatonin at night than women working in the relatively
low electromagnetic field environment of an office. Although the researchers
could not find any dose-response ratio between level of exposure and reduced
production, they point out that melatonin production did not recover on
Saturday or Sunday nights. This suggests that the effect lingers or may
even be chronic. The marker used to ascertain melatonin production was
the level of the compound 6-hydroxymelatonin sulfate in the women’s
urine.
(7555-56) Microwave News 1.7.00 p14
Documents recently released under the US's Freedom of Information laws show that senior military officials accepted the health dangers of low-level microwaves 25 years ago. These dangers are still denied by the World Health Organisation, the US Federal Communication Commission and the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection today. The book Remote Viewing by Tim Rifat and published by Random House at £17.99 reproduces 250 pages of these documents.
(6309) Electromagnetic Hazard & Therapy 1.12.99 p7
In 1974 US Army researchers reported that low level microwave radiation (such as that used by mobile telephones) might alter the functioning of the brain/blood barrier. This warning was repeated by Swedish scientists in 1992, who also suggested a potential link with Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases. Other research findings include:
•a 1996 Australian study showing a 2.74 times increase in childhood leukaemia deaths in the vicinity of FM radio transmitters
•the Swedish Skrunda Radr Study, which revealed impaired academic ability in children, chromosome damage in cows, growth reduction in pine trees and chromosome and reproductive damage in plants within 4 kilometers of a transmitter
•a 1990 draft report from the US Environmental Protection Agency describing extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields as “probable human carcinogens”. The phrase was removed from the final version but a subsequent report in 1994 also warned of a link between cancer and ELF fields
The UK Government now advises that children under 16 years of age should be discouraged from using mobile phones. Their brains are more susceptible to damage because they are still developing and their skulls are thinner.
(6950-52) Holistic Health 1.6.00 p6
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Gas on the air waves
British Gas is currently running a pilot scheme to eliminate the need for regular visits from meter readers. 100,000 homes in London have had a tiny microwave transmitter fitted to their gas meters. These beam gas usage to a small relay box fitted onto a telegraph pole or the side of a building (approximately one per 250 households) and from there to British Gas, every 30 minutes via the mobile phone network. Good news (bigger profits) for British Gas but possibly less so for their customers. Although the transmissions are only a tenth of the strength of mobile phone calls, if the pilot is successful the UK may well end up with 20-30 million transmitters contributing to the electronic smog we now all live in.
Ed.- No-one yet knows the long term effects of living in this growing electronic smog. Perhaps we should wait a while before contributing to it further.
(7019-20) Sean Poulter. Daily Mail 1.7.00 p31
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Power lines double leukaemia
The initial results of the UK Childhood Cancer Study investigating five possible causes of childhood cancer have been published in the Lancet. The study examined 4,000 children - 2,000 with cancer and 2,000 controls - over 7 years. The first results to come out suggest that children living near powerlines run almost double the risk of developing cancer but that there is no association between low-level magnetic fields and childhood cancer (the results for exposure to electric fields have yet to be released). This confirms previous findings of other studies that some feature of powerlines other than the magnetic field is responsible for the association of power lines with childhood cancer.
(Ed.- In a blatant piece of spin doctoring, the UK Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research led the press to believe that the study had found 'no link between overhead power cables and childhood cancer').
(6086) Day,N et al. Lancet 1999;354:9125-1931
Power lines concentrate pollution
New experimental data from Bristol University's Professor Denis Henshaw and Dr. Peter Fews reinforces their hypothesis that the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by power lines attract airborne pollutants, exposing people living nearby to higher levels of air pollution. The EMFs are thought to give the particles a charge which enables them, when breathed in, to deposit more readily in the lungs where they can do the most damage, and thus increase the incidence of cancers. More than 2,000 experimental observations show that higher levels of particles from vehicle exhaust emissions and from naturally-occurring radon by-products are present in the vicinity of high-voltage power lines. The researchers propose that increased exposure to this chemical and radioactive pollution might be the reason for the observed increase in childhood leukaemia near powerlines seen in the UK Childhood Cancer Study. (See above)
Chris Busby, Scientific Director of the independent research group Green Audit, reminds us that all dust in the UK is radioactive and contains beta- and gamma-emitting rays from man-made isotopes like caesium-137 and strontium-90, and plutonium blown across from the Irish Sea. Levels of radioactivity in dust near Reading, Newbury and Basingstoke are hundreds of times higher than the safety threshold levels above which a substance is defined as nuclear waste (Radioactive Substances Act 1993).
(6087) Microwave News 1.11.99
p3 (6088) The
Ecologist 1.4.00 p50
Original research: Fews,AP, Henshaw, DL et al. Int.
Jnl of Radiation Biology 1999;75,(12): 1505-1521, 1523-1531.
Microwaves carcinogenic - official
On 24th June 1998 the 30 members of a working group set up by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) voted 19 to 9 in favour of categorising extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields, such as those from power lines and electrical appliances, as possible carcinogens (cancer-causing). The decision followed a 10-day review of studies based on children exposed at home or workers exposed in their workplace. They felt that these results were more persuasive than the animal-based and cellular (in vitro) experiments.
(3772-73) Microwave News 1.7.98 p1
Dr. Gerard Hyland of Warwick University
has recently presented findings that biological systems, including the
human body, generate and emit extremely low intensity radiation in the
form of photons (microscopic packets of light energy). The photon emission
is not random, suggesting that they are the electromagnetic output of
an orderly, functioning metabolism.
This is more evidence, if any were needed, that the human body is essentially an electromagnetic system and must therefore be very sensitive to external radiation such as that emitted by mobile telephones and radio masts.
Raised temperature unnecessary
An expert panel set up by the Canadian Government has concluded that both radio-frequency and microwave radiation can have biological effects without causing heating. It also found that Canada's current maximum exposure guidelines were too high to protect workers - even against radiation high enough to cause heating.
Ed.- This is an extremely important conclusion. Until very recently virtually all official radiation watchdogs have claimed that there was no possibility of a biological effect unless the strength of the field was high enough to cause heating.
(5876) Microwave News 1.5.99 p3
Melatonin - a naturally occurring
human hormone and antioxidant - is known to protect against cancer. It
has long been suspected that
electromagnetic fields can reduce melatonin's protective effect, thus
increasing the risk of cancer, but many scientists have found it impossible
to accept that exposure to such weak fields could have any effect at all.
It looks as if the doubters are wrong.
(3666-68) Andy
Coghlan. New Scientist 2.5.98 p4
Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs
in Richland (US) are now the fourth unit to show that a 12 milliGauss
(mG) magnetic field can block the protective action of melatonin. Human
breast cancer cells, whose growth had been inhibited by introducing melatonin,
resumed growing when exposed to the 12mG field. A lower strength field
(2mG) had no effect.
Another study showed that a 12
mG field could block the protective action of tamoxifen, a drug commonly
used to control breast cancer. Dr. Russell Owen of the US Food & Drug
Administration (FDA) commented, "It's getting harder and harder for
sceptics to deny low-level effects".
(3774-76) Microwave News 1.7.98 p3
New research from California confirming previous work shows that people exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) through their work have up to five times the risk of contracting Alzheimer's disease. At greatest risk were seamstresses who have high exposure because they work in very close proximity to the electric motor in the sewing machines they use all day.
The researchers also studied the effects of EMFs on brain cells grown in the laboratory. They suspect that EMFs can disturb the normal concentrations of calcium ions within cells, which could trigger reactions that lead to the accumulation of damaging plaques and tangles in the brain.
A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that a broad variety of degenerative brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, are more common among workers exposed to electromagnetic fields.
(1825) Powerwatch Network Newsletter 1.1.97 p2
Microwave ovens banned in Russia
Microwave ovens were originally developed by the Nazis to provide mobile food support for the invasion of the Soviet Union. After the war the medical research and documentation concerning these experimental apparati was discovered and transferred to the US War Department. The Russians also retrieved some of the devices and undertook further research independently. The Russians have been the most diligent in their research on the biological effects of microwave ovens and they outlawed their use in 1976 (the ban was lifted in the late 1980's after Gorbachev came to power -Ed). They have also issued an international warning concerning the possible biological and environmental damage that can be caused by the use of similar frequency electronic apparatus (Ed.- e.g. mobile telephones).
In most cases, the Russian tests exposed foods to microwaves at 100 kilowatts/cm3/second power, to the point considered safe for sanitary, normal consumption. The effects they noted fall into three categories:
Cancer-causing effects
• the creation of the well-known cancer-causing agent d-nitroso-diethanolamine,
•the destabilisation of active protein molecular compounds,
• increases in food's ability to absorb radiation from the atmosphere,
•the creation of cancer-causing agents in milk and cereal grains,
•the alteration of elemental food substances, causing digestive system disorders (unstable breakdown of foods),
• the creation of chemical alterations within foods, leading to malfunctions in the lymphatic system leading, in turn, to reduced ability of the immune system to protect against some forms of cancer,
•increasing the level of cytomas (cancer-causing cells) in blood serum,
•the creation of cancer-causing free radicals in some trace-minerals
•molecular formations in plant substances, particularly in root vegetables, and
• increased levels of stomach and intestinal cancer, and of digestive and excretive system malfunction, in those consuming microwaved foods.
Decrease in food value
• a decrease in the bio-availability (the body's ability to use a nutrient) of B-complex vitamins, vitamins C and E, essential minerals and lipotropics (fat burners) in all foods,
• a loss of 60-90% of the vital-energy field content of all tested foods,
• a decrease in the body's ability to absorb valuable alkaloids, glucosides and galactosides, and nitrilosides from fruit and vegetables,
• the destruction of the nutritive value of nucleoproteins in meat, and
• a marked acceleration of structural disintegration in all foods.
Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritive value of all foods researched.
Biological effects of exposure to microwaves
• reduced electrical activity in blood cells and lymphatic fluids,
• disturbances and breakdowns in the nerve-electrical circuits within the brain,
• markedly higher levels of brain wave disturbance in the alpha, theta and delta-wave signal patterns, leading to negative psychological effects such as memory loss, loss of ability to concentrate, suppressed emotional threshold, deceleration of intellective processes, sleep disturbance,
• breakdown of the human 'life-energy field', with side-effects to the human energy field of increasingly longer duration. (These in particular caused the Russians to ban such microwave ovens in 1976.)
• long lasting residual effects of magnetic deposits throughout the nervous and lymphatic systems, which can cause irreversible damage and increased sensitivity to microwave radio-frequency fields from transmission stations and TV relay networks,
• destabilisation and interruption in the production of hormones and the maintenance of hormonal balance in both men and women.
These findings were originally recorded by William Kopp in 1979 after three years working at the Atlantic Rising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon, US. His work met such resistance from certain lobbies that he later changed his name and disappeared. His conclusions are still explosive today. The difference is that many new studies are rediscovering/confirming the Soviet and German work. Yet again, knowledge of serious threats to human health has been suppressed in the interest of profit.
(3816-25) Journal
of Natural Science 1.4.98 p42
Alasdair and Jean Philips of Powerwatch, a leading authority on the health hazards of electromagnetic fields, have recently published a manual on reducing health risks in the home. Home Electrical Appliances and House Wiring: reducing the health risks joins Living With Electricity by the same authors in the select book list available through Lifeworks, (86-88 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5BB tel: 0117 929 4342). It costs £8.50 incl. p&p.
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