Life at Zaytuna – Getting Rid of Wi-Fi
Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh June 28, 2009
If you’re reading this, you’ll be living in an area where your body is the target of a great deal of electro-smog. Your computer, television and a myriad other electrical devices all create electrical fields that actually charge tiny particles in the air (allergens, bacteria, viruses and the like). These charged particles are far more easily embedded into human tissue – like the inside of your lungs – which can cause health problems.
The higher the electrical field the greater the danger, as the most charged particles hit the tissue with more speed. As they crash land, they become deformed, which makes them stick more firmly. – The Independent
And now newer wireless technologies are under the spotlight, as their health impacts are the cause of a growing concern as well. The cell phone and Wi-Fi industry is huge, and growing, but some countries, like Germany, have warned their citizens to minimise or eliminate their exposure to Wi-Fi and cell phones, while others like the UK scoff at the precautionary principle and fervently promote the technology instead.
It may not have shown up on your radar, but not so long ago an EU European Environment Agency (EEA) report came out with some disturbing details…. The report was titled BioInitiative Report: A Rationale for a Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard for Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF) . The report was put together by a lot of individuals whose surnames are suffixed with an array of additional letters and whose specific occupations should give them a decent insight into the topic they’re dealing with (I’ll list the contributors at bottom).
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 Independent
If you read nothing else, do check out the ‘Summary for the Public‘ (PDF) from the report. And here are some of the key findings:
- There may be no lower limit at which exposure to ELF and RF affects people
- There is little doubt that exposure to ELF causes childhood leukemia
- People who have used a cell phone for ten years or more have higher rates of malignant brain tumor and acoustic neuromas
- The current standard for exposure to the emissions of cell phones and cordless phones is not safe considering studies reporting long-term brain tumor and acoustic neuroma risks
- Studies of human breast cancer cells and some animal studies show that ELF is likely to be a risk factor for breast cancer
- There is strong evidence that long term exposure to ELF is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease
Why am I talking about this topic in a ‘Life at Zaytuna‘ post? Well, just because – computer geek that I am – I’ve just rid the farm of the Wi-Fi system, and now have the network all hard-wired instead. I would recommend you all pull your old router/modem out of the cupboard, and learn to live without wireless yourself (perhaps anonymously posting some info into your neighbours’ letterbox may also help reduce your exposure – or if you live in an open-minded community, perhaps organise a local meeting to share info on the topic and propose a united action on this).
Before arriving here from Europe, my laptop told me there were three wireless networks available in the apartment where I lived. This meant that whether I was working, sleeping or relaxing – the cells of my body were the target of unwanted attentions from my neighbours (sounds a bit like GMOs…). The main street of the town also bombarded all of its pedestrians with free Wi-Fi for the small percentage of people who’d sit on a bench to make use of it. If we fly in aircraft now, sit on a beach, stay in a hotel or visit a library – it doesn’t really matter where we are, we’re getting exposed to electromagnetic fields that are linked with Leukemia, breast and other cancers. I figure that if there’s anywhere in the world where you could hope to avoid such health risks, it’s Zaytuna Farm. Well, now you don’t need to hope – it’s a done deal.
Although this issue should be taken seriously by everyone, parents in particular should consider this post well. Children are even more likely to be affected by such technologies, as the cells in their bodies develop. You may wish to investigate the policy/setup of the school your child attends, and bring this information to their attention. In the UK, for example:
More than two thirds of secondary schools and nearly half of primary schools have wi-fi. Panoramaspoke to nearly 50 schools and only one had been alerted to possible health risks. Others had been told that there was no risk. – The Times
This two-page flyer (PDF) from radiationresearch.org is worth reading and circulating as well.
List of BioInitiative Participants
Organizing Committee Members
Carl F. Blackman*, Ph.D.
Founder, Former President and
Full Member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society
Raleigh, NC USA
*opinions expressed are not necessarily those of his employer,
the US Environmental Protection Agency
Martin Blank, PhD Associate Professor
Former President and Full Member of Bioelectromagnetics Society
Dept. of Physiology. College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University
New York, NY USA
Prof. Michael Kundi, PhD
Full Member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society
Institute of Environmental Health, Medical University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
Cindy Sage, MA, Owner
Full Member. Bioelectromagnetics Society
Sage Associates
Santa Barbara, CA USA
Participants
David O. Carpenter, MD
Director, Institute for Health and the Environment
University at Albany East Campus
Rensselaer, NY USA
Zoreh Davanipour. DVM, PhD
Friends Research Institute
Los Angeles, CA USA
David Gee, Program Chair
Coordinator Emerging Issues and Scientific Liaison
Strategic Knowledge and Innovation
European Environmental Agency
Copenhagen, Denmark
Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD, Prof.
Department of Oncology
University Hospital
Orebro, Sweden
Olle Johansson, PhD, Associate Professor
The Experimental Dermatology Unit.
Department of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
Henry Lai, PhD
Department of Bioengineering
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington USA
Kjell Hansson Mild, PhD, Prof.
Former President and Full Member of Bioelectromagnetics Society
Board Member, European Bioelectromagnetics Society (EBEA)
Umea University, Department of Radiation Physics
Umeå, Sweden
Amy Sage, Research Associate
Sage Associates
Santa Barbara, CA USA
Eugene L. Sobel, PhD
Friends Research Institute
Los Angeles, CA USA
Zhengping Xu, PhD
Guangdi Chen, PhD
Bioelectromagnetics Laboratory,
Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Hangzhou . People’s Republic of China
Reviewers (partial)
James B. Burch, PhD
Arnold School of Public Health
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC USA
Nancy Evans, BS
Health Science Consultant
San Francisco, CA USA
Stanton Glanz, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
Cardiovascular Research Institute, Institute for Health Policy Studies
San Francisco, CA USA
Denis Henshaw, PhD
Professor of Physics
Human Radiation Effects Group
Wills Physics Laboratory
Bristol University, Bristol, UK
Samuel Milham, MD
Washington State Department of Health (retired)
Olympia, Washington
Louis Slesin, PhD
Microwave News
New York, NY USA
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU CRAIG! YOUR THE BEST!
ITS SO GREAT TO HAVE YOU AT THE FARM… AND NOW WE ARE WI-FI FREE!
Comment by Siobhan — June 28, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
This is complete and total bunk. The RF in your environment is nowhere near the intensity required to ionize anything.
Comment by wackyvorlon — July 1, 2009 @ 11:52 am
Hi Wackyvorlon – sorry, but without anything more substantial in your comment, I really can’t take you seriously. Did you read the report? Have you studied its contents? Have you made scientific studies into the subject over many years as have the well qualified people that contributed to this study?
Comment by Craig Mackintosh — July 1, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
The photons in the range of wavelengths used for WiFi hardware do not have enough energy to do anything except change the energy levels of electrons – not enough to ionize an atom, but enough to create a potential difference (‘voltage’) across another WiFi device with which it is communicating.
‘Radiation’ (omgz atomz) has been studied for years, and we know exactly what it can do to humans. It can be extremely damaging.
The earth gives off loads of radiation, as does the sun (UV rad. can be dangerous). In fact everything in the universe gives off radiation. Visible light is radiation. WiFi radiation, however, poses no threat, as the photons simply dont have enough energy to damage us. (E = hf says the energy of the emitted photons from the WiFi is of a safe 10-54eV )
But it’s not the energy of the photons so much as the number of them! A microwave is at a similair wavelength ( and photon energy ) to a 2.4GHz wifi and that can do harm, similairly radar systems operating at much longer wavelengths (lower energies) can kill things.
The main difference is that the microwave puts out 800-1000Watts, radar puts out 10-100KW but the wifi base station only uses 0.1W.
If you are really worried about high power microwave energy stay away from the big yellow thing in the sky – it puts out an awful lot more than your wifi hub.
You can’t of course say anything is perfectly safe – this is a point jumped on by journalists writing scare stories. In looking at radiation doses there are two considerations – how effectively the energy is absorbed and how much energy is delivered.
The amount of absorbtion depends on the sensitivity of the tissue and how effectively it absrobs a particular frequency.
Consider your eye, it can be damaged by a very low power 2mW visible laser because it is particulalrly sensitive and strongly absorbs visible light. An infrared laser of 20mW would do no damage because your eye doesn’t absorb it so well. A 200mW laser on your hand would do no damage because the tissue isn’t so sensitive.
With the wifi signal or any radio wave you have to consider, is the wavelength such that it is strongly absorbed by a particular tissue – so that a smaller power can do more damage than you would expect. Or is it just the heating effect – in which you can easily show that 100mW isn’t enough to cook you.
You can try and show they are safe by either considering all the mechanisms that might cause damage and calculate that the power is too low – but there might be unknown physiological effects that perhaps a small amount of heating in a certain tissue can do more damage than you expect.
Or you can do studies that look at death rates in real people over long periods – the problem is finding exactly equivalent people that only differ in the thing you are studying. Suppose you compare death rates over 20years in Wall St traders using mobile phones every day with buddist monks eating a vegitarian diet and doing yoga continually – would you assume that the difference in their health was solely due to mobile phone use?
Comment by FanOfWackyvorlon — July 3, 2009 @ 11:55 pm
FanOfWackyVorlon – is it possible you could study the scientific report itself, and tell us where it is at fault? There is a direct connection between cancers like leukemia and radiation from wi-fi, cell phones and cell phone towers.
You can make all kinds of comments about what you believe, but unless you’ve done some kind of long term study, or can show how these people have gone wrong, then I don’t see the value myself. Again, please address the study.
Comment by Craig Mackintosh — July 22, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
“The amount of absorbtion depends on the sensitivity of the tissue and how effectively it absrobs a particular frequency.”
Yeah, and the science is saying that this is starting to be a concern. This isn’t new-age neo-hippy concern, it seems backed by peer-reviewed science. Mobile phones are the biggest concern, I believe – a microwave transmitter of several watts right next to your head. Duh.
More importantly, you didn’t seem to read the links Craig sent – the major health issue causing the warnings isn’t the irradiation of tissues, but rather the ionized nanoparticles of allergens and virii which, due to their newly acquired charge, are able to embed into lung tissue better.
The interference with neurons was another issue that seems to have scientific validity. Read the links.
Comment by greg — July 22, 2009 @ 8:34 pm
Congratulations, Craig. May everyone in the permaculture and transition town movements follow your example.
The DNA damage from non-ionizing radiation occurs because weak electromagnetic fields cause cell membranes to lose calcium ions. This makes them prone to leakage. Lysosomes within the cells contain digestive enzymes, including DNAase, which destroys DNA. When lysosomes leak, there will be DNA damage.
An excellent discussion of the extensive damage that non-ionizing radiation (for instance, from cell phones) can cause is found in Andrew Goldsworthy’s article “The Biological Effects of Weak Electromagnetic Fields.”( http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/papers/goldsworthy_bio_weak_em_07.pdf )
There is another Wi-Fi brochure at http://www.emfacts.com/wifi/ entitled “Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi): Consumer Health and Safety Advice”. It also lists a number of websites with information.
There is extensive literature on the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation, including microwave radiation. These effects have been studied since the 1930’s. An article that discusses this is “Overloading of Towns and Cities with Radio Transmitters (Cellular Transmitter): a hazard for the human health and a disturbance of eco-ethics” by Karl Hecht, Elena N. Savoley (http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/niemr/hechtvortrag070724englisch.pdf )
Arthur Firstenberg’s two excellent articles also discuss the research: “Telecommunications vs. The Environment”
http://www.hopedance.org/new/issues/43/article8.html
“The Largest Biological Experiment Ever”
http://proliberty.com/observer/20070307.htm . Included is discussion of the disruption to the blood-brain barrier, repeatedly seen in experiments.
Regarding children and their special vulnerability, the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection issued a warning last year entitled “CHILDREN AND MOBILE PHONES: THE HEALTH OF THE FOLLOWING GENERATIONS IS IN DANGER” (http://www.kinder-und-mobilfunk.de/downloads/appellrcnirpengl.pdf )
Finally, there are also impacts to the environment. “Bees, Birds, and Mankind — Destroying Nature by Electrosmog” by Ulrich Warnke of the Kompetenz Initiative, (http://www.broschuerenreihe.net/international/bees-birds-and-mankind/index.html ) was just translated from German. Among the many impacts it discusses, is the sensitivity of the nitric oxide system in bees (and humans) to electromagnetic radiation. In addition to being involved in the ability to smell and learning process, the nitric oxide system “materially controls the immune system.” A presentation to the Beekeepers Association by Barrie Trower,(http://www.scribd.com/doc/4731008/Is-Colony-Collapse-the-price-of-emf-progress- ) also details the impact of electromagnetic
radiation including Wi-Fi. I feel these two documents are very important, must reads for everyone who cares about the earth.
There is much information out there. The European media is actually covering it, whereas in the United States it is rarely mentioned.
I think it is supreme egotism do deny the existence of something just because we don’t understand how it works. Not exactly an open or humble mind. Far better to be curious that, although present knowledge doesn’t explain a phenomenon, perhaps future knowledge will. And to be willing to continue studying the phenomenon.
In this case, there is an explanation.
Comment by Nina — August 2, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
Thank you for taking some decisive action to get rid of Wifi. I am one of many world wide who are made ill by being around wireless devices and systems. I plan to create a safe place to live with low emf’s in a rural area as towns and cities are now so inundated with electromagnetic frequencies. Smart move on your part before you feel ill. Hopefully more people will follow suit.
Comment by Beverly — August 3, 2009 @ 5:03 am
I have always experienced an unpleasant sensation in my head when using a cell phone. This occurs on the side of my head next to the cell phone roughly 2 inches inside from where my ear touches the phone. This feeling can persist for 15 minutes or so up to a number of hours. I do not own a cell phone for that reason and only use them in urgent situations where there is no other alternative. In one of my jobs, the work station was 4 feet from an old electrical panel which served a building with a lot of offices. Being near it made me dizzy, nauseous and forgetful. Fortunately I was able to persuade my supervisor to move my workstation further away after which I could enjoy my work. My fear is developing an increased sensitivity to electrical fields is this world where both wireless applications and unshielded energy are proliferating.
Comment by Elizabeth Gibbs — January 2, 2010 @ 3:53 am
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