ELECTRO-POLLUTION:  How to keep yourself safe from electromagnetic radiation

A damning 44-page report publishedby What Doctors Don't Tell You has found that we are all being exposed to 500 times more than the safe limit of electromagnetic radiation, most of which happens in our own homes and offices, causing a range of conditions from headaches and a flu-like feeling, to chronic fatigue and depression - and in extreme cases, leukemia and tumours.

 Occupational studies and anecdotal evidence have revealed that people are damaged by over-exposure to electricity in ways that medicine cannot recognise or fix.

Many of us walking around with inexplicable symptoms may simply be suffering from an overload of the electricity we are assaulted by every moment of our lives.  In a recent Swedish study from the prestigious Karolinska Institute, it was estimated that as much as 3 per cent of the population suffer from extreme adverse reactions to EMFs.

Here's the harrowing experience and the dramatic effect electromagnetic radiation has had on a mans life:

             "My first experience with electro sensitivity was seven years ago, while working very near a satellite-communications base station. I worked in that job for 11 months, and had concentration and short-term memory problems for most of that time. About three years ago, I installed wireless networking in my home and office. So, for 18 months, I had near-continuous exposure to wireless networking, laptops, computers, and DECT [digital enhanced cordless telecommunication] and mobile phones.

  "It was then that both I and my close colleagues noticed a significant effect on my work capability - poor concentration/focus, poor short-term memory, headaches. I also noticed I could tell when the wireless network was on because of sensation in the skin of my face.

          "I moved house to a semi-rural location, but my issues with concentration/motivation/ memory still gave me problems. For example, once a week, I used to have to go to the Institute of Directors in London for regular weekly meetings. But every time I went, my symptoms got significantly worse, and those days were a complete write-off for me. I discovered they had wireless broadband in the building. 

          "I had to resign from my firm."

 For decades it has been an open secret that workers exposed to continual electro-magnetic radiation - for example, electronics technicians, TV and radio assemblers, welders and train drivers - run a significantly higher risk of brain tumors and leukemia - in some cases, as much as three times the risk.  But it's not just workers in the electronics and electrical industries who are at risk.  Just six months ago, a team from Oxford University concluded that children living within 100 metres of overhead power lines had almost twice the risk of developing leukemia.

The problem is that we understand how electricity works better than we understand how we ourselves work. Modern medicine is still stuck in an obsolete paradigm, believing that the body's basic signal is a chemical one. Small wonder that doctors, in the main, refuse to believe that symptoms of electro sensitivity are anything but the sufferer's paranoid imaginings.

But the European Union-funded Reflex research did not prove such changes were a risk to human health.

The scientists behind the study, which has not been published in a journal, said more work was needed to see the actual effect of the phones on health.

But the UK National Radiological Protection Board said people should not be worried by the study's findings.

A spokesman said the study had not shown the biological changes led to disease.

He added that even research looking at the effects of radio waves on cells and DNA did not consistently find evidence of damage.

This research is no reason for people to be worried

Dr Zenon Sienkiewicz, National Radiological Protection Board, 

Around 1.5 billion people around the world use mobile phones.
There is an ongoing debate over their safety, with fears over potential dangers linked to mobile phone masts and the handsets themselves.

But the UK government-commissioned Stewart report in 2000 concluded there was no evidence of harm associated with using mobile phones.

However, the report did recommend a precautionary approach and said children should only use mobile phones in emergencies.

The mobile phone industry maintains there is no scientific evidence of harmful effects from electromagnetic radiation.

'Precautions'

The four-year Reflex study, co-ordinated by the German research group Verum, studied the effects of radiation on animal and human cells in a laboratory.

They found that, after being exposed to electromagnetic fields, the cells showed a significant increase in DNA damage which could not always be repaired by the cell.

The results of this study are preliminary, not yet published or peer reviewed and require further replication by other groups
Mobile Operators Association spokeswoman  

Damage was also seen in the next generation of cells. Mutated cells are seen as a possible cause of cancer.
The study, which has not been published in a journal, also reported other harmful effects on cells.

The radiation used in the study was at Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) levels of between 0.3 and 2 watts per kilogram.

The SAR is the rate at which the body absorbs emissions from the phone handset.

Most phones emit radio signals at SAR levels of between 0.5 and 1 W/kg.

Mobile phones cannot be sold to unless they fall within the SAR of 2 watts per kg.

Franz Adlkofer, who led the Reflex study, said people should use landlines, rather than mobiles, wherever possible.

He added: "We don't want to create a panic, but it is good to take precautions."

He said definitive research would take another four to five years.

Other studies have suggested mobile phone radiation may have some effect on the body, such as heating up body tissue and causing headaches and nausea, but no study that could be independently repeated has proved that radiation had permanent harmful effects.

'No conclusions possible'

Dr Zenon Sienkiewicz, principal scientific officer at the UK's National Radiological Protection Board, said: "This research is no reason for people to be worried.

"It is an interesting study, but its conclusions should not be over-emphasised."

He added: "The bottom line is that more research looking at whether mobile phones do have a measurable effect on health is needed."

A spokeswoman for the Mobile Operators Association said: "Independent scientific review bodies in the UK and around the world have consistently concluded that the weight of scientific evidence to date suggests that exposure to radiowaves from mobile phone handsets and base stations operating within international guidelines do not cause adverse health effects.

"The results of this study are preliminary, not yet published or peer-reviewed and require further replication by other groups."

She added: "It is not possible to draw conclusions from this preliminary data.

"The authors of this unpublished study acknowledge that this work will need to be repeated by independent laboratories."

CORDLESS PHONES POSE EVEN GREATER DANGERS

And its not just mobile phones that are implicated in the growing electro-pollution problem. Last week as The Big Issue magazine carried a two page feature titled:

Cordless Phones A Cancer Risk Claim Campaigners 

It says: telephones that emit continuous microwave pulses are placing thousands of people at risk from developing cancers, claim leading campaigners who are now demanding that the telephones be sold with compulsory health warnings.

Mast Sanity (MS) believes that the phones commonly known as DECTs (digital enhanced cordless telephones) pose an even greater danger than the controversial mobile because they emit pulses 24 hours a day.

Director Of Scientific Studies, Ingrid Dickenson, told The Big Issue: A lot of families and elderly people have these phones, often by their bedsides, because they are cheaper for long conversations than mobiles. But DECT signals are very strong because they are on 24/7 and can go through brick walls. These pulses prevent the creation of melatonin a neuro-hormone that mops up toxins in the body.

Dickenson added: “ If you do not have melatonin  which can only be produced in darkness at night  it prevents the suppression of cancer”. DECTs throttle melatonin production and raise the risk of cancer. This is why we believe they should have a heavy health warning.

According to MS, people have contacted them with complaints ranging from nosebleeds, nausea, insomnia, tinnitus and migraines. One such victim is John Hanlon who claims that DECT pulses coming through his workplace walls from other buildings made him so ill that he was forced to install special barrier sheets equipped with stainless steel fibres to block out the harmful pulses.