W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
1 April 2010
Study warns of green light bulb electrosmog
Swiss health officials are recommending that people stay at least 30 centimetres away from energy-saving light bulbs, over electrosmog concerns.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Study_warns_of_green_light_bulb_electrosmog_.html?cid=8584642
A study has measured the electric fields emitted from these lamps and concluded that a certain distance is needed to keep well under international limits.
Low- and medium-frequency magnetic and electric fields can induce electric currents in the body which, above a certain frequency, can stimulate the nerves and muscles.
The Swiss study, undertaken for the federal offices of health and energy, found that medium-frequency electric fields were primarily responsible for these currents. Depending on the lamp, current field densities in the immediate vicinity reach 10-55 per cent of the exposure limit.
As this weakens with distance, health officials have recommended as a personal precaution to maintain a gap of at least 30 centimetres, for example from a desk lamp that is being used for a long time.
Switzerland started to phase out the least efficient categories of light bulbs at the beginning of last year and will officially follow the European Union's line on 100W lamps from September 1, 2010.
From 2012, only bulbs meeting or exceeding mid-category D requirements will be on sale - the equivalent to banning conventional light bulbs.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
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Enviornmental refugee in our nation's capital
From: Michele Charest To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Sent: Wed, March 31, 2010 12:14:01 PM
Subject: enviornmental refugee in our nation's capital
I am writing to let you know my children and I suffered a host of health problems (microwave illness) and continue to do so, after living for 14 months a half block from a cell phone tower. A friend, who is an engineer specializing in sick building syndrome, saved us by pointing out the likely cause of my seeming sudden onset tinnitus. I moved and immediately began to feel better. It took me another 5 yrs of medical investigation, mostly on my own (I am an RN) to realize the full extent of my injury and then to figure out how to treat myself. Chronic fatigue syndrome has left me unable to work. My children are managing but do not have the same energy levels as their peers.
Extrapolating my situation, ppl who are exposed to lower levels thru everyday wireless communication devices may well, over time, reach the level of health compromises I did, but without the benefit of the knowledge I have, and thus, a means to protect themselves.
We need your help to stop this runaway train that are the Wireless Communication Monsters from generating ever increasing levels of microwave energy into our bodies and our living planet!
Or is it to God then, to whom we must turn...?
Michele Charest
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Understanding the Electricity of Breast Cancer Cells
Released: 3/31/2010 8:00 AM EDT
Source: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
http://www.newswise.com/articles/understanding-the-electricity-of-breast-cancer-cells
Research Could Lead to the Development of Earlier Detection
Newswise — Building on previous findings demonstrating that breast cancer cells emit unique electromagnetic signals, engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have found that a single cancerous cell produces electric signals proportional to the speed at which the cell divides. Their model reveals that heightened movement of ions at the boundary of the cancerous cell produces larger electrical signals.
The findings will help scientists understand the biophysics associated with rapidly dividing breast cancer cells and may contribute to the development of new detection and treatment techniques.
"All cells maintain a difference in voltage between their intracellular and extracellular media," said Ahmed Hassan, doctoral student in electrical engineering. "Previous work found that MCF-7, a standard breast cancer cell line, hyperpolarizes – meaning simply that it increases its membrane voltage in negative polarity – during two critical stages prior to cell division. What we're trying to do is build a better understanding of how this complicated mechanism works."
Hassan works under the direction of Magda El-Shenawee, associate professor of electrical engineering. In previous work, El-Shenawee created a microwave-imaging system that provides sharp, three-dimensional images of hard objects buried within soft tissue. She was able to do this by transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves that traveled through soft tissue and bounced off the hard object.
The new direction of El-Shenawee's research does not require transmission of electromagnetic waves. Rather, in a process known as passive biopotential diagnosis – special sensors only receive electromagnetic waves. They read the unique signals released by activity within and around a growing tumor. As mentioned above, Hassan and El-Shenawee focused on a single cell, which may help researchers recognize abnormalities long before cell aggregates reach the tumor stage. A 1-millimeter tumor comprises tens of thousands of cells.
To understand the biomagnetic signals of a single breast cancer cell, Hassan and El-Shenawee created a two-dimensional, biophysics-based model with computer simulations that allowed them to obtain densities of electrical current based on space and time. They then integrated the current densities to calculate the biomagnetic fields produced by a cancerous lesion. The model avoided the risk of oversimplification by placing the cell in a semi-finite, dynamic environment with realistic anatomical features such as cell membranes, blood vessels and surrounding tissue boundaries.
They focused on hyperpolarization during what is known as the G1/Synthesis transition, a critical process that occurs within a cell before it starts to divide. During the G1 stage, the cell grows and proteins are created. The Synthesis stage includes DNA synthesis and chromosome replication to provide a new set of chromosomes for a new cell. As Hassan mentioned, previous experimental measurements on cancerous MCF-7 cells revealed that during the transition between the G1 and Synthesis stages, electrical changes occurred.
The numerical results of the Arkansas research validated the findings above. Beyond this, Hassan and El-Shenawee discovered that shorter G1/Synthesis-transition durations and heightened movement of ions at the cell boundary was associated with a higher magnitude of electromagnetic signals.
In a future study, the researchers will couple the single-cell model with a tumor-growth model to produce simulations of electric signals created by a whole tumor.
"We are motivated to provide a tool for understanding experimental measurements that prove that growing tumor cells indeed generate electric signals," El-Shenawee said. "This multidisciplinary model has the potential to advance the biopotential diagnosis system to achieve high accuracy in measuring benign versus malignant tumors. Another benefit is that there would be no side effects, as no chemical or radiation would be sent into the body."
The researchers' computer modeling work was done using Star of Arkansas, a supercomputer in the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center at the University of Arkansas.
Their study was published in a recent issue of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. Copies of the study are available upon request.
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Wellness: Cell-ing Out Our Health?
Before you make your next phone call, read this.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
By Stephanie Kraft
http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=11552
It's been one of the most visible technological revolutions since the coming of the automobile: the liberation of telephones from stationary land lines to mobile models; the proliferation of hand-held phones in workplaces, in homes and on the street; the explosion of enhanced versions to send texts, take pictures, play music, guide people through their day. By now an estimated four billion people around the world use cell phones.
Undergirding the wild success of these products has been something less explicit than a guarantee, just a trust—for would enlightened governments allow corporations to put something dangerous on the mass market?—that the devices were safe to use. Study after study, usually industry-funded, said there was only minimal risk. So the image of the millennial city is an image of people walking along streets and in and out of buildings with miniaturized phones to their ears, and laws are in the making to keep us from crashing our cars while we're talking or texting.
Now that cell phones are a fixture in our lives, new information—and old information breaking out after years of enforced silence—suggests that we need to rethink the matter of their safety. Consider this:
*Findings of Swedish researchers published in 2007 in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed "a consistent pattern of increased risk for acoustic neuroma [a benign tumor of the nerve connecting the brain and the ear] and glioma [a tumor originating in the brain's glial cells]."
*In Israel, a study published in 2008 found that cell phone users had a 50 percent greater chance of developing benign or malignant tumors of the salivary gland than non-users.
*Also in 2008, the Royal Society of London published findings that people who begin using cell phones before age 20 were five times more likely as non-cell phone users to have brain cancer by age 29.
But it's not only information that's surfaced within the last few years that's given impetus to new cautions about cell phone use. Investigation of the health effects of electromagnetic radiation goes back decades—and for decades there have been moves to downplay if not suppress it.
In 1975, neuroscientist Allan Frey went public with research showing that microwaves could cause breaching of the blood-brain barrier. That's dangerous because the barrier protects the brain from many toxins and bacterial infections. Eventually Frey, who had received research funding from the Navy since he had begun experimenting with radar waves in the 1960s, was told he would lose his funding if he continued to publish his findings on the blood-brain barrier. (In those days, the military thinking on electromagnetics was based on the idea that only the thermal effects of the radiation were potentially harmful.)
In 1986, Carl Blackman, a highly credentialed physicist working for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, was ordered to stop his research on the health effects of electromagnetic radiation, which built, in part, on Frey's findings. Blackman told GQ reporter Christopher Ketcham he suspects that "a decision was made to stop the civilian agencies from looking too deeply into the nonthermal health effects from exposure to EM fields." Ketcham also quotes an unnamed EPA physicist as saying, "The Department of Defense didn't like our research because the exposure limits that we might recommend would curtail their activities." (Ketcham's article, "Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health," in the February, 2010 issue of GQ and available on the Web, should be required reading for all cell phone users.)
In the 1990s, Henry Lai, a bioengineering professor at the University of Washington, found that electromagnetic radiation damaged DNA in the brains of lab rats. His findings stopped short of proving conclusively that the DNA damage would produce cancer, but cancer was seen as a possible result of it. Motorola and other mobile phone companies mounted such a campaign to discredit findings of this nature that research efforts were muted for years to come.
Meanwhile, the industry funded a multimillion-dollar, six-year study that brought some unwelcome surprises. It confirmed that cell phone radiation caused breaching of the blood-brain barrier, interfered with normal DNA repair, and increased the risk of tumors in the tissues covering the brain and spinal cord.
Now studies by Dariusz Leszczynski at Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority also add to the body of information indicating that mobile phone radiation can damage the blood-brain barrier.
And experts are waiting for the result of a 13-country investigation of the health effects of cell phone use called the Interphone study (the 13 countries are Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K.; the U.S. did not participate). Some preliminary results of that study have been released; one finding incorporating information from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the U.K showed a 40 percent increase in tumor incidence in adults who use cell phones for more than 10 years, though fewer than 10 years' use was not found to cause significant risk.
But the results of the ambitious study, though they are nearly four years overdue, have not been released. In the U.S., the National Toxicology Program ( a program of the National Institutes of Health) is investigating the health effects of mobile phones, but results are not expected until 2014 at the earliest.
The fragmentary nature of the available information about cell phones (which also applies to land-based cordless phones) and human health presents a daunting conundrum. What should users do until more definitive information is available? Experts aren't suggesting that people throw away their cell phones, but that they use them in more safety-conscious ways.
Think twice before getting rid of your land line and its phones with cords; use those for your longer, leisurely conversations at home. When you buy a cell phone, read the manual that comes with it; some manuals warn users to keep the phones at least an inch away from their heads. The Federal Communications Commission limits the so-called specific absorption rate (SAR)—the amount of radiation the phone feeds into your body—at 1.6 watts per kilogram, but there's debate about how much that really protects you. Nonetheless, the SARs of different models vary, and you might as well choose one with a lower rather than a higher SAR (to get the SAR of the phone you're considering, check the packaging, ask the seller, or visit the FCC's website, www.fcc.gov/cgb/sar/).
Don't carry your cell phone near your body (in your pocket, for instance). A study from Hong Kong last year showed that even very low-level EMR fields affect sperm, and cell phones worn around the neck are suspected of causing heart attacks. Women, who usually stow the phones in their pocketbooks, probably incur lower risk. National Institutes of Health associate director Jon Bucher recommends using earpieces instead of holding the phones close to the head. Encourage children not to use cell phones except for emergencies, to major on texting rather than talking, and not to keep the phones under their pillows.
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Energy-Saving Bulbs
----- Original Message -----
From: info@hese-project.org
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 1:21 AM
Subject: Final Report
Final Report
Assessment of
EM Exposure of Energy-Saving Bulbs &
Possible Mitigation Strategies
http://www.news-service.admin.ch/NSBSubscriber/message/attachments/18707.pdf
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Video - tumour risks from mobile phones
Hi
Attached is a recent story from Seven News (Australia) highlighting tumour risks from mobile phones and the failure of many phones to comply with SAR safety standards (especially when used in pockets).
It includes comments form Prof Bruce Armstrong (the Australian rep on the Interphone Study) who says "I would not want to be a heavy user of a mobile phone", from a neurosurgeon who sued for a brain tumour he linked to his mobile phone before he died), an independent research lab and the CEO of the Australian equivalent of our Telecommunications Users Association.
NB: The 50 fold safety figure quoted by the Telecom users CEO is designed ONLY to avoid acute "burning" effects from EMR – not biological effects which may lead to brain tumours and mental health effects. The "safety figure" is a guess. It is misleading and deceptive for anyone to refer to that figure as evidence of safety, as the related documentation in the NZS 2772:1 and ICNIRP makes its deficiencies very clear. i
The NZ Standard NZS2772:1 1999 has the same defect. This Local Government and Environment Select Committee recommended the NZS be reviewed (in its report of 24 November 2009) and the membership of the government' advisory committee should be changed to include more expert and community representation and less vested interests. Unfortunately the government (Minister for the Environment Nick Smith and - the Minister for Health Tony Ryall decided this review would not be done).
The scientists at Victoria University have developed a far more sensible and precautionary Health and Safety standard for EMR. Interesting also that the phones themselves now have warnings in the fine print- but noboidy uses their phone the way the warning recommends – ie 2.5cm from the head and not kept in your pocket.
The video clip is well worth watching- despite taking a few seconds to get started.
Meanwhile our exposure to unwanted EMR is increasing in NZ from the proliferation of unwanted celltowers that are almost unregulated (as a result of the October 2008 National Environmental Standard for Telecommunications) and which have caused enormous community unrest throughout New Zealand including in Auckland, Manukau, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Invercargill.
When is New Zealand government and experts going to listen to, and act on the widespread concerns of its own citizens and world experts? Who is big enough to admit that the existing regime is unsafe and a change is needed- if only because our public health system and ACC wont be able to afford to pay for the down-line consequences. .
Sue Grey LLB(Hons), BSc, RSHDipPHI
Ph 03 5450878
Web site www.weepinitiative.org e-mail contactweep@weepinitiative.org
To sign up for WEEP News: newssignup@weepinitiative.org (provide name and e-mail address)
W.E.E.P. – The Canadian initiative to stop Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution
