Kolbotek Investigation on Magnetic Fields from Electric Beds
Host: Rafi Ginat.
The electric beds are a hit. During the last decade, of all beds sold in Israel, 40% are electricbeds. There are beds that emit alarming levels of dangerous and carcinogenic radiation. The program team examined for several weeks beds from several brands. Checking 1st bed in a house, putting the meter near the area of the head - 24.9 mG,
6 fold higher than the recommended maximum, the children are exposed all night, every day. Stelian Galberg, head of radiation branch in the Ministry of Environment: a child who is at distance zero from the electric engine connected all the time and exposed to many dozens of mG, is at a very high risk.
Rafi Ginat: Who is ready to sleep inside a transformers room that provides electricity to a whole neighbourhood- get up. No one gets up, and no one will sleep there. Because these transformers emit dangerous electromagnetic radiation that is a suspected carcinogen. How would you respond if I told you now, that the electricbed of your son or daughter emits radiation like in a transformers room also when it is not connected to electricity, and you and your children are sleeing well at night while the radiation is frying you.
Why is this happening? Because in Israel the subject is broken open, a state of an anarchy (lit. no law and no judge) there is no law and no standard. So already now run and disconnect electricity from the bed and come to see the proofs and recommendations. An investigation by Sarit Levi, Michal Hochberg and Nir Sigman.
According to the manufacturers reports, the electric beds take more than 40% of the beds market (trend from the last decade). One of the manufacturers tells how this is a result of consumers education about the benefits of the beds. Once they were status symbol and today everybody uses them, since the prices reduced. And many put the moving bed by a remote control, and children and youth love alot the new toy.
Measurements:
1st bed when it is not operating, the father says nobody says anything about it, none explains about it, when you go to buy something you don't enter into the question of whether it's OK or not OK, you go to a place that is trusted. The bed where the children sleep, 26 mG, not operating, but connected to electricity. The recommended maximum- 4 mG on average per day. The bed emits 6.5 fold above the recommendation, this is a real danger.
Father: the children slept above 10 hours per night for 8 months with the engnie under their head, and you cooked your children by yourself.
Second bed of children- 26 mG.
Rafi Ginat: It is important to stress the radiation is non ionizing and it is dangerous to health. Overdose of this radiation can cause severe damage to the DNA of cells in our bodies and to the development of cancer tumors. The WHO declared the electromagnetic radiation as possibly carcinogenic.
Prof' Sadezky: when the WHO declared the radiation as possibly carcinogenic, they did it on the basis of studies that showed excess of leukemia in children who live around high tension lines.
The manufacturer says one can sleep calm, but the father is not sleeping quietly. He diconnected the beds from electricity and made them into regular beds.
Ginat: In Israel there is no commiting standard and there is no regulation. The agreement of the Energy & Water and Economics Ministries is needed and we have not yet succeeded in reaching to agreement with them, says Stelian Galberg from the Ministry of Environment, responsible for radiation issue.
A bed of the company American System. On their website they claim that the bed includes radiation filters. In the center of the bed- 10.4 mg, 2.5 fold higher than the Ministry recommendation. In the head area – 21.7 mG, 5.5 fold above the recommendation of the Ministry of Environment.
American System another bed- 22.8 mG, 5.5 fold above the recommended level.
M.D Mendelboim, made in Germany, frontal area- 24.6 mG, 6 fold above the recommended value. In the place of the engine- 25.8 mG, 6.5 fold above the recommended level.
Dr. Stelian Galberg: If you are sleeping in a transformers room that provides electricity to a whole neighbourhood, the exposure does not reach to what it reaches if you are sitting in an electric bed that is connected to electricity all the time.
Asking Mendelboim company salesperson, is there radiation from the bed?
Salesperson: Bullshit. It's Bullshit. Bullshit. Of course one cannot import to Israel any electricmechanism, and it won't stand in standard.
Question of the program: Standard of what?
Answer: of the Standard Institute, from the aspect of safety, from the aspect of sea of things. But they NEVER talked about the subject of radiation.
-So it's nonsense.
Salesperson: Yes. Really, really, really, it's real.
The sales person has no idea what he is talking about, and he did not allow us to make tests. Michal hid the meter in her bag and she put it on a bed, price 10,000 shekels.
Result 22.3 mG, 5.5 fold above the recommendation.
Prof' Sadezky: if you are talking about continuous radiation all night, I would not be happy that my child sleep in such a bed.
"OR" furniture company, asking the salesperson on the radiation.
Answer: It's nonesense. If this is the case then in your house everything is radiation, so we would have been dead long time ago. Checking their beds: one bed 16.3 mG, 4 fold above the recommended maximum.
Children and youth bed – 24.9 mG, 6 fold above the recommended maximum. The children are exposed to this all night.
Polyron company has European standard label of the Quality of Environment. There is no word on their website about the emitted radiation.
The purchase manager says there is barrier for the radiation. There is a method of cut off, that when the mechanism is not operating, there is no electric current and there is no radiation. We are suspicious, and decide to check the cut off. Saying to the salesperson: I was told there is radiation in part of the electric beds.
Salesperson: No. There is standard label of the company itself, it is German. Would we cause you harm? She calls to the store manager. Store manager: the Standard Institute entered into this a year ago. As long as the engine is not pressed into electricity, it does not irradiate, it's not in electricity. All manufacturers and companies comply to it.
Polyron bed: 7.3 mG, moving the meter a little bit- 10.6 mG, in the center- 14.3 mG.
The store manager is amazed, but then he quickly caught himself: even if you checked the engine here, it is an old engine. Only a year ago the Standard Institute got into it, the mechanism is here for 3,4 years. A year ago it all changed.
Another Polyron bed. Telling to the salesperson: I am afraid of the radiation.
Salesperson: if I tell you there is no radiation, then there is no radiation. And if there is, it's minimalistic and does not harm health, I will not tell without reason. Other companies, yes. Polyron - no. There is no radiation here that will endanger you, be calm, I will not tell you just like that (without reason).
Result: 10 mG, 2.5 fold above the recommended maximum. Another Polyron bed, 11,000 shekels cost, in another store- 12 mG, 3 fold above the recommended maximum. We decide to give Polyron a third chance, youth bed 32,00 shekels, 21.9 mG, 5.5 fold above the recommended threshold.
Prof' Sadezky: because our working assumption is that the radiation is possibly carcinogenic [*there is nothing behind this statement of working assumption, no action was taken in practice to protect the public, only words words words] I do not see a reason why expose my child to 20 mG on a regular basis.
Rafi Ginat: prof' Sadezky, expert of radiation is right, you would also not expose your child to high levels of radiation while they are sleeping, but you did not know. You did not know, that if the radiation emitted from the bed had been emitted from a transformer on the street, it would have been removed.
Stelian Galberg: If I had discovered from a transformer radiation level like the emitted from the bed, I have the full authority to stop the operation of the transformer. But about beds I have no authority.
Ginat: The absurd is yelling to the sky. When the same radiation is emitted from the bed of our children, no one opens the mouth and whistles. There is no standard and no regulation, there is no authority. We went to the responsible for standards in the Economics Ministry. Why is there no standard in Israel, for radaition emitted from electric appliances?
Answer: The Ministries of Environment and Health will come to us, and say that it is forbidden that radaition levels will be above a certain level - there will be made a change in the standard. This is the simpler part. [*But this is exactly what they don't want to do].
Would you sleep on such a bed?
I cannot answer on this because I don't sleep on such a bed.
Stelian Galberg: What is needed is like in other countries, when a product arrives to Israel, it will be written on it how much radiation is emitted from it.
Beds that are OK:
Aminach company price 12,490 shekels 0.1 mG
Youth bed Aminach price 3980 shekels 0.0 mG
Youth bed 3180 shekels 0.1 mG
Weider company 3390 shekels 0.3 mG
Stylebed 2990 shekel 0.0 mG
Diarka 0.0 mG.
Dr. Back 3390 shekels 0.1 mG
Airoflex youth 0.1 mG
Hollandia 35,000 shekels 1.1 mG
Hollandia another bed 1.6 mG
Simons – 12,000 shekels 0.0 mG
Another bed 17,203 shekels 0.0 mG
Youth bed 0.0 mG
Simons in another store – 19.4 mG, we expected another bed without radiation.
We noticed a note that tells about radiation filter, its job is to prevent electric current when the bed is not in use, in order to prevent radiation. Until lately there was no radiation filter in the bed of any company. Simons bed from two years ago – 27.2 mG.
The owner of the bed calls the company, tells them about it and the company sends two technicians, they put a transformer, after it is put – the level is 0.1 mG.
The new beds were found without radiation. The company says they will allow to exchange the old with the new system with the cut-off mechanism.
The beds with no radiation had no transformer. Returning to the father, making another measurement – without transformer- 32.3 mG, with transformer- 3.9 mG.
Repeating the experiment in 2nd bed of the Ofer family (the father from the start of the program), 34 mG, and with the transformer 3.8 mG.
Solution: removing from the socket.
Inviting the Minister of Environment to the program:
Ginat: the whole subject of radiation measurements is your office responsibility.
Amir Peretz Minister of ENV: One of the strangest things in the Ministry, is that in the Ministry there are maybe the best professionals, in very sensitive areas, and today the Israeli public reveals much more sensitivity to all types of radiation, we see it in the calls and the responses. It is amazing to think, how much it burns to poeple.
I have strange divisions. I have the professional authority. I cannot produce orders,
I much go to another ministry to produce orders. BTW you did a very important program on animals, also there there's a problem: the professionals are at the Ministry of Environment, and the authority is at the Ministry of Agriculture. But following your program we started accelerated activity in order to pass on to us the enforcement authority. I hope that this will happen in front of the Ministry of Economics.
Ginat: You recommend, the Ministry of Health recommend, so why don't you have a standard?
Amir Peretz: there is divsion. Everything that is out of the house is my professional authority and my enforcement responsibility, and what's in the house is of the Ministry of Economics. We approached to the Ministry of Economics that its their authority, and I intend to have a meeting with the Minister of Economics in order to finish with this issue. There is no reason not to give the basic information: Every product that arrives to Israel that emits radiation, has to have a label, written on it: the product emits radiation, and then the citizen will show interest- how much is it, why is that, and what to do about it. The basic thing to give transparency to the citizen is a right thing. Until then I already ordered to the people in my ministry, I am informing all citizens, on our website, starting from next week, we will distribute all those standards, how much the threshold is, what's the minimal threshold, all information that is supposed to be on the product because it's not our authority and we definitely intend to do it on our website, and I hope that very fast it will become a new consumer culture in Israel that every citizen will know how to protect himself.
Ginat: Recruit the Minister of Health, the Miniter of Commerce and do something. This subject is in our souls
Peretz: I don't believe there is someone who can be indifferenct to the pictures seen here that are able to be prevented. When something cannot be prevented it cannot be prevented, but with the right explanations, the importers have nothing to worry about, they can bring devices that are OK, if everybody will cooperate, everybody will be able to protect themselves, the citizen will be able to protect himself, and especially his children.
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