Re: First Post -Prevention Mag article

[Guest guest]

Thanks so much!

I know a lot of people will benefit from reading this!

-Beth

________________________________

From: Evie <evie15422@...>

Sent: Fri, June 24, 2011 1:59:59 PM

Subject: Re: First Post -Prevention Mag article

Hi again, Beth,

Since there are quite a few newbies here lately, I thought I would post an old

Prevention magazine article (2009, I think) some of you may have not read, which

I came upon this morning in my saved files from:

http://www.prevention.com/health/health/healthy-lifestyle/is-dirty-electricity-m\

aking-you-sick/article/9e60d47569225210VgnVCM10000030281eac___

The article is hard to find (and may not still be available online), but I had

it copied to Word, so this copy is saved from the original:

" Is Dirty Electricity Making You Sick?

Too many electromagnetic fields surrounding us--from cell phones, wifi, and

commonplace modern technology--may be seriously harming our health. Here's how

to minimize your exposure.

By Segell

The California Cluster

IN 1990, the city of La Quinta, CA, proudly opened the doors of its sparkling

new middle school. Gayle Cohen, then a sixth-grade teacher, recalls the sense of

excitement everyone felt: " We had been in temporary facilities for 2 years, and

the change was exhilarating. " But the glow soon dimmed. One teacher developed

vague symptoms-- weakness, dizziness--and didn't return after the Christmas

break. A couple of years later, another developed cancer and died; the teacher

who took over his classroom was later diagnosed with throat cancer. More

instructors continued to fall ill, and then, in 2003, on her 50th birthday,

Cohen received her own bad news: breast cancer. " That's when I sat down with

another teacher, and we remarked on all the cancers we'd seen, " she says. " We

immediately thought of a dozen colleagues who had either gotten sick or passed

away. " By 2005, 16 staffers among the 137 who'd worked at the new school had

been diagnosed with 18 cancers, a

ratio nearly 3 times the expected number. Nor were the children spared: About a

dozen cancers have been detected so far among former students. A couple of them

have died.

Prior to undergoing her first chemotherapy treatment, Cohen approached the

school principal, who eventually went to district officials for an

investigation. A local newspaper article about the possible disease cluster

caught the attention of Sam Milham, MD, a widely traveled epidemiologist who has

investigated hundreds of environmental and occupational illnesses and published

dozens of peer-reviewed papers on his findings. For the past 30 years, he has

trained much of his focus on the potential hazards of electromagnetic fields

(EMFs)--the radiation that surrounds all electrical appliances and devices,

power lines, and home wiring and is emitted by communications devices, including

cell phones and radio, TV, and WiFi transmitters. His work has led him, along

with an increasingly alarmed army of international scientists, to a

controversial conclusion: The " electrosmog " that first began developing with the

rollout of the electrical grid a century ago and

now envelops every inhabitant of Earth is responsible for many of the diseases

that impair--or kill--us.

Milham was especially interested in measuring the ambient levels of a particular

kind of EMF, a relatively new suspected carcinogen known as high-frequency

voltage transients, or " dirty electricity. " Transients are largely by-products

of modern energy-efficient electronics and appliances--from computers,

refrigerators, and plasma TVs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and dimmer

switches--which tamp down the electricity they use. This manipulation of current

creates a wildly fluctuating and potentially dangerous electromagnetic field

that not only radiates into the immediate environment but also can back up along

home or office wiring all the way to the utility, infecting every energy

customer in between. With Cohen's help, Milham entered the school after hours

one day to take readings. Astonishingly, in some classrooms he found the surges

of transient pollution exceeded his meter's ability to gauge them. His

preliminary findings prompted the teachers to

file a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which

in turn ordered a full investigation by the California Department of Health Care

Services.

The final analysis, reported by Milham and his colleague, L. Lloyd , in

2008 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine: Cumulative exposure to

transients in the school increased the likelihood a teacher would develop cancer

by 64%. A single year of working in the building raised risk by 21%. The

teachers' chances of developing melanoma, thyroid cancer, and uterine cancer

were particularly high, as great as 13 times the average. Although not included

in the tabulations, the risks for young students were probably even greater.

" In the decades-long debate about whether EMFs are harmful, " says Milham, " it

looks like transients could be the smoking gun. "

The Case against EMFs

Cancer and Electricity--could a disease whose cause has long eluded scientists

be linked to perhaps the greatest practical discovery of the modern era? For 50

years, researchers who have tried to tie one to the other have been routinely

dismissed by a variety of skeptics, from congressional investigators to powerful

interest groups--most prominently electric utilities, cell phone manufacturers,

and WiFi providers, which have repeatedly cited their own data showing the

linkage to be " weak and inconsistent. " Recently, however, in addition to the

stunning new investigations into dirty electricity (which we'll return to),

several developments have highlighted the growing hazards of EMF pollution--and

the crucial need to address them.

The Evidence showing harm is overwhelming.

In 2007, the Bioinitiative Working Group, an international collaboration of

prestigious scientists and public health policy experts from the United States,

Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and China, released a 650-page report citing more than

2,000 studies (many very recent) that detail the toxic effects of EMFs from all

sources. Chronic exposure to even low-level radiation (like that from cell

phones), the scientists concluded, can cause a variety of cancers, impair

immunity, and contribute to Alzheimer's disease and dementia, heart disease, and

many other ailments. " We now have a critical mass of evidence, and it gets

stronger every day, " says Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for

Health and the Environment at the University at Albany and coauthor of the

public-health chapters of the Bioinitiative report.

Fears about the hazards of cell phones seem justified.

" Every single study of brain tumors that looks at 10 or more years of use shows

an increased risk of brain cancer, " says Sage, MA, coeditor of the report.

A recent study from Sweden is particularly frightening, suggesting that if you

started using a cell phone as a teen, you have a 5 times greater risk of brain

cancer than those who started as an adult. The risk rises even more for people

who use the phone on only one side of the head. While defenders of cell phone

safety claim no scientist can explain why EMFs may be harmful in humans, a body

of reliable and consistent animal research shows that electromagnetic fields,

equal to those generated by mobile phones, open the blood-brain barrier, causing

blood vessels to leak fluid into the brain and damage neurons. Ironically, that

research (by renowned Swedish neuro-oncologist Leif G. Salford, MD, PhD) began

with the goal of finding a way to deliver chemotherapy to brain tumors.

Other countries are revising exposure standards.

Members of the European Union, which has led the way on EMF investigations, are

moving quickly to protect their citizens, particularly children and pregnant

women. In the past 2 years alone, France, Germany, and England have dismantled

wireless networks in schools and public libraries, and other countries are

pressing to follow suit. Israel has banned the placement of cellular antennae on

residences, and Russian officials have advised against cell phone use for

children under 18.

Electrical hypersensitivity (EHS) is becoming more widespread.

Symptoms of EHS, a recently identified condition, include fatigue, facial

irritation (resembling rosacea), tinnitus, dizziness, and digestive

disturbances, which occur after exposure to visual display units, mobile phones,

WiFi equipment, and commonplace appliances. Experts say up to 3% of all people

are clinically hypersensitive, as many as one-third of us to a lesser degree.

Electrical pollution is increasing dramatically.

" For the first time in our evolutionary history, we have generated an entire

secondary, virtual, densely complex environment--an electromagnetic soup--that

essentially overlaps the human nervous system, " says Persinger, PhD, a

neuroscientist at tian University who has studied the effects of EMFs on

cancer cells. And it appears that, more than a century after Edison

switched on his first lightbulb, the health consequences of that continual

overlap are just now beginning to be documented.

A History of Harmful Effects

Until Edison's harnessing of electricity, humans' only sources of EMF exposure

were the earth's static magnetic field (which causes a compass needle to point

north) and cosmic rays from the sun and outer space; over our long evolution,

we've adapted to solar EMFs by developing protective pigment. " But we have no

protection against other EMF frequencies, " says Marino, PhD, JD, a

pioneer in bioelectromagnetics who has done extensive EMF research and a

professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the Louisiana State Health

Sciences Center. " How quickly can we adapt our biology to these new exposures?

It's the most important environmental health question--and problem--of the 21st

century. "

Research into the hazards of EMFs has been extensive, controversial--and, at

least at the outset, animated by political intrigue. A sampling:

• The Russians first noticed during World War II that radar operators (radar

operates using radio frequency waves) often came down with symptoms we now

attribute to electrical hypersensitivity syndrome. In the 1960s, during the

height of the Cold War, they secretly bombarded the US embassy in Moscow with

microwave radiation (a higher-frequency RF used to transmit wireless signals),

sickening American employees. Radio wave sickness-- also called microwave

sickness-- is now a commonly accepted diagnosis.

• When television (also radio wave) was introduced in Australia in 1956,

researchers there documented a rapid increase in cancers among people who lived

near transmission towers.

• In the 1970s, Wertheimer, PhD, a Denver epidemiologist (since

deceased),

detected a spike in childhood leukemia (a rare disease) among kids who lived

near electric power lines, prompting a rash of studies that arrived at similar

conclusions.

• In the 1980s, investigators concluded that office workers with high exposure

to EMFs from electronics had higher incidences of melanoma--a disease most often

associated with sun exposure-- than outdoor workers.

• In 1998, researchers with the National Cancer Institute reported that

childhood leukemia risks were " significantly elevated " in children whose mothers

used electric blankets during pregnancy and in children who used hair dryers,

video machines in arcades, and video games connected to TVs.

• Over the past few years, investigators have examined cancer clusters on Cape

Cod, which has a huge US Air Force radar array called PAVE PAWS, and Nantucket,

home to a powerful Loran- Cantenna. Counties in both areas have the highest

incidences of all cancers in the entire state of Massachusetts.

• More recently, the new findings on transients--particularly those crawling

along utility wiring--are causing some scientists to rethink that part of the

EMF debate pertaining to the hazards of power lines. Could they have been

focusing on the wrong part of the EMF spectrum?

Transients: The Post- Modern Carcinogen

Some earlier, notable--albeit aborted--research suggests this may be the case.

In 1988, Hydro-Quebec, a Canadian electric utility, contracted researchers from

McGill University to study the health effects of power line EMFs on its

employees. Gilles Theriault, MD, DrPH, who led the research and was chair of the

department of occupational health at the university, decided to expand his focus

to include high-frequency transients and found, even after controlling for

smoking, that workers exposed to them had up to a 15-fold risk of developing

lung cancer. After the results were published in the American Journal of

Epidemiology, the utility decided to put an end to the study.

That research commenced at a time when energy-efficient devices--the major

generators of transients--were beginning to saturate North American homes and

clutter up power lines. A telltale sign of an energy-efficient device is the

ballast, or transformer, that you see near the end of a power cord on a laptop

computer, printer, or cell phone charger (although not all devices have them).

When plugged in, it's warm to the touch, an indication that it's tamping down

current and throwing off transient pollution. Two of the worst creators of

transient radiation: light dimmer switches and compact fluorescent lightbulbs

(CFLs). Transients are created when current is repeatedly interrupted. A CFL,

for instance, saves energy by turning itself on and off repeatedly, as many as

100,000 times per second.

So how does the human body respond to this pulsing radiation? " Think of a

magnet, " explains Dave Stetzer, an electrical engineer and power supply expert

in Blair, WI. " Opposite charges attract, and like charges repel. When a

transient is going positive, the negatively charged electrons in your body move

toward that positive charge. When the transient flips to negative, the body's

electrons are pushed back. Remember, these positive-negative shifts are

occurring many thousands of times per second, so the electrons in your body are

oscillating to that tune. Your body becomes charged up because you're basically

coupled to the transient's electric field. "

Keep in mind that all the cells in your body, whether islets in the pancreas

awaiting a signal to manufacture insulin or white blood cells speeding to the

site of an injury, use electricity--or " electron change " --to communicate with

each other. By overlapping the body's signaling mechanisms, could transients

interfere with the secretion of insulin, drown out the call-and-response of the

immune system, and cause other physical havoc?

Some preliminary research implies the answer is yes. Over the past 3 years,

Magda Havas, PhD, a researcher in the department of environmental and resource

studies at Trent University in Ontario, has published several studies that

suggest exposure to transients may elevate blood sugar levels among people with

diabetes and prediabetes and that people with multiple sclerosis improve their

balance and have fewer tremors after just a few days in a transient- free

environment. Her work also shows that after schools installed filters to clean

up transients, two-thirds of teachers reported improvement in symptoms that had

been plaguing them, including headache, dry eye, facial flushing, asthma, skin

irritation, and depression.

Transients are particularly insidious because they accumulate and strengthen,

their frequency reaching into the dangerous RF range. Because they travel along

home and utility wiring, your neighbor's energy choices will affect the

electrical pollution in your house. In other words, a CFL illuminating a porch

down the block can send nasty transients into your bedroom.

Something else is sending transients into your home: the earth. From your high

school science texts, you know that electricity must travel along a complete

circuit, always returning to its source (the utility) along a neutral wire. In

the early 1990s, says Stetzer, as transients began overloading utility wiring,

public service commissions in many states told utilities to drive neutral rods

into the ground on every existing pole and every new one they erected. " Today,

more than 70% of all current going out on the wires returns to substations via

the earth, " says Stetzer--encountering along the way all sorts of subterranean

conductors, such as water, sewer, and natural-gas pipes, that ferry even more

electrical pollution into your home.

A Pragmatic Proposal

Of course, these small studies--from Milham, Hydro-Quebec, and Havas-- hardly

constitute a blanket indictment of transients. " We're still early in this part

of the EMF story, " says Carpenter. Does that mean as evidence of their harm

accumulates, officials will raise a red flag? Not likely, if past EMF debates

are any indication. Power companies have successfully beaten back attempts to

modify exposure standards, and the cell phone industry, which has funded at

least 87% of the research on the subject, has effectively resisted regulation.

One good reason has had to do with latency--how long it takes to develop a

particular cancer, often 25 years or more. Cell phones have been around only

about that long.

But does that mean we avoid any discussion of their possible dangers? Again, if

the past is a guide, the answer appears to be " probably. " American scientists

worried about the hazards of smoking, the DES (diethylstilbestrol) pill (given

to pregnant women, it caused birth defects), asbestos, PCBs (polychlorinated

biphenyls)--the list is lengthy--but officially warned about exposure only after

they could say with absolute certainty that these things were harmful. As for

protecting ourselves from toxic radiation, we have a lax--and

laughable--history. In the 1920s, just a few years after medical imaging devices

were invented, physicians were known to entertain their guests by x-raying them

at garden parties. In the 1930s, scientists often kept radium in open trays on

their desks. Shoe stores used x-ray machines in the 1940s to properly fit

children's feet, and radioactive wristwatches with glowing hour hands were

popular in the 1950s.

All of which means that, absent prudent safety standards from both public

officials and manufacturers (adding a protective filter would add 5 cents to the

cost of making a CFL and $5 to the cost of a laptop), you'll have to protect

yourself from EMFs. Here's a reasonable proposition: Practice what is known in

Europe as the precautionary principle, which is pretty much what it sounds like.

Don't expose yourself unnecessarily to EMF hazards. Don't buy a home next to a

WiFi tower. Get a corded telephone instead of a cordless one. Don't let your

teenager sleep with a cell phone under her pillow. Don't use your laptop

computer in your lap. Treat your EMF-emitting devices with the same cautious

respect you do other invaluable modern devices, like your car, which is also

dangerous--and can kill. You don't drive in an unnecessarily risky fashion--at

high speed or while talking on a cell phone (right?).

The sad truth is that until we have more epidemiologic evidence--whether from

disease clusters like the ones at La Quinta and on Cape Cod or from long-term

analyses of the health of the world's 4-billion-and-growing cell phone users--we

won't know definitively whether electrical pollution is harming us. And even

then, we are unlikely to know why or how. " In this country, our research dollars

are spent on finding ways to treat disease, not on what causes it--which is to

say, how we can prevent it, " says Marino. " And that's a tragedy. "

But that's also another story.

The Opposing View: " No need for regulation "

In 1993, the National Institutes of health and Department of Energy began an

extensive review of all studies on the possible health effects of

electromagnetic fields. six years later they completed their project, called the

Electric and Magnetic Fields research and public Information Dissemination (EMF

RAPID) program, and reported their findings to Congress: scientific evidence of

human health risk from EMF exposure is " weak, " they concluded.

While acknowledging a link between both childhood and adult leukemias and EMFs,

the researchers' laboratory studies with cells and animals failed to identify a

mechanism-- that is, how EMFs might cause cancer. (read the EMF RAPID report at

prevention.com/links)

To longtime EMF investigators such as Carpenter, MD, the NIH dismissal of

EMF hazards was patently absurd then and even more so now, given the spate of

new findings. " We don't know the mechanism for most carcinogens, " he says.

" there's this idea that anything that causes cancer must directly damage DNA,

which is nonsense because most carcinogens don't directly damage DNA. and

physicists are adamant that the energy in everyday EMF exposure is so low, it

couldn't possibly do anything to biological systems. It's like saying the Earth

is flat because you can't see over the edge. "

In fact, biological impacts of EMFs--therapeutic ones--are well known. Low-level

frequencies are commonly used to promote healing of wounds and bone fractures,

and experimental studies show positive effects of pulsed EMFs in treating pain

and depression. recently, persinger, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at

tian University, found that pulsed magnetic fields also halted the growth

of melanoma cells in mice.

In a neat twist of logic, many scientists believe that the more we document

beneficial effects of EMFs, the better we'll understand their hazards. " If EMF

at low intensities can heal, " says environmental consultant sage, " then

when we are constantly and randomly exposed to it from multiple sources, it may

also be harmful, like any medicine used indiscriminately. "

What was wrong with the La Quinta School?

According to epidemiologist Sam Milham, MD, the middle school was rife with the

usual suspects-- fluorescent lighting, electronic devices--whose toxic effects

were exacerbated by an electrical supply overloaded with high-voltage

transients.

Substandard wiring in the new school also undoubtedly played a role; officials

have since added protective shielding to the electrical room. Milham also

measured transient pollution along the transmission lines that fed power to the

school. " I found it all the way from the substation to the school--more than a

mile, " Milham says. " There are three other buildings along the route that also

serve children. I've reported it to the FCC and the utility, but they ignore the

problem. "

How electrical pollution harms

Here, a partial spectrum of the electromagnetic fields that surround us, from

strong (waves of extremely high frequency and short length) to weak (waves of

extremely low frequency and long length). In each category, you'll find sources

that generate the EMF, and associated health risks from overexposure.

X-Ray

[medical imaging devices]

Used to diagnose illness RISK

Damages tissue and organs by breaking bonds

VISIBLE LIGHT

[sUN]

The only visible EMF RISK

Ultraviolet light can burn skin and cause cancer

MICROWAVE (a higher frequency RF)

[CELL AND CORDLESS PHONES AND TOWERS]

Can heat tissues and penetrate blood-brain barrier RISK

Increased risk of brain cancer, dementia, and heart disease

RADIO(RF)

[RADIO AND TELEVISION SIGNALS]

Can disrupt body's cellular interactions RISK

" Radio sickness " and electrical hypersensitivity syndrome

EXTREMELY LOW FREQUENCY (ELF)

[POWER LINES]

Can cause weak electric currents to flow through the body RISK

Exposure is associated with childhood leukemia

Why Are Electromagnetic Fields Dangerous?

Several developments have highlighted the growing hazards of EMF pollution—and

the crucial need to address them.

A report that cited more than 2,000 studies found that chronic exposure to even

low-level radiation (like that from cell phones) can cause a variety of cancers,

impair immunity, and contribute to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, heart

disease, and many other ailments. One likely way: EMFs open the blood-brain

barrier, causing blood vessels to leak fluid into the brain and damage neurons.

What’s more, a less–well known kind of EMF, known as " dirty " or transient

electricity, may play an even more damaging role. Transients are largely

by-products of modern energy-efficient electronics and appliances—from

computers, refrigerators, and plasma TVs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and

dimmer switches—which tamp down the electricity they use. This manipulation of

current creates a wildly fluctuating and potentially dangerous electromagnetic

field that essentially charges up the electrons in every cell of your body. Some

research suggests that by overlapping the body’s signaling mechanisms,

transients may interfere with the secretion of insulin, drown out the call and

response of the immune system, and cause other physical havoc.

Luckily, there are some things you can do to protect your health. Environmental

consultant Sage recommends these simple steps to limit your exposure to

electromagnetic fields from all sources.

For more information on the dangers of electromagnetic fields, read our full

investigative report here.

1. Avoid wireless when possible

EMF in the radio range accumulates, so if possible, choose wired Internet

instead of wireless, a wired home security system, and wired entertainment

systems. If you do use WiFi, plug in only when needed, and disconnect during

sleeping hours. Keep the router as far as possible from your desk and

children’s

rooms.

2. Pick safer lightbulbs

Avoid compact fluorescent bulbs, which emit dirty electricity. A CFL saves

energy by turning itself on and off repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per

second. Use LED or incandescent bulbs instead. Do not install dimmer switches

(rheostats) for the same reason.

3. Stay away from the circuit breaker

Main electrical and circuit breaker panels give off high EMF within 3 to 4 feet.

Make sure your bed is safely distant, and keep in mind the panel may be on the

floor above or below you or on the other side of a wall.

4. Choose an old-school landline phone

Cordless phones can emit just as much radiation as mobile phones, although only

when you’re using them. Consider reinstalling corded (landline) phones. Avoid

very powerful digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) phones—the

kind with a base station and satellite handsets.

5. Ban Bluetooth headsets

When on a cell phone, use the speakerphone or a wired earpiece (hollow cord

types are preferable). Do not use a Bluetooth wireless headset; combined with

the phone, it can exceed even the current inadequate safety limits.

Give text messaging a try, especially in place of short calls. It’s safer than

holding the phone to your head. Do not allow children to use cordless or cell

phones, except for emergencies.

6. Skip your cell when the service is spotty

If you struggle to get a signal or tend to drop calls in a certain area (common

in elevators, buses, cars, and other enclosed spaces), wait until the signal is

stronger. When handling a weak signal, the phone increases power to a maximum,

irradiating you and those around you.

7. Don’t wear your phone like a beeper

A better place for your cell or BlackBerry is in your purse or briefcase,

because electromagnetic field exposure diminishes rapidly beyond 3 feet. It’s

okay to carry it on you if the device is in " flight " or " off-line " mode. If you

must carry it while fully on, keep the keypad positioned toward your body, so

that the battery pack faces outward.

Another safety tip: Switch which side of the head you use your phone on from

call to call so you spread out exposure.

8. Keep your laptop off your lap

Curling up on the couch with your laptop may be convenient, but EMF experts

recommend against it. Many laptops produce a strong electromagnetic field,

especially when you use one while it’s plugged into an outlet (that means the

battery is charging close to where your hands are). You’re better off

unplugging

and using the laptop on battery power, then staying away from it while it

recharges.

9. Unplug what you’re not using

If your kitchen counter is cluttered with a coffeepot, slow cooker, food

processor, or other convenient culinary appliances, keep them unplugged whenever

you’re not currently using them. Same goes for alarm clocks, lamps, iPod

chargers and other various devices around your home. Anything plugged into an

electrical outlet—even a lamp—emits an EMF; if unplugged, it will not.

10. Think LCD over plasma

When it’s time to upgrade your TV, choose an LCD (liquid crystal display)

instead of plasma or the old CRT (cathode ray tube) models. LCDs emit much less

radiation, and plasmas can give off transient pollution on your electrical

wiring.

11. Get your home tested

If you suspect that your home has high-EMF fields, check if your utility company

conducts a room-by-room survey. It’s usually free. Hot spots can be completely

shielded with special coverings. If you discover high levels of dirty

electricity, consider installing filters (capacitors) that plug into electrical

outlets ($35 at lessemf.com).

Copyright 2009, Prevention "