we are essentially electrical beings existing in a state of resonance within the electromagnetic embrace of the earth. The manmade AC (alternating current) grid and radiowaves in which we live has weakened our connection to the earth resulting in a state of subliminal stress and the decreased ability to heal.



The Largest Biological Experiment Ever

In 2002, Gro Harlem Brundtland, then head of the World Health Organization, told a Norwegian journalist that cell phones were banned from her office in Geneva because she personally becomes ill if a cell phone is brought within about four meters (13 feet) of her. Mrs. Brundtland is a medical doctor and former Prime Minister of Norway. This sensational news, published March 9, 2002 in Dagbladet, was ignored by every other newspaper in the world. The following week Michael Repacholi, her subordinate in charge of the International EMF (electromagnetic field) Project, responded with a public statement belittling his boss's concerns. Five months later, for reasons that many suspect were related to these circumstances, Mrs. Brundtland announced she would step down from her leadership post at the WHO after just one term.

Nothing could better illustrate our collective schizophrenia when it comes to thinking about electromagnetic radiation. We respond to those who are worried about its dangers - hence the International EMF Project - but we ignore and marginalize those, like Mrs. Brundtland, who have already succumbed to its effects.

As a consultant on the health effects of wireless technology, I receive calls that can be broadly divided into two main groups: those from people who are merely worried, whom I will call A, and those from people who are already sick, whom I will call B. I sometimes wish I could arrange a large conference call and have the two groups talk to each other - there needs to be more mutual understanding so that we are all trying to solve the same problems. Caller A, worried, commonly asks what kind of shield to buy for his cell phone or what kind of headset to wear with it. Sometimes he wants to know what is a safe distance to live from a cell tower. Caller B, sick, wants to know what kind of shielding to put on her house, what kind of medical treatment to get, or, increasingly often, what part of the country she could move to to escape the radiation to save her life. The following is designed as a sort of a primer: first, to help everybody get more or less on the same page, and second, to clear up some of the confusions so that we can make rational decisions toward a healthier world. Fundamentals

The most basic fact about cell phones and cell towers is that they emit microwave radiation; so do Wi-Fi (wireless Internet) antennas, wireless computers, cordless (portable) phones and their base units, and all other wireless devices. If it's a communication device and it's not attached to the wall by a wire, it's emitting radiation. Most Wi-Fi systems and some cordless phones operate at the exact same frequency as a microwave oven, while other devices use a different frequency. Wi-Fi is always on and always radiating. The base units of most cordless phones are always radiating, even when no one is using the phone. A cell phone that is on but not in use is also radiating. And, needless to say, cell towers are always radiating.

Why is this a problem, you might ask? Scientists usually divide the electromagnetic spectrum into "ionizing" and "non-ionizing." Ionizing radiation, which includes x-rays and atomic radiation, causes cancer. Non-ionizing radiation, which includes microwave radiation, is supposed to be safe. This distinction always reminded me of the propaganda in George Orwell's Animal Farm: "Four legs good, two legs bad." "Non-ionizing good, ionizing bad" is as little to be trusted.

An astronomer once quipped that if Neil Armstrong had taken a cell phone to the Moon in 1969, it would have appeared to be the third most powerful source of microwave radiation in the universe, next only to the Sun and the Milky Way. He was right. Life evolved with negligible levels of microwave radiation. An increasing number of scientists speculate that our own cells, in fact, use the microwave spectrum to communicate with one another, like children whispering in the dark, and that cell phones, like jackhammers, interfere with their signaling. In any case, it is a fact that we are all being bombarded, day in and day out, whether we use a cell phone or not, by an amount of microwave radiation that is some ten million times as strong as the average natural background. And it is also a fact that most of this radiation is due to technology that has been developed since the 1970s.

As far as cell phones themselves are concerned, if you put one up to your head you are damaging your brain in a number of different ways. First, think of a microwave oven. A cell phone, like a microwave oven and unlike a hot shower, heats you from the inside out, not from the outside in. And there are no sensory nerve endings in the brain to warn you of a rise in temperature because we did not evolve with microwave radiation, and this never happens in nature. Worse, the structure of the head and brain is so complex and non-uniform that "hot spots" are produced, where heating can be tens or hundreds of times what it is nearby. Hot spots can occur both close to the surface of the skull and deep within the brain, and also on a molecular level.

Cell phones are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and you can find, in the packaging of most new phones, a number called the Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, which is supposed to indicate the rate at which energy is absorbed by the brain from that particular model. One problem, however, is the arbitrary assumption, upon which the FCC's regulations are based, that the brain can safely dissipate added heat at a rate of up to 1 degree C per hour. Compounding this is the scandalous procedure used to demonstrate compliance with these limits and give each cell phone its SAR rating. The standard way to measure SAR is on a "phantom" consisting, incredibly, of a homogenous fluid encased in Plexiglas in the shape of a head. Presto, no hot spots! But in reality, people who use cell phones for hours per day are chronically heating places in their brain. The FCC's safety standard, by the way, was developed by electrical engineers, not doctors. The Blood-Brain Barrier

The second effect that I want to focus on, which has been proven in the laboratory, should by itself have been enough to shut down this industry and should be enough to scare away anyone from ever using a cell phone again. I call it the "smoking gun" of cell phone experiments. Like most biological effects of microwave radiation, this has nothing to do with heating.

The brain is protected by tight junctions between adjacent cells of capillary walls, the so-called blood-brain barrier, which, like a border patrol, lets nutrients pass through from the blood to the brain, but keeps toxic substances out. Since 1988, researchers in the laboratory of a Swedish neurosurgeon, Leif Salford, have been running variations on this simple experiment: they expose young laboratory rats to either a cell phone or other source of microwave radiation, and later they sacrifice the animals and look for albumin in their brain tissue. Albumin is a protein that is a normal component of blood but that does not normally cross the blood-brain barrier. The presence of albumin in brain tissue is always a sign that blood vessels have been damaged and that the brain has lost some of its protection.

Here is what these researchers have found, consistently for 18 years: Microwave radiation, at doses equal to a cell phone's emissions, causes albumin to be found in brain tissue. A one-time exposure to an ordinary cell phone for just two minutes causes albumin to leak into the brain. In one set of experiments, reducing the exposure level by a factor of 1,000 actually increased the damage to the blood-brain barrier, showing that this is not a dose-response effect and that reducing the power will not make wireless technology safer. And finally, in research published in June 2003, a single two-hour exposure to a cell phone, just once during its lifetime, permanently damaged the blood-brain barrier and, on autopsy 50 days later, was found to have damaged or destroyed up to 2 percent of an animal's brain cells, including cells in areas of the brain concerned with learning, memory and movement.1 Reducing the exposure level by a factor of 10 or 100, thereby duplicating the effect of wearing a headset, moving a cell phone further from your body, or standing next to somebody else's phone, did not appreciably change the results! Even at the lowest exposure, half the animals had a moderate to high number of damaged neurons.

The implications for us? Two minutes on a cell phone disrupts the blood-brain barrier, two hours on a cell phone causes permanent brain damage, and secondhand radiation may be almost as bad. The blood-brain barrier is the same in a rat and a human being.

These results caused enough of a commotion in Europe that in November 2003 a conference was held, sponsored by the European Union, titled "The Blood-Brain Barrier - Can It Be Influenced by RF [radio frequency]-Field Interactions?" as if to reassure the public: "See, we are doing something about this." But, predictably, nothing was done about it, as nothing has been done about it for 30 years.

America's Allan Frey, during the 1970s, was the first of many to demonstrate that low-level microwave radiation damages the blood-brain barrier.2 Similar mechanisms protect the eye (the blood-vitreous barrier) and the fetus (the placental barrier), and the work of Frey and others indicates that microwave radiation damages those barriers also.3 The implication: No pregnant woman should ever be using a cell phone.

Dr. Salford is quite outspoken about his work. He has called the use of handheld cell phones "the largest human biological experiment ever." And he has publicly warned that a whole generation of cell-phone-using teenagers may suffer from mental deficits or Alzheimer's disease by the time they reach middle age. Radio-Wave Sickness

Unfortunately, cell phone users are not the only ones being injured, nor should we be worried only about the brain. The following brief summary is distilled from a vast scientific literature on the effects of radio waves (a larger spectrum which includes microwaves), together with the experiences of scientists and doctors all over the world with whom I am in contact.

Organs that have been shown to be especially susceptible to radio waves include the lungs, nervous system, heart, eyes, testes and thyroid gland. Diseases that have increased remarkably in the last couple of decades, and that there is good reason to connect with the massive increase in radiation in our environment, include asthma, sleep disorders, anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder, autism, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, cataracts, hypothyroidism, diabetes, malignant melanoma, testicular cancer, and heart attacks and strokes in young people. Radiation from microwave towers has also been associated with forest die-off, reproductive failure and population decline in many species of birds, and ill health and birth deformities in farm animals. The literature showing biological effects of microwave radiation is truly enormous, running to tens of thousands of documents, and I am amazed that industry spokespersons are getting away with saying that wireless technology has been proved safe or - just as ridiculous - that there is no evidence of harm.

I have omitted one disease from the above list: the illness that Caller B has, and that I have. A short history is in order here. In the 1950s and 1960s workers who built, tested and repaired radar equipment came down with this disease in large numbers. So did operators of industrial microwave heaters and sealers. The Soviets named it, appropriately, radio wave sickness, and studied it extensively. In the West its existence was denied totally, but workers came down with it anyway. Witness congressional hearings held in 1981, chaired by then Representative Al Gore, on the health effects of radio-frequency heaters and sealers, another episode in "See, we are doing something about this," while nothing is done.

Today, with the mass proliferation of radio towers and personal transmitters, the disease has spread like a plague into the general population. Estimates of its prevalence range up to one-third of the population, but it is rarely recognized for what it is until it has so disabled a person that he or she can no longer participate in society. You may recognize some of its common symptoms: insomnia, dizziness, nausea, headaches, fatigue, memory loss, inability to concentrate, depression, chest discomfort, ringing in the ears. Patients may also develop medical problems such as chronic respiratory infections, heart arrhythmias, sudden fluctuations in blood pressure, uncontrolled blood sugar, dehydration, and even seizures and internal bleeding.

What makes this disease so difficult to accept, and even more difficult to cope with, is that no treatment is likely to succeed unless one can also avoid exposure to its cause - and its cause is now everywhere. A 1998 survey by the California Department of Health Services indicated that at that time 120,000 Californians - and by implication 1 million Americans - were unable to work due to electromagnetic pollution.4 The ranks of these so-called electrically sensitive are swelling in almost every country in the world, marginalized, stigmatized and ignored. With the level of radiation everywhere today, they almost never recover and sometimes take their own lives.

"They are acting as a warning for all of us," says Dr. Olle Johansson of people with this illness. "It could be a major mistake to subject the entire world's population to whole-body irradiation, 24 hours a day." A neuroscientist at the famous Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr. Johansson heads a research team that is documenting a significant and permanent worsening of the public health that began precisely when the second-generation, 1800 MHz cell phones were introduced into Sweden in late l997.5,6 After a decade-long decline, the number of Swedish workers on sick leave began to rise in late 1997 and more than doubled during the next five years. During the same period of time, sales of antidepressant drugs also doubled. The number of traffic accidents, after declining for years, began to climb again in 1997. The number of deaths from Alzheimer's disease, after declining for several years, rose sharply in 1999 and had nearly doubled by 2001. This two-year delay is understandable when one considers that Alzheimer's disease requires some time to develop.

Uncontrolled Proliferation

If cell phones and cell towers are really deadly, have the radio and TV towers that we have been living with for a century been safe? In 2002 Örjan Hallberg and Olle Johansson coauthored a paper titled "Cancer Trends During the 20th Century," which examined one aspect of that question.7 They found, in the United States, Sweden and dozens of other countries, that mortality rates for skin melanoma and for bladder, prostate, colon, breast and lung cancers closely paralleled the degree of public exposure to radio waves during the past hundred years. When radio broadcasting increased in a given location, so did those forms of cancer; when it decreased, so did those forms of cancer. And, a sensational finding: country by country - and county by county in Sweden - they found, statistically, that exposure to radio waves appears to be as big a factor in causing lung cancer as cigarette smoking!

Which brings me to address a widespread misconception. The biggest difference between the cell towers of today and the radio towers of the past is not their safety, but their numbers. The number of ordinary radio stations in the United States today is still less than 14,000. But cell towers and Wi-Fi towers number in the hundreds of thousands, and cell phones, wireless computers, cordless telephones and two-way radios number in the hundreds of millions. Radar facilities and emergency communication networks are also proliferating out of control. Since 1978, when the Environmental Protection Agency last surveyed the radio frequency environment in the United States, the average urban dweller's exposure to radio waves has increased 1,000-fold, most of this increase occurring in just the last nine years.8 In the same period of time, radio pollution has spread from the cities to rest like a ubiquitous fog over the entire planet.

The vast human consequences of all this are being ignored. Since the late 1990s a whole new class of environmental refugees has been created right here in the United States. We have more and more people, sick, dying, seeking relief from our suffering, leaving our homes and our livelihoods, living in cars, trailers and tents in remote places. Unlike victims of hurricanes and earthquakes, we are not the subject of any relief efforts. No one is donating money to help us, to buy us a protected refuge; no one is volunteering to forego their cell phones, their wireless computers and their cordless phones so that we can once more be their neighbors and live among them.

The worried and the sick have not yet opened their hearts to each other, but they are asking questions. To answer caller A: No shield or headset will protect you from your cell or portable phone. There is no safe distance from a cell tower. If your cell phone or your wireless computer works where you live, you are being irradiated 24 hours a day.

To caller B: To effectively shield a house is difficult and rarely successful. There are only a few doctors in the United States attempting to treat radio wave sickness, and their success rate is poor - because there are few places left on Earth where one can go to escape this radiation and recover.

Yes, radiation comes down from satellites, too; they are part of the problem, not the solution. There is simply no way to make wireless technology safe.

Our society has become both socially and economically dependent, in just one short decade, upon a technology that is doing tremendous damage to the fabric of our world. The more entrenched we let ourselves become in it, the more difficult it will become to change our course. The time to extricate ourselves, both individually and collectively - difficult though it is already is - is now.

by Arthur Firstenberg (original in Eldorado Sun)

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/04/20/mobile_and_wireless_largest_biological_experiment.htm

NOTES

1. Leif G. Salford et al., "Nerve Cell Damage in Mammalian Brain After Exposure to Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones," Environmental Health Perspectives 111, no. 7 (2003): 881-883.

2. Allan H. Frey, Sondra R. Feld and Barbara Frey, "Neural Function and Behavior," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 247 (1975): 433-439.

3. Allan H. Frey, "Evolution and Results of Biological Research with Low-Intensity Nonionizing Radiation," in Modern Bioelectricity, ed. Andrew A. Marino (New York: Dekker, 1988), 785-837, at 809-810.

4. California EMF Program, The Risk Evaluation: An Evaluation of the Possible Risks From Electric and Magnetic Fields (EMFs) From Power Lines, Internal Wiring, Electrical Occupations and Appliances (2002), app. 3.

5. Örjan Hallberg and Olle Johansson, "1997 - A Curious Year in Sweden," European Journal of Cancer Prevention 13, no. 6 (2004): 535-538.

6. Örjan Hallberg and Olle Johansson, "Does GSM 1800 MHz Affect the Public Health in Sweden?" in Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop "Biological Effects of EMFs," Kos, Greece, October 4-8, 2004, 361-364.

7. Örjan Hallberg and Olle Johansson, "Cancer Trends During the 20th Century," Journal of Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine 21, no. 1 (2002): 3-8.

8. David E. Janes Jr., "Radiofrequency Environments in the United States," in 15th IEEE Conference on Communication, Boston, MA, June 10-14, 1979, vol. 2, 31.4.1-31.4.5.

INTRODUCTION

From Bill Gates' planned fleet of 300 satellites to the millions of ground based antennas being constructed through-out the world, our privacy is being invaded, our health undermined, our water polluted, endangered species threatened, the ozone layer destroyed, and our climate altered. The assault has already begun.

The purpose of this report is to give a general overview of the environmental threats associated with the wireless revolution, and an in-depth review of 70 years of research into the health hazards of microwaves.

The lack of an adequate review of the literature until now has led to the incorrect perception that the scientific evidence is contradictory and inconclusive. In fact the scientific evidence is consistent and overwhelming.



Satellite systems

In 1957 there were no artificial satellites in the sky above us. Today there are thousands. The list of countries that have launched satellites to date is huge: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Spain, England, Russia, Turkey, China, Japan, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, the European Community, Eastern Europe, the Arab League, Pan-Asia, and Intelsat (125 nations). Multinational corporations are sending up fleets. Even small private entrepreneurs are filling up the heavens with smaller, cheaper hardware. Whether a cellular phone company wants to provide global service, or a rancher in Australia wants to know the whereabouts of his cows, satellite technology will do the trick.



Ground based towers

The existing network of ground based antenna systems is not good enough. The telecommunications industry says it will need 270,000 more facilities immediately just in the United States (Microwave News, May /June 1996, p. 10), and comparable numbers elsewhere in the world. These are going up on lampposts and apartment buildings in cities, and on fresh eyesores throughout the suburbs, countryside and wilderness.

In addition, satellite systems, which shine very weakly on us, need to communicate with their own network of powerful earth stations. These stations will proliferate along with the satellites.



Pandora's box

Until recently almost all radio transmitters have been fixed and their range limited. The addition of more broadcast channels and new types of communication devices did not change that. But with the advent of cellular technology, all limits have been lifted. Telephones are no longer just communicators but also transmitters, and they are mobile. Suddenly every human being is a potential source of radiation. Suddenly electronic communication is a human right. Suddenly fixed transmitters and satellites are being built to accommodate mobile human beings, rather than the other way around.

Electromagnetic pollution will no longer remain concentrated in population centers, nor will radio transmitters be confined any longer to non-residential zones. In the space of a year or two, unless the people put a stop to it, this form of pollution will be spread more or less evenly over every square inch of the world.



The power is small, but the reach is unlimited.

There are among us today television towers that broadcast with a radiated power of 5 million watts. How much damage could the radiation from cellular equipment do by comparison? one might ask. Each antenna on a rooftop or tower generally emits less than 1000 watts, with 10-150 watts being the norm for lampposts and the sides of buildings.

The answer is surprising. If you live 10 miles from a 5 mil-lion watt television station, you will receive more radiation from a cellular antenna that is on a lamppost on your block than you will from that TV station. And by U.S. law, a 5 million watt TV station must be separated from other stations of similar frequency by a distance of at least 175 miles. Cellular transmitters are far less restricted: they can and will proliferate without limit. And they can and will increase their broadcast power if it is profitable to do so. The new legal limit is 3500 watts per channel per transmitting station, with no limit at all on the number of channels or the number of towers or the number of companies broadcasting in the same area.

Television signals also do not reach beyond line-of-sight from the tower, and are blocked by hills and buildings. The cellular transmitter is going to be right there where you are, anywhere on earth. You are no longer going to have the option of limiting your radiation exposure by living distant from antennas.



Health hazards

Microwave radiation is dangerous. As everyone knows, high levels will cook you. Low levels will also harm you in other ways.

Another type of radiation—that coming from electric power lines—has been much more in the news in previous years. There is now a growing scientific consensus that the 60-cycle radiation from power lines is dangerous and can cause cancer, leukemia and other diseases. Fortunately the distribution of electricity is not yet wireless, and most of the earth's surface is still remote from high-tension wires.

Power line radiation (50 or 60 cycles per second, or hertz) is especially harmful because it is close to the frequency of brain waves. Microwave radiation is especially harmful be-cause the wavelengths are smaller than our bodies. This radiation is therefore selectively absorbed by our bodies.





Table 1

maximum frequency(Hz) wavelength

power lines 60 3000 mi.

AM radio 1,600 600 ft.

short wave radio 30,000,000 30 ft.

FM radio 108,000,000 10 ft.

TV channels 2-13 216,000,000 5 ft.

TV channels 14-69 806,000,000 1 ft.

cellular phones 947,000,000 1 ft.

PCS 2,400,000,000 6 in.

satellites 50,000,000,000 1/4 in.



Smaller waves are better absorbed by smaller body parts and smaller people (children).

Cellular transmitters are not only going to be more common than any transmitters have ever been before, they are also broadcasting at the most dangerous frequencies.

And this radiation will be doubly dangerous because all the new technology is going to be digital. Digital signals come in pulses, rather than continuously as is now the case, and pulsed radiation has been found by most investigators to be more injurious to living things at lower average levels of power than continuous radiation.



Government safety standards

In the United States the Federal Communications Commission has set standards of permissible irradiation of the general public. These standards are based on thermal hazards only, the assumption being that if microwaves aren't strong enough to cook you, they will do you no harm. For cellular telephone systems, exposure is permitted to power densities of 533 to 1000 µW / cm2 (microwatts per square centimeter), de-pending on the frequency. These standards are at least ten million times the level which probably still exists over most of the surface of the earth, and at least ten billion times the level of microwaves we receive naturally from the sun and stars. They are also at least two hundred thousand times greater than what even most city residents have been exposed to until very recently (Tell and Mantiply 1980, Solon 1979, Zaret 1974, Szmigielski and Gil 1989).





Table 2 - Exposure levels (µW/cm2)


average stellar signal .000000000000000000000001

cosmic radiation, 10 MHz .000000000000000008

from a quiet sun, all freq. .0000000001

from one cellular satellite .0000001

in Tottenville, N.Y.C. 1978 .000068

average New York City 1979 .002

300 ft. from a cellular tower 5.0

in Empire State Building 1978 32.5

in Sears Tower 1978 65.7

F.C.C. Safety Standard 1996 1000.0







We can reasonably expect the radiation levels over most of the habitable parts of the earth to increase 1000-fold just as a beginning result of the current cellular expansion. How high those levels eventually will go is anybody's guess.

The danger, even if we didn't have epidemiological studies, is evident. We cannot expect to increase the irradiation of the entire earth 1000-fold or more virtually overnight without health effects and without massive biological consequences. Indeed this technology is more invasive than virtually any other and has the potential of causing worldwide catastrophe.

why cellphones are dangerous

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/138118-The+Hidden+Dangers+of+Cell+Phone+Radiation

Swedish study showed 90% of women cellphone users who used a copper-T IUD developed uterine cancer

Only thirty seconds on a cell phone are enough to open up our blood-brain-barrier, a natural barrier that protects our brain from toxins, for eight hours. A Swedish study showed that ninety percent of the women who used a copper-T I.U.D. as their birth control method, while simultaneously using cell phones, developed uterine cancer; the cause being that the I.U.D. functioned as a transmitter and receiver of unnatural, dissonant vibrations.


Why Cell Phones are Dangerous

A cellular phone is basically a radio that sends signals on waves to a base station. The carrier signal generates two types of radiation fields: a near-field plume and a far-field plume. Living organisms, too, generate electromagnetic fields at the cellular, tissue, organ, and organism level; this is called the biofield. Both the near-field and far-field plumes from cell phones and in the environment can wreak havoc with the human biofield, and when the biofield is compromised in any way, says Dr. Carlo, so is metabolism and physiology.

"The near field plume is the one we're most concerned with. This plume that's generated within five or six inches of the center of a cell phone's antenna is determined by the amount of power necessary to carry the signal to the base station," he explains. "The more power there is, the farther the plume radiates the dangerous information-carrying radio waves."

A carrier wave oscillates at 1900 megahertz (MHz) in most phones, which is mostly invisible to our biological tissue and doesn't do damage. The information-carrying secondary wave necessary to interpret voice or data is the problem, says Dr. Carlo. That wave cycles in a hertz (Hz) range familiar to the body. Your heart, for example, beats at two cycles per second, or two Hz. Our bodies recognize the information-carrying wave as an "invader," setting in place protective biochemical reactions that alter physiology and cause biological problems that include intracellular free-radical buildup, leakage in the blood-brain barrier, genetic damage, disruption of intercellular communication, and an increase in the risk of tumors. The health dangers of recognizing the signal, therefore, aren't from direct damage, but rather are due to the biochemical responses in the cell.

Here's what happens:

- Cellular energy is now used for protection rather than metabolism. Cell membranes harden, keeping nutrients out and waste products in.

- Waste accumulating inside the cells creates a higher concentration of free radicals, leading to both disruption of DNA repair (micronuclei) and cellular dysfunction.

- Unwanted cell death occurs, releasing the micronuclei from the disrupted DNA repair into the fluid between cells (interstitial fluid), where they are free to replicate and proliferate. This, says Dr. Carlo, is the most likely mechanism that contributes to cancer.

- Damage occurs to proteins on the cell membrane, resulting in disruption of intercellular communication. When cells can't communicate with each other, the result is impaired tissue, organ, and organism function. In the blood-brain barrier, for example, cells can't keep dangerous chemicals from reaching the brain tissue, which results in damage.

With the background levels of information-carrying radio waves dramatically increasing because of the widespread use of cell phones,Wi-Fi, and other wireless communication, the effects from the near and far-fields are very similar. Overall, says Dr. Carlo, almost all of the acute and chronic symptoms seen in electrosensitive patients can be explained in some part by disrupted intercellular communication. These symptoms of electrosensitivity include inability to sleep, general malaise, and headaches. Could this explain the increase in recent years of conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and anxiety disorder?

"One thing all these conditions have in common is a disruption, to varying degrees, of intercellular communication. When we were growing up, TV antennas were on top of our houses and such waves were up in the sky. Cell phones and Wi-Fi have brought those things down to the street, integrated them into the environment, and that's absolutely new. The recognition mechanism, where protein vibration sensors on the cell membrane pick up a signal and interpret it as an invader, only works because the body recognizes something it's never seen before."

As to increases in brain tumors tied to cell phone use, it's too early to tell due to a lack of hard data, says Dr. Carlo. "We're never going to see that in time to have it matter. Here in the US, we're six years behind in getting the brain tumor database completed, and currently the best data are from 1999. By the time you see any data showing an increase, the ticking time bomb is set."

Epidemic curve projections, however, indicate that in 2006, we can expect to see 40,000 to 50,000 cases of brain and eye cancer. This is based on published peer-reviewed studies that allow calculation of risk and construction of epidemic curves. By 2010, says Dr. Carlo, expect that number to be between 400,000 and 500,000 new cases worldwide.

"This means we're on the beginning curve of an epidemic, with epidemic defined as a change in the occurrence of a disease that is so dramatic in its increase that it portends serious public health consequences," says Dr. Carlo. "This is what's not being told to the public. One of the things that I suggest to people who use a cell phone is to use an air tube headset. If you use a wired headset, the current moving through the wire of the headset attracts ambient informational carrying radio waves and thereby increases your exposure."

Gauss Meters: Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation

Invisible electromagnetic radiation surrounds us each day, emanating from diverse sources such as power lines, home wiring, computers, televisions, microwave ovens, photocopy machines, and cell phones.

While undetectable to the eye, scientists have proposed that electromagnetic radiation may pose serious health effects, ranging from childhood leukemia to brain tumors.

As scientists continue to unravel the precise health dangers of electromagnetic radiation, it makes good sense to avoid these potentially dangerous frequencies as much as possible. A gauss meter is a useful tool you can use to measure electromagnetic radiation in your home and work environments.

Using the gauss meter at varied locations, you can easily detect electromagnetic radiation "hot spots" where exposure to these ominous frequencies is the greatest. Armed with this crucial information, you can then avoid these areas, re-arranging furniture or electronic devices as needed in order to avoid unnecessary exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

Dr. Carlo's Continuing Work

Following the loss of his home, Dr. Carlo collaborated with Washington columnist Martin Schram - who in the course of the work did his own research to corroborate Dr. Carlo's view on things - to write Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age (Carroll & Graf, 2001). He wrote his book as what he thought would be a last volley at the cell phone industry.

"I needed to tell the whole story in one place. I didn't have the resources or the manpower to match what the cell phone industry was doing to try to discredit the work," says Dr. Carlo. "Based on the book, a number of lawsuits were brought against the industry, and insurance carriers began excluding cell phone-related health risks in their coverage. It created a very difficult situation in the industry and for myself. I was worn out fighting that battle. In 2002, after I'd done my book tour, I just decided to take a break for a couple of years."

Instead of taking a break, however, Dr. Carlo ended up working behind the scenes, setting up an organization and a registry for the benefit of consumers. It was a creative solution as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a Illinois citizen against the cell phone industry, WTR, and Dr. Carlo personally. The lawsuit alleged that the cell phone industry, WTR, and Dr. Carlo were conspiring to hide the dangers of cell phones. Dr. Carlo was offered a way out of the suit because his book had made it clear he wasn't on the same page as the industry.

"I wanted to make sure the litigation brought at least some value to consumers. We created the Safe Wireless Initiative (www.safewireless.org) for disseminating information on the dangers and on prevention, and the Mobile Telephone Health Concerns Registry (www.health-concerns.org) to track information voluntarily provided by cell phone users, particularly those who believe they're experiencing health effects. Post-market surveillance hadn't been done before, and the registry does that. It will help direct future research of potential health effects related to cell phone use. In the end, we did the best we could to get some benefit for consumers."

PROTECTION IS KEY

To repair damage and build the body's defenses against the onslaught of EMR, supplements - along with dietary changes, stress reduction, weight control and exercise - make you stronger, more balanced, and better able to face the assaults of EMR. Antioxidant supplements that fight free radicals are especially desirable.

Says Dr. Carlo: "You as a human being are put under siege by the electromagnetic soup we're swimming in, and this isn't hyperbole, it's true. When you answer your cell phone, radio signals are around you. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Our general ability to compensate for those insults is becoming compromised by the ever-increasing background of EMR."

Taking as many precautions as you can goes a long way to reducing the risks. However, Dr. Carlo cautions that there is no silver bullet solution. "It's a complicated problem, and while we tend to look for a quick fix, there is none here. Over the next decade, I hope we figure out how to change the way signals are transmitted. A thousand years from now we will have evolved, but that's not helping us now. This will take time, but consumers have to be empowered to help themselves in the interim."

European Research Confirms Cell Phone Dangers

The industry took its tricks elsewhere - to Europe, which had picked up the ball and began funding independent research to corroborate or confirm the work of Dr. Carlo and his team. The work was completed in mid-2004 and when it was released,12 it not only provided independent scientific corroboration of the work done by Dr. Carlo's group, but also took the work a step further and showed how the problems were occurring mechanistically. This information formed a biologically plausible hypothesis for how cell phone radiation could be related to so many diseases.

Dr. Carlo noted, "The industry exerted pressure on the scientists who conducted the work, including renowned German scientist Dr. Franz Adlkofer. It first tried to change the conclusions of the work, then to delay its public release. Then Dr. Adlkofer, the lead scientist, was attacked in the media and threatened privately with no more research money, a ruined reputation - similar to what we experienced in the WTR. But this situation attracted the attention of a German documentary filmmaker, who decided to do a film on the cell phone issue."

It was enough to bring Dr. Carlo into view again, as he was asked to participate. The film, The Boiling Frog Principle, by Klaus Scheidsteger, builds on information from his first film, The Cell Phone War, and will be released in 2007. Its intent is to integrate the latest political and scientific evidence from around the world, and bring forth to consumers important information on cell phone dangers that was previously withheld.

Economic Implications

Currently in the US, there are seven class action lawsuits moving forward against the cell phone industry, says Dr. Carlo, and nine other cases that are personal injury cases brought by people with brain cancer. In the past two years, two workers compensation awards were given to people with brain tumors based on a link between their tumors and their cell phone use in the workplace. Both of these cases occurred in California.

"What we have now is a major litigation burden, a vulnerability the cell phone industry has never before been under," Dr. Carlo says. "They're uninsured for these health risk claims and are already positioning themselves for a congressional bailout, like the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s. They'll lose a couple of these lawsuits and once they do, there'll be an onslaught of new litigation against them."

The country can't afford for the cell phone industry to go under, Dr. Carlo says, as it would have a disastrous impact on the entire economy - some estimates say over 30% of investment stocks in retirement funds are tied to telecommunications shares. That's why Congress will figure out a way to bail out the industry.

"The industry thinks they can afford to continue on with this institutional arrogance, endangering millions of men, women and children because, at the end of the day, they believe they'll not be held accountable. They think they can continue to manipulate consumers."

A Looming Health Crisis

It's been nearly 12 years since the WTR was funded. Despite Dr. Carlo's revealing research and the corroborating research of other scientists from around the world that continue to follow, a search of media reports today on the subject of cell phone dangers tends to suggest one of only two conclusions: There is no risk, or no one has yet proven the risk. That's at odds with more than 300 studies in the peer-reviewed scientific literature supporting an increased risk of disease. Clearly, something doesn't add up.

The industry's manipulation of the media to consider only one study at a time obfuscates the big picture.Individually, there's little to see. But the depth and breadth of the science that points to the problem, and the compilation of studies, make the future look frightening. Like the September 11 tragedy, where no one in government talked to each other and did not see it coming for lack of a big picture view, the health crisis from cell phone use looms darkly.

"When you put all the science together, we come to the irrefutable conclusion that there's a major health crisis coming, probably already underway," warns Dr. Carlo. "Not just cancer, but also learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and psychological and behavioral problems - all mediated by the same mechanism. That's why we're so worried. Time is running out. When you put the pieces of the puzzle together, it's such a wide ranging problem. It's unlike anything we've ever seen before."

Protecting Yourself

The most effective technique for protecting yourself against the dangers of cell phone radiation is keeping the phone at a distance from the body. Simply using a hands-free headset is a big step. Headsets keep the cell phone's antenna at a distance of six to seven inches away from the body, thus eliminating near-field exposure. Wired headsets can act as an antenna to draw some ambient EMR, but not much, so using one is still preferable to holding the phone to your head. Wireless headsets should be avoided, as they draw much more far-field EMR.

The safest headsets have hollow air tubes, similar to those used in stethoscopes, instead of wires.They offer protection against both near-field and far-field exposure. If possible, avoid wearing the phone at your waist, which exposes the hip bones to radiation. Eighty percent of red blood cells are formed in the hip bones. There are also newer cell phones available capable of functioning in speaker phone mode. This enables you to talk on the phone while keeping it at a safe distance from your body. If you are able to conduct most of your conversations using a speaker phone, this could enable you to use a cell phone without encountering the intense radiation exposure that occurs when holding it to your ear.

Nutritional Protection against Cell Phone Radiation

As growing evidence points to the potential adverse health impact of exposure to cell phone radiation, scientists are seeking strategies to prevent or mitigate these effects. Currently, nutritional researchers are exploring whether melatonin, vitamin C, and and vitamin E can ameliorate the detrimental effects caused by radiation emitted by cell phones.

To date, a total of eight studies have pointed to the protective effects of melatonin and vitamins C and E in stemming the damage caused by cell phone emissions. In particular, these agents show promise in averting the increased oxidative stress that is thought to contribute to an increased risk of certain cancers. These studies have unveiled statistically significant protective effects of melatonin and vitamins C and E against the effects of the radiation frequency at which cell phones emit and receive radio frequency radiation.

Six of these eight studies were controlled, short-term studies (ranging from 10-30 days) in rodents. Each study examined 24-30 subjects. Study subjects were divided equally into three groups: one group received radiation exposure; another received active treatment with melatonin only, vitamin C only, or vitamins C and E before radiation exposure; and a control group did not receive radiation or active treatment. After the treatment period, scientists examined skin sections for radiation injury and analyzed blood and urine for markers of oxidative stress. They found significant kidney damage, skin changes, oxidative stress, and fibrosis in the animals who received radiation exposure only. Remarkably, these effects were reversed in the groups that received melatonin13-16 and vitamins C17,18 and E.17

Another two controlled studies in rodents, one of 10 days'19 and another of 60 days' duration,20 revealed that melatonin significantly protects against retinal (eye)20 and kidney tissue19 damage caused by cell phone radiation, as compared with subjects that did not receive melatonin.

Despite this compelling evidence, other avenues of research still need to be pursued after contradictory findings from seven different studies that have looked into the effect of cell phone radiation on melatonin levels in the body.

In one study, melatonin levels in the blood were measured in 226 male electric utility workers who were categorized according to cell phone use. The study concluded that workers who used cell phones for more than 25 minutes per day had decreased melatonin production and revealed a relationship between increased cell phone use and decreasing melatonin levels in the blood.21

Yet six other studies - two in humans22,23 and four in rodents24-27 - found that melatonin levels remained unchanged after radiation exposure. One human study did suggest that cell phone radiation may impact melatonin onset time. These were small studies, however, the majority of which were less than 28 days' duration.

Melatonin is a vital natural neurohormone (hormone secreted by or acting on a part of the nervous system) that acts as a potent free radical scavenger and antioxidant. Melatonin regulates the daily circadian rhythm and is essential to self-repair and regeneration. Given melatonin's protective effects, these findings warrant further research into the effect of cell phone radiation on melatonin in larger, longer-term, well-controlled human studies. - Bina Singh