March 2010  – EM Radiation Health Alliance (of BC Canada). www.emrabc.ca

In the past Health Canada has told us many things were safe that turned out to be very harmful. Remember thalidomide and deformed babies; asbestos and lung cancer; doctors once said tobacco was safe. In the 1980’s Health Canada claimed the blood supply was safe causing thousands of people to be infected by Aids and Hepatitis C. Time and time again Health Canada has sided with corporations and against the people they are supposed to protect.

Our health regulators opinions were not based upon unbiased scientific evidence but more often are based upon reports produced by corporate interests. Although industry claims that cell phone radiation is safe, this does not stand up under scrutiny. Once again Health Canada is turning a blind eye to the hundreds of scientific studies that show there are grave dangers facing us as we enter into our wireless future.

Vested interests:

In 2006, Canada’s cell phone industry posted $12.7 billion in revenue, a 79% increase over the previous five years.

Regulatory agencies like the CRTC, which govern the use of radio frequencies in Canada, put up auctions for the microwave frequency spectrum, at which they can net $1 billion-plus for the rights to use that bandwidth. Thus, both industry and government have a vested interest in perpetuating this technology.

Alternatives:

Instead of more microwave towers, Dr. Neil Cherry recommends, “We should be wiring up our cities with fibre-optic cables to provide Internet, fax, telephone, radio and television at very high quality.” Fibre optic cable is already laid in many communities in Canada but is under-utilized due to higher infrastructure costs. It is, however, considered more reliable for broadband communications, with dropped connections virtually unheard of with this technology.

Concerned citizens are not anti-technology. We are insistent that Health Canada and the telecommunications industry exercise due diligence for the protection of public health. Where there are any significant indications of risk to human health, manufacturers MUST be held accountable and required to adhere to the Precautionary Principle. We believe these requirements have NOT been met by current standards.

• Yes, but won’t Health Canada safety regulations protect me?

Health Canada’s Safety Code 6 regulates exposure to non ionizing electromagnetic radiation such as that emitted from a cellular telephone.

It assumes that exposures below the extreme levels required to heat human skin or tissue have no biological effect, an assumption many studies have shown is false.

It is like saying …… cigarette smoke is safe and the only danger in smoking is being burned by the ash.

“Safety Code 6, Canada’s EMR exposure guideline is based upon the false premise that any exposure below that which allows the human body to heat up 1 degree C over a 6 minute period is safe. Federal regulators have no problem with your body heating as a result of exposure to EMR, just not too quickly. They also claim this is not a health threat but a physical effect similar to being exposed to the heat of the sun. The problem is exposures thousands of times less powerful than what heats tissue has been irrefutably shown to cause serious diseases like cancer,” Says Walt McGinnis, EM Radiation Tester.

“Canada’s guidelines are based on a short-term (6-minute) heating effect,” says Dr. Magda Havas, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) expert with the Faculty of Environmental Studies at Trent University. “It is assumed that if this radiation does not heat your tissue it is ‘safe’. This is not correct. Effects are documented at levels well below those that are able to heat body tissue.”

Scientists and physicians from 10 countries who signed the Saltzburg Declaration recommended that mobile phone mast emissions should be 9,000 times LOWER than the current ICNIRP Guideline value for 900 MHz values of 4.5 milliwatts per square meter (w/m2) and 1800 MHz (values of 9 w/m2) radiation.  (ICNIRP stands for – International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.)

• So what are the health risks of using cell phone technology?

Many studies are now confirming the high cancer risks of people exposed to microwaves from cell phone use, as well as mobile phone base stations and transmitters around the world. The BioInnitiative Report, available online, is a comprehensive review of major health effects written by independent scientists. Please take the time to read the introduction. http://www.citizensforsafetechnology.org/bioinitiativereport.html

B. Blake Levitt, author of Electromagnetic Fields, says that when it comes to cell phones, “a worse frequency could not have been chosen for the human anatomy.” Levitt is a member of the American Medical Writers Association, the National Association of Science Writers, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Bioelectromagnetics Society.

Short term effects include nausea, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, irritability, depression, suppressed immune function, aches and pains

More heart attacks and more heart disease shown in many studies

“There are 66 epidemiological studies showing that electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum increase brain tumours in human populations,” declares Dr. Neil Cherry, an expert on the subject. “Two of those studies are for particular brain tumours from cell phones.”

A 10-year study in the German city of Naila found that the proportion of newly developed cancer cases was significantly higher among those who had lived during the past 10 years at a distance of up to 400 metres from the cellular transmitter site. Five years after the transmitter was installed and operating, the relative risk of getting cancer had tripled for the residents within 400 metres.

Unrelated studies in Sweden and Britain found that prolonged exposure to radiation emitted by mobile handsets and neighbourhood relay towers can destroy cells in the parts of the brain responsible for memory, movement and learning.

Biologist Roger Coghill became a long-standing advocate for health warnings to be affixed to cell phones after he found that cell phone transmissions damage the ability of white blood cells to ward off infectious disease by disrupting the immune system’s electromagnetic communications.

A study by Dr. Peter Franch found unequivocally that “cells are permanently damaged by cellular phone frequencies.” This cellular damage, Franch noted, is maximized at low dosage — and “inherited unchanged, from generation to generation.”

Radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and microwaves, including cell phone radiation, are genotoxic (damaging to DNA), as shown by many independent studies published since the first one in 1959.

HYPERLINK “http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=2275” http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=2275

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• Cell phones and children:

According to the late Dr. Neil Cherry, children are highly vulnerable to possible health effects from cell phones. Children living near three TV and FM broadcast towers in Sydney, Australia had more than twice the normal rate of leukaemia.

In January, 2005, Britain’s National Radiological Protection Board advised parents not to let children under the age of eight use cell phones, after four European studies suggested impaired cognitive function, cell damage and probable increases in cancer as a result of frequent cell phone use.

On December 8th, 2000, the German Academy of Paediatrics issued a statement advising parents to restrict their children’s use of mobile phones in view of “special health risks” associated with their growing bodies.

In New Zealand, cell phone towers are prohibited on school property because of possible health effects: learning disabilities, cancer, leukaemia, DNA damage, blood disorders, brain tumours and electrical sensitivity, according to EMF Health Report Mar./Apr. 1995.

A cell phone call lasting just two minutes can open the “blood-brain barrier” in kids as well as adults, allowing toxins in the bloodstream to cross this blood vessel gateway and attack brain cells.

Dr. Gerald Hyland and other MDs believe that cell phone’s deep penetration into children’s brains and the resulting disruption to the subtle electronic exchanges between brain cells could cause kids to lose the ability to concentrate and remember, making it much more difficult to learn.

Contact Walt McGinnis,[email protected]

Cell Phone Technology: Public Health Facts & Concerns