Dr Sasco’s intro testimony on Apr 29th 2010 before Ottawa Parl. Committee

Good morning.
 
My name is Annie Sasco. I am an MD with doctoral training at
 Harvard in epidemiology, two master’s degrees, and a doctoral degree.
I have been working in cancer epidemiology for the last 25 years at
the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the
 World Health Organization.
 
During that time I saw a doubling of the number of cancer cases
in the world, and that led me to question the reason why. I became
interested in environmental contaminants, be they physical, as in the
case of ionizing or non-ionizing radiation, chemicals, or whatever.
 
I have been asked by Next-Up to be a witness here today. I think
it’s important for scientists to sometimes go beyond the mere
statistical results and see, if you are interested in prevention, how
to push for policies. I think those types of organizations such as
Next-Up are very important in doing exactly that.
 
On the issue of electromagnetic fields specifically, I have been a
witness in several centres on that already, including, last year, in
the French Senate in front of the Office parlementaire d’évaluation
des choix scientifiques et technologiques.
 
What do we know today about electromagnetic fields? And what I
also want to say is, “When do we have enough evidence to take action?”
 
With regard to electromagnetic fields, we have, of course. more
than plenty of evidence of exposure; I think that exposures in the
human population have greatly increased in the last 20 years. That’s a
very recent phenomenon in terms of frequency of exposure of a
population from multiple sources; and even if it’s a sole source at a
low level, there is the possibility, of course, for interaction and
for cumulative effects over time, since exposure starts in utero and
goes on for a whole lifetime.
 
So we have evidence that there is ever more frequent exposure and,
in fact, soon the problem will be that no one will be unexposed, which
will make comparison difficult, and therefore epidemiology difficult.
 
With regard to biological effects, more will be said by other
witnesses, I guess, but there are two groups, thermal and non-thermal,
with the issue of potential general toxicity and whether these EMFs
have a promoting or an initiating effect for cancer occurrence.
 
As for experimental studies, there have been too few, in a way,
and most of them have been done by industry-funded researchers. There
have been very few public studies done with public funds that have
looked at the evidence in animals, although with regard to exposure to
carcinogens, animals are usually good cancer models and long-term
effects models.
 
Epidemiology is, of course, the most relevant. What do we know
just on cellphones and antennas? There have been many studies on
cellphones, the largest one being the Interphone study, with several
thousand cases and controls, which was done in 13 countries on glioma,
meningioma, parotid gland tumours, and also acoustic neurinomas. The
final results should be out, I have been told, in the coming days. For
the time being, results for several countries are already out, but not
yet, to my knowledge, for Canada.
 
They show somewhat contradictory results, but nevertheless, in
several studies or some studies there is a tendency for increased risk
for the heaviest users even if that’s defined in different ways. And
that’s exactly what one expects to see. At the beginning, obviously,
we are still young, in a way, in regard to exposure in the population,
but it could be just the beginning of a more frequent problem in the
years to come. The issue of children being particularly sensitive to
this exposure has to be underlined, although at this time there is
very little data, and more is needed. Similarly, we need more studies
with valid protocols to look at issues of actual hypersensitivity.
 
So do we already have enough to act on it? I think we have a great
level of suspicion and already quite a lot of data that goes in that
direction. If we want to wait for final proof, at least in terms of
cancer, it may take another 20 years, and the issue then will be that
we will not have any unexposed population to act as a control.
 
We may never have the absolute final proof, but if our goal is to
reduce somewhat the burden of cancer and other chronic diseases in the
years to come, we have enough data to go ahead with a precautionary
principle to avoid unnecessary exposure.
 
Regulations vary a lot across the countries, whereas population
does not vary so much, but we can come back to this later.
 
I thank you for your attention.

Dr Johansson’s testimony on Apr 29th before Ottawa Parl. Committee

Dr. Olle Johansson:
I could quickly answer that by repeating what some of the other
speakers have already said.
 
It’s obvious that your safety code is completely out of date and
obsolete, and that goes for any form of international or national
standards body throughout the world, including the American IEEE and
FCC and the international ICNIRP standards and so forth.
 
Low-intensity, non-thermal “bioeffects” and adverse health effects
are demonstrated at levels significantly below existing exposure
standards. These standards are inadequate and obsolete with respect to
prolonged low-intensity exposures. And they are only technical in
nature. You have to understand that. I’m surprised that you have
invited people from the industry. Health Canada must be dealing with
the health of Canadians, not the health of the industry.
 
Therefore, you should get rid of any form of technical standards
and introduce new biologically based public exposure standards that
are urgently needed to protect public health worldwide. It’s
definitely not in the interest of the public to wait.
 
………………..
 
Dr. Olle Johansson:
Yes. It was a little bit hard to hear the question, but if I
understand correctly, the question was about biologically based
standards.
 
You have to understand that what you are talking about are
technical standards based upon thermal heating effects in the acute
stage measured in fluid-filled plastic dolls. It has nothing to do
with the kind of bioeffects that are seen, very, very far below the
ICNIRP values or Safety Code 6 values, and most likely you need some
other form of measure.
 
I would rather bounce the ball back to you and say that since I am
one of the lousy authors of the BioInitiative Report–
 
Voices: Oh, oh!
 
Dr. Olle Johansson: –you should really read what the whistle-
blowers tell you. If we are wrong, which I hope we are, because we are
part of the mental fire brigade, and I want it to be a false alarm, of
course, but I think several of the speakers have said….
 
And Canada, by all means, you are so very rich, you know. You
don’t any need any economic support from the industry; you can give
independent money, give it to the whistle-blowers and independent
scientists, because if they are wrong, they will prove themselves
wrong very quickly.
 
As Andrew Goldsworthy said, pinpoint some critical studies–for
instance on egg cells, as Dimitris told us, and on sperm cells–
because if they are destroyed, then you won’t have Health Canada in 50
or 100 years’ time.
 
I think it’s very important for Health Canada to set up
questions. I don’t see them at all; I don’t see what you want to do.
 
My summary of today is that it feels very much that at least the
people present in Canada right now want to take a chance on children
and the future just for a toy. If I am wrong, I am very, very happy,
but please let us look at these studies. Also, remember that you can
never, ever outbalance a study showing an effect with studies that
don’t show an effect; you can only outbalance them with studies that
are exact replications, showing and proving why the first study was
wrong, and such replications are not around.
 
The replications that are around strongly support the conclusion
that the current standards are obsolete and need to be revised, and
actually I didn’t say that from the very beginning; it was the
European Parliament.
  
…………………….
 
 
Dr. Olle Johansson:
I was also just going to comment that it seems that the members of
Health Canada do not quite understand the precautionary principle,
which is outlined in the Rio Declaration. You should read it
carefully, because it clearly says that minority findings should be
fully reported and considered and that uncertainty should be the basis
to take action. Action would mean a moratorium, safety precautions, or
whatever.
 
The interesting thing is to look seriously, with adult eyes, on
the scientific literature, and take away the studies that don’t show
an effect, because they are, as you probably all know, of no interest
in risk analysis. All the good car journeys would never impinge in
risk analysis regarding car safety, for instance. If you look at these
studies and really boil down the facts and ask yourself what kind of
safety level you would have instead of an exposure standard, today
that would be, in thermal measurement, zero watts per kilogram.
 
 
Hon. Carolyn Bennett:
It would be zero. Okay.
 
Dr. Olle Johansson:
Finally, I would add that I have heard over and over again that
the levels of exposure are low. In the room you’re sitting in right
now, just from the third generation mobile telephony, compared to the
natural background that has been around for billions of years in
Canada, you are sitting in levels that are approximately one million
billion times above natural background. There you have your question
mark: are we really built for a microwave life at such extreme levels?
From the size, the question is very clear cut: no, we are not built
for that, and we are not talking about a minor reduction.
 
Just a few days ago I submitted a paper to a major American
journal. In it, we point to the reductions in public exposure levels.
Taking into consideration the future, the kids, teenagers, the
elderly, and the adults, the levels must be lowered dramatically.
 
And if I were Health Canada, I wouldn’t bother about the industry.
I can tell you that they will come up with new technologies in some
form. As a Swede, I hope that it will be Ericsson–
 
Voices: Oh, oh!
 
Dr. Olle Johansson: –that produces tomorrow’s human-friendly
green technology, at exposure levels far, far, far below what we are
talking about today. If I’m wrong, then I would be of course very
happy to be wrong, but that would also mean that thousands of papers
would be wrong at the same time, and that has never, ever happened in
science.
 
………………………..
 
 
Dr. Olle Johansson:
Well, you still have to understand that even if you are on average
5,400 times below Safety Code 6, you are still a million billion times
above normal background regarding third-generation mobile telephony.
 
The interesting thing is that for all other wireless
communication systems and exposures, you are mostly much, much higher
than that. Therefore, you must ask yourself, do we, through evolution,
have an automatic microwave shield built into our body, it being so
intelligent, so that it will protect our kids in 2010 from the kinds
of exposures produced and manufactured by Motorola, by Ericsson, by
Nokia, and so on?
 
The answer is, of course, no way, we don’t have that, and
therefore we must stop–
 
The Chair:
Thank you.
 
    Dr. Olle Johansson:
The question is this: are we prepared to really take a chance on
that?   In Sweden, we always try to tell ourselves that it is to be better safe than sorry.

Dr Goldsworthy’s intro testimony on the April 29th 2010

Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy:
 
I’ll do my best. I have sent the committee a lot of material
containing scientific evidence, but what I want to do now is just
summarize it, so I apologize for not giving references.
 
I had a lifelong interest in radio communications and was one of
the first people I know to buy a mobile phone, but I’m afraid all is
not quite right. As the number of mobile phones–cellphones–expanded,
a whole series of weird health effects started to appear.
 
The cellphone companies had no idea what was causing them and
still less of an idea on how to stop them happening. The only solution
was to deny their existence, and this is what seems to be happening.
They argue that because the results are not consistent, this is due to
experimental error and can therefore be ignored.
 
But this argument is flawed because it doesn’t take into account
biological variability. We are all the product of thousands of genes
that interact with each other and the environment in unpredictable
ways. Each individual is unique. Not every smoker dies of cancer, we
don’t all have the same side effects from taking medicinal drugs, and
we can’t all be expected to respond in the same way to electromagnetic
insults. Just because everyone is not affected doesn’t mean that no
one is affected.
 
They also say there is no plausible explanation for such diverse
results. In this presentation, I’ve explained just how these effects,
these multitudes of effects, are produced, and how modifications to
the signal can put most of them right.
 
There are two mechanisms that explain nearly all of them.
 
The first one is based on the pigment cryptochrome. Plants use it
to measure light and animals use it to navigate in the earth’s
magnetic field. Both animals and plants use it to regulate their body
clocks.
 
Now, Ritz and his co-workers, in 2004, discovered that bird
magnetic navigation was disrupted by a radio waves because of their
effects on cryptochrome. This is also true for insects and probably
causes colony collapse disorder in bees. The radio waves don’t break
chemical bonds, they just interfere with the transport of an electron
between two parts of the molecule that is essential for its function.
 
Cryptochrome also controls circadian rhythms and the body clock,
which regulates the sleep-wake cycle and also the immune system. The
immune system works best at night. This explains the sleep
disturbances found in people living near mobile phone base stations.
It also increases their risk of cancer by reducing the ability of the
immune system to cope with incipient cancer cells. It might also
contribute to the decline of the bees, which are becoming increasingly
susceptible to pathogens. As you all know, the loss of the bees would
be devastating to our agriculture.
 
Fortunately, we can do something about it. According to Ritz,
cryptochrome is sensitive to a broad range of frequencies, but they’re
mostly below 10 megahertz. These are well below the carrier
frequencies used in mobile phones, but are generated when they are
modulated to carry digital information. They are due to harmonics,
they are not essential, and they can be suppressed. The cellphone
companies should do this straight away.
 
Secondly, there are effects on cell membranes. Low frequency
electromagnetic fields and radio frequencies that have been modulated
with low frequencies can remove calcium ions from cell membranes. This
weakens them and makes them more inclined to leak, which explains most
of the other biological effects such as cardiac arrhythmia.
 
+ -(0935)
 
The heart muscle beats in response to electrical waves propagating
through it. These are generated by ions moving across its cell
membrane. If they leak, these ion movements are less pronounced and
the heartbeat becomes irregular, which could result in heart failure–
lack of information.
 
When cells leak into the surrounding matrix, it can cause
inflammation. That which is beginning to show is early dementia. The
brain is separated from the blood by what we call a tight junction
barrier, in which the gaps between the cells are sealed to prevent the
entry of unwanted materials. Cellphone radiation makes this barrier
leak to let in toxic materials that can lead to early dementia.
 
Allergies, which are also on the increase–
 
[cut off by Chair]

Dr Panagopoulos’ intro testimony on the April 29th 2010  


[the Apr 29 evidence is now posted at he HESA site]
 
Dr. Dimitris Panagopoulos:
Hello. Thanks for inviting me.
 
I shall try to describe, within a few lines, 10 basic conclusions
from our experimental and theoretical work at the University of Athens
over the last 11 years on the biological effects of mobile telephone
radiation.
 
Conclusion number one is that GSM radiation between 900 and 1,800
megahertz, from mobile phone handsets, is found to reduce insect
reproduction by up to 60%. The insects were exposed for six minutes
daily during the first five days of their adult lives. Both males and
females were found to be affected.
 
Second, the reduction of insect reproductive capacity was found to
be due to cell death induction in reproductive cells. In the papers
distributed to the committee members, we can see pictures of eggs from
insects. In the first picture, we see eggs from a non-exposed insect.
In the second picture, we see eggs from an insect exposed to radiation
from a mobile phone handset. We can see the characteristic
fluorescence denoting DNA fragmentation and cell death. You have more
pictures like this.
 
Third, the effect of short-term exposure is evident at radiational
intensities down to one microwatt per square centimetre. This
radiational intensity is found at a distance of about one metre from a
cellphone or 100 metres from a corresponding base station antenna.
This radiational intensity is 450 times and 900 times lower than the
limits set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Protection, ICNIRP, at 900 and 1,800 megahertz, respectively.
 
It is possible that for long-term exposure durations of weeks or
months or years, the effect would be evident at even longer distances
or at even lower intensities. For this, a safety factor should be
introduced in the above value, of one microwatt per square centimetre.
By introducing a safety factor of 10, the above value becomes 0.1
microwatts per square centimetre, which is the limit proposed by the
BioInitiative Report.
 
Fourth, the effect is strongest for intensities higher than 200
microwatts per square centimetre; this is when we have a cellphone
very close to our heads. Within that so-called window, around the
intensity value of 10 microwatts per square centimetre, the effect
becomes even stronger. This intensity value of 10 microwatts per
square centimetre corresponds to a distance of about 20 to 30
centimetres from a mobile phone handset or 20 to 30 metres from a base
station antenna.
 
Fifth, the effect increases with increasing daily duration of
exposure in terms of short-term exposures of one minute to 21 minutes
daily.
 
Sixth, the effect is non-thermal. There are no temperature
increases during the exposures.
 
Seventh, the effect at the cellular level is most likely due to
the irregular gating of ion channels on cell membranes, which is
caused by the electromagnetic fields. This leads to disruption of the
cell’s electrochemical balance and function. This mechanism is a non-
thermal one.
 
Eighth, although we cannot simply extrapolate the above results
from insects to humans, similar effects on humans cannot be excluded.
On the contrary, they are possible, first because insects are, in
general, much more resistant to radiation than mammals, and second,
because the presented findings are in agreement with the results of
other experimenters who are reporting DNA damage in mammalian cells or
mammalian and human infertility. There are many references for these
findings in papers also distributed to the committee.
 
+ -(0930)
 
Ninth, reported observations during the last years regarding the
diminishing of insect populations, especially bees, can be explained
by a decrease in their reproductive capacity, as I described.
 
Our tenth and last conclusion is that symptoms referred to as
“microwave syndrome”, like headaches, sleep disturbances, fatigue,
etc., among people residing around base station antennas, can possibly
be explained by cellular stress induction on brain cells or even cell
death induction on a number of brain cells.
 
Thank you for your attention.

News coverage

related

Dr. Annie Sasco   microwavenews.com/interphonecracks.html

Dr. Ollie Johansson  ki.se serious problem

Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy  mechanisms effects electrosensitivity uk

Dr Dimitris Panagopoulos  Cell death induced by GSM Athens

Francois Therrien  dangersemo.com