Some time ago, I made a big to-do about smart electric meters and the fact that they might be hazardous to our health. The general response I got was: you got to be kidding. Sometimes from the more heavily invested the response is: there is insufficient evidence to make that conclusion. The World Health Organization concluded that electromagnetic fields from cell phones and wireless devices could possibly cause cancer. The general response was: yeah right, you got to be kidding. Researchers found that babies born to women who are exposed to strong electromagnetic fields during pregnancy had three times the risk of developing asthma compared those whose mothers were not exposed to strong electromagnetic fields. I haven’t heard yet but I suspect that the general response will be: you got to be kidding.
It’s not a joking matter. When 33 percent of children born to women with the highest electromagnetic field exposure develop asthma this is serious. It’s even serious for those with lower levels of exposure where the percentage was only 13 percent. Only 13 percent? I admit it’s difficult to understand how that could happen because electromagnetic fields are very illusive. You can’t hear them, see them, smell them, or taste them. You certainly can’t touch them. Based on the number of people denying their effects, they obviously don’t exist. They must be like the ghosts that come out around Halloween. Yet late at night when all the lights are off I am amazed at how many little red, blue, and green lights that are ON in my house. Some blinking – some not – but all of them trying to tell me something and the ones associated with cell phones and wi-fi stuff are telling me that I’m being irradiated.
What if electromagnetic fields really do exist and they cause all of these health problems? We will be in big doo-doo if that’s the case. Electrical/electronic devices are such a necessary part of our lives that shutting even some of these OFF will be like going back to the Stone Age. Never the less we know that low-level electromagnetic fields effect cell functions and we know that high level electromagnetic fields can warm up your coffee, cook your hot dog, and do-in gremlins if they happen to take refuge in your microwave. We also know that they can cause cataracts. Dr. Ken Atkinson even has a patent on a whole body microwave to destroy cancer cells.
Even with all that we know … we still don’t know what levels are safe, or even if there is a level that is safe. We don’t know if some individuals are more sensitive to RF than others and we don’t know if the type and frequency of modulation has any affect. We only seem to know or at least acknowledge the thermal effects of RF energy. But the thermal effects of RF energy are different than simply applying heat by conduction or convection. The material properties are changed by radiation. For example, microwaved coffee doesn’t taste the same and blood warmed by a microwave is destroyed and cannot be used for patient transfusions.
For a short article with some very interesting reading about cell phone and RF safety check out this wikipedia write-up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health … and may the RF not be with you!
-Ron Brewer
