250,000 In Sweden Impaired By Electro-Magnetic Radiation

JGeropoulas

The Living Force
Here are some excerpts from an excellent article with a lot of truth for a mainstream magazine. [All bold emphasis and bracketed comments are mine]
The Man Who Was Allergic to Radio Waves
_http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/disconnected

“The stress response induced by EMFs at 915 megahertz disrupted the body's DNA-repair machinery,
he concluded, thus making it harder to fix the kind of cellular damage that can lead to cancer.”


Per Segerbäck suffers from electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), which means he has severe physical reactions to the electromagnetic radiation produced by common consumer technologies, such as computers, televisions and cellphones. Symptoms range from burning or tingling sensations on the skin to dizziness, nausea, headaches, sleep disturbance and memory loss. In extreme cases like Segerbäck's, breathing problems, heart palpitations and loss of consciousness can result…Sweden is the only country in the world to recognize EHS as a functional impairment, and Segerbäck's experience has been important in creating policy to address the condition. Swedish EHS sufferers -- about 3 percent of the population, or some 250,000 people, according to government statistics…

“When a nerve is stimulated—say, the optical nerve stimulated by light—all sorts of electrical activity goes on. The nervous system uses electrical fields to function. It would be expected that certain extraneous electromagnetic fields would affect the nervous system. If you apply a correctly tuned EM field, you’re going to affect nervous-system function…when you expose a frog’s heart to EM frequencies…you can produce arrhythmias in those hearts and even stop the hearts [another "conspiracy theory" promoted to "fact"]…EM frequencies could open the blood-brain barrier. This means that substances in the blood can leak into the highly stabilized systems in the brain.” — Allan Frey, a neuroscientist formerly with the GE Advanced Electronics Center at Cornell University who conducted some of the first experiments showing the biological effects of radio-frequency radiation.

radiationcellphone.jpg

Electro-magnetic waves from the phone’s antenna penetrate the brain several centimeters deep.

Segerbäck was once an elite telecommunications engineer. He worked for Ellemtel, a division of the Swedish telecom giant Ericsson, for more than 20 years, leading an engineering group that designed advanced integrated circuits for prototype telecommunication systems. He used the newest and most advanced computer and telecom equipment available, the kind of stuff only Ericsson and the Swedish military had access to. He was, as a result, up to his eyeballs in a non-ionizing radiation bath, from computers, fluorescent lights and the telecom antenna located right outside his window.

He noticed his first symptoms -- dizziness, nausea, headaches, burning sensations and red blotches on his skin -- in the late 1980s, a decade into his telecommunications research work. All but two of the 20 or so other members of his group [= 90%] reported similar symptoms…

Ericsson went to great lengths to keep Segerbäck, a key member of the firm's design team, on the job. In the early 1990s, the company installed metal shields around his bedroom and study at home so he could sleep and work without radiation exposure.

radiationsuit.jpg

To enable him to go outside, medical authorities
gave Segerbäck an EMF-resistant suit like those
worn by engineers working close to telecom towers

In 1993 Ericsson produced a report, "Hypersensitivity in the Workplace," about what happened at Segerbäck's lab. In the foreword, Ellemtel's vice president Örjan Mattsson and administrative chief Torbjörn Johnson wrote: "A new problem in the work environment has appeared: hypersensitivity...Soon, we came to look upon hypersensitivity as a serious threat to the company business. . . . We started wondering if we were faced with a modern-day scourge."

…Ericsson dismissed Segerbäck in 1999. "He could not perform the work he was employed to do," according to an Ericsson spokesperson. Segerbäck challenged the dismissal in a Swedish labor court and lost.

There are several hundred EHS "refugees" in Sweden, she says, people who have had to move, some more than once, to escape the effects of EMFs. She describes one hypersensitive couple that lives in a mobile home so they can quickly relocate if their symptoms worsen.

The Interphone Project, a collaboration among 13 countries that carried out studies between 2000 and 2005 coordinated by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer [Who?! “It’s not what you know, but WHO…you know] was set up to settle the matter of whether cellphones cause brain cancer. It, however, has been plagued by controversy over methodology, bias and contradictory results. [just as planned, no doubt] Children were not included in the study, for instance…

Let's be clear: Cellphones are not like cigarettes. There is a proven mechanism by which cigarettes cause cancer,[i.e. spraying/fertilizing tobacco with carcinogens] even if you live an otherwise healthy life. There is as yet no proven mechanism by which cellphones do the same. [sounds exactly like what they said about cigarettes 50 years ago] Most experts say there is no such mechanism…

"There is no dramatic evidence of a health effect," says Michael Kundi of the Institute of Environmental Health at the Medical University of Vienna. "Otherwise, we all would be terribly sick." But, he says, there is another crucial distinction to understand. Even though EMFs are in all likelihood not cancer initiators -- they don't cause cancer the way that tobacco does -- the radiation might well be a cancer promoter, allowing precancerous cells time to grow and metastasize, especially in concert with other factors…

According to a 2004 report from the U.K. Office of National Statistics, the rate of childhood brain and spinal-cord tumors in Britain rose from just under 20 per million in the early 1970s to just under 30 per million in the late 1990’s [that sounds like “dramatic evidence” to me]

…cellphone radiation does have "non-thermal effects" -- biological effects beyond the mere heating of tissue -- that could influence human health…There are three main lines of investigation into non-thermal effects: the potential influence on melatonin production, gene expression and intracellular signaling.

The stress response induced by EMFs at 915 megahertz disrupted the body's DNA-repair machinery, he concluded, thus making it harder to fix the kind of cellular damage that can lead to cancer.

…the International Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Users (COSMOS)…will be monitoring some 250,000 Europeans…looking at potential links between cell phones and brain tumors as well as headaches, sleep disorders, and neurological and cerebro-vascular diseases…results are not due until 2029[! by which time, conveniently, enough brains and DNA should’ve been damaged to ensure psychopathic dominance]

Here you can read how researchers of cellphone radiation regulate their personal use of cellphones:
_http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/disconnected?page=4


RadiationGraph.jpg

This graph showing can opener emissions to be the worst is terribly misleading: can openers are only on
for a few seconds and don't emit microwaves (unlike cordless & cell phones, microwave ovens, and Wi-Fi).
 
Thanks for the post JGeropoulas. Sweden the ONLY country. :mad:

I am very sensitive, and can only use a cell-phone on speaker mode with it 18" from my head. Some historical points:

In 1993, whilst on contract in Detroit, I heard much talk of a barrage of lawsuits involving tumors growing by the ear inside brain. They had pictures in the paper, MRI scans apaprently of brains that had 2-4 inch growths in them. Upon returning to California, I could find zip about it here. These lawsuits apparently fizzled?

In early 2000 I complained to AT&T that my Nokia 6160 caused me intense headaches. They told me that 25% percent of people were affected, but that it would not get me out of my contract. So I paid them the full balance and canceled the service (I'll skip griping about how much that cost me).

In 2005, my job required me to have a cell-phone, so I tried again, same result. I was able to use corded earpiece, but went through many phones as the earpiece jacks would fail, and oh, they aren't covered by warranty or the phone insurance.

I contacted AT&T again in 2005, and this time they said there was zero effect on anyone. Turns out that George W. Bush was instrumental in blowing away a large group of lawsuits about damage caused by electromagnetic radiation in the US. (It was likely a secret campaign promise that he made to his "base" of rich family associates).

In 2007, I vomited on my commuter train, because I had to keep talking to a client and my earpiece had failed. Later I found out that there was a repeater gap along the railway, and the phones would ramp to full power along that portion of my trip. In one of my graduate classes I learned later that cell phone output power is varied by orders of magnitude to preserve battery life.

My symptoms include: An intense burning sensation at the back of my eyes; Prickly goosebumps that sweep my body, starting near the ear; a heating sensation on the side of my head and ear; shudders and knots in stomach; constant dull headache; and hypertension.

This last symptom is the most insidious and pervasive, as it lasts and affects the entire day. I remember a company called Lucent, and often wondered if they had deliberately chosen a modulation scheme that would cause the most tension. Like the choice of using 60Hz? for the phone vibrator. Yess, it feels like an electric shock, and yes my friends, all that I have asked, report the phantom buzz phenomenon.

This is all a little off-topic for Sweden, but it does emphasize that this is apparently an out-of-bounds topic in the US these days. Glad it is coming up somewhere.

I'd also like to point out that cel-phone/service providers have zero interest in making it safer. They want that phone as close to you for as many hours of the day as possible. I'd like to find a "base unit" that allows me to place the phone in a cradle and connect my regular home service through it, so that when a cel call comes in, it rings my traditional phones in my house!! No can do Captain, we might lose out on some business if we supported a technology like that.
 
"results are not due until 2029", but... ! yet another killing joke

I also fit in the EHS spectrum, though not as extreme reactions as you Potamus, I get all putty minded around power stations and have burning sensations around transformers, wifi routers and in close contact with exposed wires such as with the computermouse. In part a reason why i had to move from my apartment, which was like living in a microoven.

The danish EHS society (est 1993) has been continuosly ignored by health authorities due to non consensus in Bruxelles also by non recognition of the Bioinitiative rapport(see below).

Motion for a European Parliament solution 23 February 2009 said:
Given that no powers have been conferred by the Treaties, there is no European law to make Member States act regarding low and very low frequency waves, those which today are emitted first and foremost by mobile telephony antennas and wireless technologies.

That being the case, the EU exposure standards are set out in a Council recommendation of 12 July 1999 on the limitation of the exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields (0 Hz to 300 GHz).

These are exactly in line with the standards advocated by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), a non-governmental organisation officially recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which evaluates scientific findings from all over the world.

The above-mentioned Council recommendation specifies the following limit values:

1. GSM (900 MHz): 41.25 volts/metre

2. DCS (1 800 MHz): 58.33 volts/metre

3. UMTS (2 100 MHz): 61 volts/metre.

There is nothing, however, to prevent Member States from adopting tighter protection standards: no fewer than nine have already done so at national or regional level, including Greece, Poland, and, more recently, Belgium.

In Luxembourg, a country which the rapporteur knows well, the Government has opted since the end of 2000 to apply the precautionary principle: the maximum electric field value, if a transmitter is located in a place where people might be found, is thus 3 volts/metre. The Luxembourg population is protected almost 14 times more securely from electromagnetic fields than other EU citizens.

As far as the EU is concerned, the failure to coordinate national policies is hardly cheering. The rapporteur believes that it is up to the Commission to establish a clear-cut policy on electromagnetic fields (encompassing competitiveness, innovation, health, and consumer information aspects) that should not be confined to the present smattering of projects financed by the Research DG.

In the rapporteur’s opinion there is one avenue that has to be explored at this stage: the right way is surely to adopt a political solution whereby the limit values would be regularly adjusted (in the light of new technologies put onto the market and the findings of new epidemiological studies) and make for a high degree of consumer protection, especially where children were concerned, without hampering the operation of mobile telephony networks.

This is the approach favoured by the Copenhagen-based European Environment Agency, which in September 2007 bravely called on the authorities in the 27 Member States to protect the public more effectively by taking ‘Appropriate, precautionary and proportionate actions ... to avoid ... serious threats’. It marks a significant step forward, amounting as it does to a call for action contrasting with the WHO’s advocacy of the status quo. The WHO, indeed, appears to be playing for time: its target date for fully gauging the human health impact of electromagnetic fields is as late as 2015!

Votes of 10 March 1999 and 4 September 2008: Parliament is staying the course

As long as ten years ago Parliament sounded a note of caution regarding the European standards intended to protect citizens from microwaves. Its criticism of the Commission and Council was scarcely veiled: the rapporteur, Gianni Tamino, came out explicitly in favour of the precautionary principle and ‘Alara’, whereby radiation exposure has to be as low as reasonably achievable.

Parliament took the same clear stand on the sensitive issue of exposure limits when it voted on 4 September on the mid-term review of the European Environment and Health Action Plan 2004-2010.

On the strength of a near total consensus (the resolution was adopted by 522 votes to 16), Parliament called on the Council to ‘amend its Recommendation 1999/519/EC in order to take into account the Member States' best practices and thus to set stricter exposure limits for all equipment which emits electromagnetic fields in the frequencies between 0.1 MHz and 300 GHz’.

Aware that thresholds are a matter entirely for the Member States and regional authorities, the rapporteur thinks it better in this instance to focus on the alternatives that industry could employ to avert any form of health risk: it might be possible to follow the example of, say, the Austrian authorities, which have installed base stations above ground level so as to enable the emission frequency to be shared more equally.

It is impossible to ignore that the everyday environment for European citizens has greatly altered since wireless technologies (DECT landline telephones, mobile phones, UMTS/WiFi/WiMAX/Bluetooth emissions, baby-phones, etc.) have come into widespread use. Recognising the contribution that these new technologies can make, and their omnipresence at work, in libraries, and in the home, also implies acceptance of the need for the devices concerned to be assessed before they are put on the market and, more generally, for thresholds to limit the degree of household exposure to microwaves. The end result might otherwise be tantamount to denying assistance to consumers in danger!

The necessary climate of trust is currently lacking and will need to be restored in the years ahead, in relation to consumers and residents as well as within the scientific community proper. The rapporteur has deliberately chosen not to quote from any study or document already published, other than those originating from Parliament, the reason being that the continuing disagreement within the scientific community on the subject of electromagnetic fields and possible health risks is plain for all to see.


As noted above Bruxelles listens to ICNIRP who listen to IEEE (american engineer club who are ready to relax the current thresholds!) and are funded by IRPA ( International Radiation Protection Association whose next conference is on Radiation Protection in Medicine) which again is the american HPS's (Health Physics Society) idea, all non profit outfits but governmentally linked in close rapport with WHO.

So the Scientists are in disagreement on quotas which leaves room for stalling. The levels of safety now in 'agreement' where worked out by engineers on basis of radiation on a chemical soup, the bordervalue was set by how much radiation it took to heat it 1 degree and set the safety level by a factor 10 below, but no biologist, neurologist or other medical related department where asked (atleast out in the open).


Relevant clips

Cindy Sage, Bioinitiative rapport (check out those comments of denial beneath)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZDor-_co0&feature=player_embedded#

PHD Franz Adlkofer, genotoxic research in ELF/ EMF exposure (pretty technical)
http://www.livevideo.com/video/F3079C7F6F8B4D1992E15B24FBF50B19/international-emf-conference-2.aspx

---
Also dirty electrics (EMF harmonizer merchants) provide som links to research
_http://www.dirtyelectricity.ca/scientific_research.htm
 
Potamus said:
I'm very sensitive, and can only use a cell-phone on speaker mode with it 18" from my head... I'd like to find a "base unit" that allows me to place the phone in a cradle and connect my regular home service through it, so that when a cel call comes in, it rings my traditional phones in my house!! No can do Captain, we might lose out on some business if we supported a technology like that.

Did you check out this link embedded in the article:
Here you can read how researchers of cellphone radiation regulate their personal use of cellphones: _http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/disconnected?page=4

Also, search the forum for "electromagnetic radiation" Here's 2 posts that might help:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=15847.msg132749#msg132749
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=322.msg75256#msg75256
 
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