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EMFacts Blog

    • 28 JAN 19

    Svenska Dagbladet’s science writer Emma Frans: “science evangelist” for whom?

    Excerpt: Following up on the last message “Incorrect information about wireless phones and the risk for brain tumours…” about an article written by Emma Frans in the Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet, I received further information below from the Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation.

    According to the Wikipedia entry for Dr. Emma Frans, among other things, she is a science communicator who “examines the correctness and scientific accuracy of sensational news and popular science articles”. She has also been referred to as a “mythbuster” and “science evangelist”. After checking out her qualifications I think Rodney Croft should invite her to be an associate at ACEBR. After all, with her spin on science, she would be right at home with those folks…….SNIP.

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    • 27 JAN 19

    Incorrect information about wireless phones and the risk for brain tumours in a Swedish newspaper

    Incorrect information about wireless phones and the risk for brain tumours in a Swedish newspaper from Lennart Hardell’s blog

    The well known Swedish daily newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, has published an article that does not give correct information on the risk for brain tumours from use of wireless phones. The newspaper has refused to publish our rebuttal. It is now published in the medical journal, Medicinsk Access (only in Swedish).

    Google translation of the rebuttal letter follows: SNIP…

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    • 22 JAN 19

    Why the Australian government will not advise the public on wireless technologies’ risks to health – At least for now.

    EMFacts blog Commentary by Don Maisch PhD 20, January 2019

    Excerpt: In stark contrast to a recent Italian court ruling where three Italian government ministries have acknowledged that there is a need to raise public awareness on how to use mobile phones safely (previous message) it is highly unlikely that such concern for public safety will be issued from the Australian government, considering the pro-technology bias of the agencies and individuals who currently advise government ministers on telecommunications issues….SNIP

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    • 18 JAN 19

    Australian residents and councils raise health concerns about “small cell” installations

    From Stop Smart Meters Australia

    Excerpt:
    Australian residents and councils raise health concerns about “small cell” installations
    Posted on January 18, 2019 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    The ABC reported earlier this month that residents in NSW have petitioned for the removal of small cell boxes. “In a move that experts say will become more common as Australia prepares itself for the 5G rollout, TPG, in conjunction with China’s Huawei, has begun placing the transmitters – roughly the size of two shoe boxes – on power poles across the suburb of Ryde, in Sydney’s north-west.”…SNIP

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    • 17 JAN 19

    Italian Court Orders Public Safety Campaign

    In a victory for advocates of precaution, an Italian court has ordered the government to launch a campaign to advise the public of the health risks from mobile and cordless phones. The information campaign must begin by July 16. The court in Rome reached its decision last November, but the announcement was only made yesterday. …SNIP

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    • 04 JAN 19

    Microwave News: Skepticism Over New Aussie Brain Tumor Paper

    Excerpt from Louis Slesin, Microwave News:

    A few weeks ago, BMJ Open published a paper from Australia, which claims to show that there can be no link between cell phones and brain tumors because the incidence of brain cancer in the general population has stayed steady over the last many years. Don’t believe it. The paper is pure politics. The analysis, carried out under a multi-million-dollar grant from the Australian government, is incomplete and misleading –or worse….SNIP

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    • 23 DEC 18

    LiFi is a paradigm-shifting 5G technology

    Published in Reviews in Physics 3 (2018) 26–31

    LiFi is a paradigm-shifting 5G technology

    Harald Haas, LiFi Research and Development Centre, The University of Edinburgh, King’s Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JL, UK

    A B S T R A C T
    In this paper we will first explain what Light-Fidelity (LiFi) is and argue that it is a 5th Generation
    (5G) technology. Peak transmission speeds of 8 Gbps from a single light source have been demonstrated,
    and complete cellular networks based on LiFi have been created. We will discuss
    numerous misconceptions and illustrate the potential impact this technology can have across a
    number of existing and emerging industries. We also discuss new applications which LiFi can
    unlock in the future….SNIP

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    • 16 DEC 18

    Swedish expert warnings on 5G

    The following is my Google inspired translation from the Swedish publication Västerbottens-Kuriren, which is mentioned in Lennart Hardell’s latest blog.

    Published in Västerbottens-Kuriren, December 7, 2018

    Excerpt:
    Unethical experiment in Umeå

    Debate Articles. (2018-12-07) Do not risk public health in Umeå. There is no research on health effects of 5G. A drug would never be approved without prior testing of the drug in clinical trials. Therefore, there is a good reason to call the introduction of 5G in Umeå for a giant, unethical experiment with humans, writes a group of researchers…SNIP

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    • 08 DEC 18

    Planetary electromagnetic pollution: it is time to assess its impact

    As the Planetary Health Alliance moves forward after a productive second annual meeting, a discussion on the rapid global proliferation of artificial electromagnetic fields would now be apt. The most notable is the blanket of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation, largely microwave radiation generated for wireless communication and surveillance technologies, as mounting scientific evidence suggests that prolonged exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation has serious biological and health effects. However, public exposure regulations in most countries continue to be based on the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
    and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which were established in the 1990s on the belief that only acute thermal effects are hazardous. Prevention of tissue heating by radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation is now proven to be ineffective in preventing biochemical and physiological interference…SNIP

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    • 08 DEC 18

    Compliance Problems for 5G rollout detailed in new technical paper

    From Cindy Sage:

    A newly released paper by Esra Neufeld and Niels Kuster identifies serious compliance problems for the 5G millimeter wave rollout and says existing IEEE and ICNIRP safety guidelines urgently need to be revised.

    Cindy Sage

    SYSTEMATIC DERIVATION OF SAFETY LIMITS FOR TIME-VARYING 5G RADIOFREQUENCY EXPOSURE BASED ON ANALYTICAL MODELS AND THERMAL DOSE.

    Health Physics, December 2018, Volume 115, Number 6

    Esra Neufeld1 and Niels Kuster1,2 Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT’IS), Zeughausstrasse 43, 8004 Zurich, Switzerland; 2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.

    The paper says is that permanent tissue damage from heating may occur even after short exposures
    to 5G millimeter wave pulse trains (where repetitive pulses can cause rapid, localized heating).

    It says there is an urgent need for new thermal safety standards to address the kind of health risks possible with this new technology…SNIP

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    • 04 DEC 18

    US Senator presses FCC Commissioner to Disclose his claim of evidence of 5G Safety

    Excerpt:
    From Business Wire:

    Blumenthal Presses FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to Disclose Evidence of ‘5G Safety’
    December 03, 2018 05:43 PM Eastern Standard Time

    WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy (NISLAPP) applauds Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) for pressing FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Esq. to provide documentation substantiating the Commissioner’s remarks defending ‘5G safety.’

    “clear direction, talking points, studies that have been done that show that there is no harm to our constituents and to the taxpayers on putting these small cells on towers close to libraries, close to schools, close to their homes.”

    NISLAPP seconds this request. Jim Turner, Esq., President of NISLAPP, says:

    “NISLAPP considers it a mistake to place new high-frequency radiating antennas in local communities, in very close proximity to homes, offices and schools, when no pre-market health testing at scale has been conducted on the effects of the radiation emitted, to our knowledge, and when much safer hard-wired internet access technologies are readily available. We strongly support Senator Blumenthal’s request of FCC Commissioner Carr to provide the documentation evidencing the FCC’s ‘safety determination for 5G,’ along with the supporting scientific citations used in making that determination.”…SNIP

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    • 30 NOV 18

    The Insect Apocalypse Is Here: What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?

    The New York Times Magazine

    By Brooke Jarvis, Nov. 27, 2018

    Excerpt

    Sune Boye Riis was on a bike ride with his youngest son, enjoying the sun slanting over the fields and woodlands near their home north of Copenhagen, when it suddenly occurred to him that something about the experience was amiss. Specifically, something was missing. It was summer. He was out in the country, moving fast. But strangely, he wasn’t eating any bugs. For a moment, Riis was transported to his childhood on the Danish island of Lolland, in the Baltic Sea. Back then, summer bike rides meant closing his mouth to cruise through thick clouds of insects, but inevitably he swallowed some anyway. When his parents took him driving, he remembered, the car’s windshield was frequently so smeared with insect carcasses that you almost couldn’t see through it. But all that seemed distant now. He couldn’t recall the last time he needed to wash bugs from his windshield; he even wondered, vaguely, whether car manufacturers had invented some fancy new coating to keep off insects. But this absence, he now realized with some alarm, seemed to be all around him. Where had all those insects gone? And when? And why hadn’t he noticed?…SNIP

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    • 29 NOV 18

    A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

    The New York Times

    By Nellie Bowle, Oct. 26, 2018

    Excerpt
    SAN FRANCISCO – The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them.

    A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.

    “Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little,” said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. “If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more.”…SNIP

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    • 22 NOV 18

    Telstra launches its first 5G-enabled sites in Tasmania

    Excerpt:
    Media Release

    Telstra launches its first 5G-enabled sites in Tasmania

    Embargoed until 8am 22 November 2018 – Telstra has switched on two 5G-enabled base stations
    in Launceston, bringing 5G technology to Tasmania for the first time.

    Speaking at the TasICT Industry Breakfast in Hobart, Telstra’s Network Engineering Executive, Mr
    Channa Seneviratne, said the sites, at Invermay and Norwood, marked an important milestone in Telstra’s
    5G network strategy.

    “This is an exciting first step for our 5G rollout in Tasmania with Launceston now among the first cities in
    Australia to have sites upgraded with 5G technology,” Mr Seneviratne said. “This investment is part of our planning to bring 5G services to as many of our customers as possible once 5G compatible devices are commercially available next year. “Telstra is leading the Australian market on 5G with a series of world and Australian firsts in 5G testing and network development and over the coming months we will continue expanding our 5G roadmap with plans to roll out to more capital cities, regional centres and other high demand areas across Australia.” SNIP

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    • 14 NOV 18

    There’s a clear cell phone-cancer link, but FDA is downplaying it

    Excerpts: Ronald Melnick, Opinion Contributor, The Hill, Nov 13, 2018
    A recent study by the National Toxicology Program/National Institutes of Health (NTP/NIH) shows clear evidence of a causal link between cancer and exposure to wireless cell phone signals. Results from the $30 million NTP studies demonstrated that cell phone radiation caused Schwann cell cancers of the heart and brain gliomas in rats, as well as DNA damage in the brain….Exposure levels in the brains of rats in the NTP study were similar to or only slightly higher than the FCC’s limit for maximum permissible exposure to local tissue exposures from cell phones held next to the head. This point is most important because, when an individual uses a cell phone, body tissues located nearest to the cell phone antenna receive much higher exposures than parts of the body that are located distant from the antenna….The FDA needs to fulfill the intent of their nomination to the NTP and conduct a quantitative risk assessment so that the FCC can develop health-protective exposure standards…. Also, health concerns for children may be greater than that for adults due to increased penetration of cell phone radiation within the brains of children. Simply ignoring the cancer data from the NTP studies is not in the interest of public health. Because of the widespread use of cell phones among the general public, even a small increase in cancer risk would have a serious public health impact.

    An important lesson that should be learned from the NTP studies is that we can no longer assume that any current or future wireless technology, including 5G, is safe without adequate testing. SNIP

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    • 08 NOV 18

    Petition: Stop Mobile Towers Staining our World Heritage Landscapes:

    From Melissa Hallett
    Stop Mobile Towers Staining our World Heritage Landscapes: Wollumbin (Mt Warning), Border Ranges, Nightcap Range, Mullumbimby, Byron Bay & surrounding Hinterlands.

    To all on the EMFacts list:

    I have been working on behalf of our regional community residents regarding our concerns for the saturation of mobile phone towers being proposed within our World Heritage parks and the surrounding landscapes ; of the Northern rivers, NSW. Our World heritage region between the majestic Wollumbin (Mt warning) the Border Ranges and across to the Nightcap & McPherson range, spreads also out over the Queensland border into the lamington ranges and way back across to Byron Bay and more. “These rainforests hold half of Australia’s plant species” (National Geographic). These regions have existing ongoing cultural and ceremonial significant heritage for the Bundjalung Nation. Many of these mobile phone towers are being placed in environmentally sensitive areas within the caldera of these magnificent places, imposing on the corridors that connect and enable wildlife that seek out food, breeding migration and pollination between these places which are of complex and ancient biodiversity. We want to stop these massive towers going up. They are staining the very integrity of these landscapes…SNIP

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    • 08 NOV 18

    How the Tech Industry Uses Psychology to Hook Children

    Excerpt:
    From Psychology Today
    How the Tech Industry Uses Psychology to Hook Children
    Why do kids struggle to look up from devices? The answer is persuasive design.

    Posted Oct 24, 2018 Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D.,

    This guest post is written by Richard Freed, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age, and Meghan Owenz, Ph.D., assistant teaching professor at Penn State University and founder of ScreenFreeParenting.com.
    Excerpt:

    “Something’s wrong with my son. He won’t spend time with us, won’t do his homework… all he wants to do is be in his room and play his game.”

    Parents, educators, and health professionals around the world are expressing frustration and alarm that children are being lost to video games, social media, and phones. What’s vital to understand is that children’s fixation with gadgets and entertainment applications is by design. Actually, a relatively new concept called persuasive design.

    Persuasive design has been in the news a lot recently. Put simply, persuasive design is the practice of combining psychology and technology to change people’s behavior. Gadgets and applications are developed by psychologists and other user experience (UX) researchers who apply behavioral change techniques to manipulate users. The concept can sound scary, however, these techniques can be used to encourage positive behaviors, such as exercise, healthy eating, and smoking cessation…SNIP

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    • 02 NOV 18

    Cell Phone Radiation Leads to Cancer, Says U.S. NTP in Final Report Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

    From Louis Slesin, Microwave News:

    Excerpt:
    November 1, 2018

    “We believe that the link between radiofrequency (RF) radiation and tumors in male rats is real,” says John Bucher, the former associate director of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP).

    The announcement accompanies this morning’s release of the NTP final reports of studies on cancer in rats and mice exposed to cell phone radiation. Bucher’s project, the largest in NTP history, cost $30 million and took more than ten years to complete….SNIP

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    • 01 NOV 18

    Aggressive Brain Tumors Tell a Story

    From Louis Slesin, Microwave News:
    Location, Location, Location, Aggressive Brain Tumors Tell a Story
    GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

    This one is important.

    A U.K. epidemiologist has confirmed that glioblastoma (GBM), the most aggressive type of brain tumor, is on the rise in England. Frank de Vocht of the University of Bristol is reporting that he sees a significant and consistent increase in GBM in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain over the last 20-30 years.

    Alasdair Philips, an independent researcher based in Scotland, first documented the increase last March.

    But when it comes to the cause, they see things differently. De Vocht says it can’t be cell phones. Philips can’t think what else it could be. To make his case, Philips sent me a graph of GBM by location in the brain in England over the last 20 years.

    Please take a look. I think you’ll agree: It looks like we have a public health problem on our hands.

    Louis Slesin

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    • 28 OCT 18

    Hacking a Smart Meter and Killing the Grid

    Excerpts
    The following article raises the very real possibility that smart meters and the smart grid itself could be hacked and disabled by rogue chips embedded into electronic circuit boards. A prime suspect in this is China, where most of the equipment is made. This should be of the upmost concern to the Australian government considering the significant penetration of Chinese companies in Australia’s power grids as reported the ABC report: “Chinese investment in Australia’s power grid explained:…SNIP
    Nick Hunn of Creative Connectivity published an article this month entitled, “How to Hack a Smart Meter and Kill the Grid … And then all the lights went out.” Hunn says his new article is one he “would have preferred not to write” but felt obligated to issue a formal warning before “the lights go out.” Hunn is more convinced than ever that evidence now exists that rogue chips may be embedded into electronic circuit boards during the manufacturing process, such as those contained within utility smart meters. Smart meters can be considered high value targets for hackers due to the existence of the “remote disconnect” feature included as an option for most smart meters deployed today. Read on…

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