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EMFacts Blog

    • 19 JUN 13

    Magda Havas on the Royal Society of Canada’s ‘Krewskigate’ scandal

    Subversion of Science: Royal Society of Canada panel with conflict of interest to review Safety Code 6!

    June 18, 2013. Finally a medical authority reveals what goes on behind closed doors!

    By Magda Havas

    Paul Christopher Webster wrote an article for the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) revealing conflict of interest for one member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) panel asked to review Health Canada’s Safety Code 6. This story was also covered by The Star and Sun Media.

    Daniel Krewski who is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ontario and Director of the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre, failed to disclose to the society that he had a $126 000 contract in 2008–2009 from Industry Canada. According to the Merx public tender document, Krewski’s contract was to ‘assist in addressing what the Department believes is opposition often based on misperception and misinformation’ with respect to cellphone antennas. Krewski appears in a Health Canada video where he downplays the potentially harmful effects of Wi-Fi in schools. In this video Krewski states: “Of the literally thousands of papers that have been written on this topic, very few have suggested health concerns and all of that information needs to be taken into account when reaching an overall conclusion.”

    SNIP

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    • 19 JUN 13

    More on Daniel Krewski’s conflict of Interest

    Cellphones and health: Panel chair accused of conflict
    Canadian Medical Association Journal says professor on panel had been hired to work for Industry Canada.

    By: Noor Javed News reporter, Staff Reporter, Published on Tue Jun 18 2013

    Excerpt

    The chair of a panel tasked with reviewing guidelines around the potential health risks of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from wireless technology may be replaced for not declaring a conflict of interest.

    On Tuesday, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published findings that University of Ottawa professor Daniel Krewski had been hired to work for Industry Canada in 2008, to help develop a “Communication Strategy for Radiofrequency Fields Risk.”

    Krewski is the chair of a Royal Society of Canada panel tasked with conducting an independent expert assessment of Health Canada’s standards around radiofrequency emissions, known as Safety Code 6. The panel, made up of eight experts in the field, will assess whether Health Canada guidelines for human exposure to RF emissions should be updated. The report is due out this fall.
    SNIP

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    • 19 JUN 13

    Canadian Medical Association exposes undeclosed conflict of interest with chairmam of a wireless safety panel

    The Royal Society of Canada will reconsider its decision to appoint a University of Ottawa professor to chair a panel that will assess the safety of radiowave-emitting devices such as cellular phones, following a CMAJ investigation that reveals a potential conflict-of-interest.

    The society’s decision comes after CMAJ informed it that Daniel Krewski, who is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ontario and Director of the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre, failed to disclose to the society that he had a $126 000 contract in 2008–2009 from Industry Canada. According to the Merx public tender document, Krewski’s contract was to “assist in addressing what the Department believes is opposition often based on misperception and misinformation” with respect to cellphone antennas.
    SNIP

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    • 18 JUN 13

    Will smart meters also be providing municipal Wi-FI?

    Imagine this: You get an official letter from your local government authority notifying you that the government has decided to provide a free Wi-Fi network throughout the municipality and as part of the roll-out you are going to have a Wi-Fi transmitter installed on your home without your consent. This would be a sure way to provoke widespread public outrage if introduced in this manner. However, if the following comes to fruition, this is exactly what will happen. Now your smart meter will be transmitting even more frequently depending upon how many people are using the Wi-Fi network at any given time. AND you will have no say in how your home is used.

    Death by a thousand cuts……..
    ‘SNIP

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    • 17 JUN 13

    Mobile phone use and breast cancer

    From Joel Moskowitz

    TV news report, “Keeping cell phone in bra may lead to breast cancer,” wins award

    Last night this news report by KTVU News (Oakland, CA) won a Northern California Emmy Award in the Special Assignment category.

    The producer and reporter who won this award have done several stories on cell phone radiation health effects. Congratulations to Sharon Navratil and John Fowler!
    SNIP

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    • 16 JUN 13

    Canada’s Safety Code 6 Review Panel Significantly Conflicted

    From Citizens for Safe Technology (C4ST)

    Excerpt

    Health Canada has updated Safety Code 6 and is employing an “Independent” panel to review its work. It hired the Royal Society of Canada, which has strict guidelines to protect against conflict of interest, to conduct the panel. But the conflict of interest guidelines have been relaxed for selecting the academically credentialed panel. Some members turn out to have financial relationships with companies, industry associations and lobby groups which are directly affected by the outcome of this panel review. At the same time, some of them have consistently published material and statements demonstrating predetermined viewpoints that they don’t believe published evidence showing that humans are in danger well below the existing safety threshold published in Safety Code 6. The selection of a significantly conflicted panel is unlikely to make decisions to protect Canadians. We are concerned that the results are predetermined.

    SNIP

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    • 14 JUN 13

    You really are addicted to your cellphone

    In her 2011 book Disconnect, National Book Award finalist, former senior White House health advisor and internationally regarded epidemiologist Devra Davis revealed that the cellphone industry is knowingly exposing us to dangerous levels of electromagnetic radiation. No small problem when you consider that of the roughly 7 billion people on this planet, about 6 billion of us now use mobile phones.

    In a recent analysis for the Huffington Post, Davis examined the cellphone industry’s long-term strategy, devised in the early ’90s, to deal with studies showing cellphone radiation damages DNA: “war-game the science.” Noted in a 1994 Motorola memo, this strategy, wrote Davis, “remains alive and well” today, the latest example occurring just last month. When the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published newly detailed documentation for its yearlong 2011 expert review–which declared cellphone radiation a “possible human carcinogen” (same as lead and DDT)–the multi-trillion-dollar cellular industry responded by citing a new dubious report out of Taiwan.

    SNIP

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    • 14 JUN 13

    Cleanup From Fukushima Daiichi: Technological Disaster Or Crisis In Governance?

    By Art Keller

    Excerpt:

    More than 19,000 Japanese drowned, their bodies scattered on Japan’s eastern shores when a tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. Kevin Wang wanted to help, and his Anaheim, Califonia-based company, PowerPlus, had the cleaning know-how to handle almost anything. Wang has spent decades developing equipment to clean up almost every sort of nasty gunk in existence, from massive oil spills, to radiological contamination, to dead bodies in quantity.

    Immediately after the tsunami, Wang visited the Japanese consul general in Los Angeles to offer his company’s assistance in dealing the huge threat to public health posed by this mass casualty event. The response by Japan’s consul-general made Wang’s jaw drop. “Absolutely not,” the consul replied, continuing on with rejection language so brusque, Wang had no doubt his offer was taken as an insult.

    SNIP

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    • 13 JUN 13

    Commentary on the BioEm conference, Thessaloniki, Greece by Dariusz Leszczynski

    This month, BioEM2013, a joint scientific meeting of the Bioelectromagnetcis Society (BEMS) and the European Bio-Electromagnetics Association (EBEA) was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, and the proceedings were recorded by Dariusz Leszczynski on his blog, Between A Rock and a Hard Place. Highly recommended reading. Here are the links up to June 12:
    SNIP

    Don

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    • 13 JUN 13

    Customers Sue Edison and PG@E Over Health Effects From Smart Meters/Smart grid

    The law firms of David Kyle and Paul Overett have filed suit against SCE Edison and PG@E for health effects from smart meters/smart grid and will host a press conference on Wed. June 12th, 12:00 PM at 5150 E. Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90804.

    A total of 16 plaintiffs, 10 SCE Edison and 6 PG@E with health effects ranging from headaches, loss of energy and ringing in the ears to cancer, heart attacks and medical implant interference/defibrillator shut offs, are holding those responsible for the new wireless digital meters accountable. Also named in the lawsuit are smart meter distribution companies, Corix and Wellington and smart meter manufacturers, Itron and Landis and Gyr, with possibly more defendants to be added as the suit progresses. Health effects associated with smart meters and smart grid have been reported all over the country, but because of the 3.4 billion dollars in federal stimulus grants offered utility companies in exchange for smart meter installation, these complaints have largely been ignored. Also ignoring the complaints of health effects was CPUC president Michael Peevey, who served as president of Edison for over a decade.
    SNIP

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    • 11 JUN 13

    What does an electronic countermeasures (ECM) backpack look like?

    In response to the Channel 10 News report (last two messages) the Australian military has requested that Channel 10 refrain from focussing on individual systems, meaning the EMC backpacks. To quote in part:

    “For operational security reasons, defence cannot provide details on the configuration, operation or employment of these systems. This approach limits our adversaries’ ability to access information which may enhance their efforts to attack our personnel. Similarly, Defense will not provide focused imagery of these essential items because to do so may assist our adversary to defeat the protection they offer. For this reason we ask that Channel 10 does not specifically focus on the employment of individual systems.”

    However Sam Milham, risking violating someone’s official secrets act and upsetting the NSA, has sent in a link to such an item, manufactured by a firm in India.
    SNIP

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    • 11 JUN 13

    Channel 10 news on the military ECM cancer issue (last message)

    Further to the last message, to view the Channel 10 News story on the Australian soldier who died of cancer (last message) go to the website and scroll through the video menu for: “Combat cancer?” and the predictable “Defence statement on cancer” http://ten.com.au/news.htm

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    • 10 JUN 13

    Did Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) kill Australian soldier Kevin Dillion?

    Just aired tonight on Australian Channel 10 News is a breaking story of Australian soldier Kevin DIllon who died in his late 20’s from cancer. The story did not elaborate on what type of cancer but his family believes it was caused by the high power electronic counter measures (ECM) backpack that he carried on patrol in Afghanistan.The Australian Medical Association and Rear Admiral Robyn Walker has publicly indicated they are willing to look into this.

    An important case but watch the spin merchants try to cover this one up. Like what they did with the unfortunate civilian workers who were zapped doing a radar upgrade of the PC3 Hawker de Haviland Orions at the RAAF base in South Australia in the late 1990’s. But that’s another story…..

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    • 09 JUN 13

    Google spending millions to influence smart grid regulations

    Following up on previous messages to this list: “The Future According to Google”, and “Julian Assange on what the “smart” revolution is REALLY all about”, here is more on Google’s central role in pushing for grid technology. Nice to see that Google is providing a $2.65 million grant to the “Energy Foundation” to promote the smart grid. Check out the various links on the Energy Foundation website. Clever move for Google, provide generous funding to foundations promoting programs for sustainable prosperity and preventing dangerous climate change to get the environmental movement on-side. Looks suspiciously like a $2.65 million investnent in “Greenwashing” in my opinion.

    Don

    “Like many firms before it, Google has come to realize that policy and regulation are the biggest obstacles to grid modernization. As Michael Terrell, one of the firm’s senior lobbyists explains on a company blog, “the challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century’s grid.”
    SNIP

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    • 08 JUN 13

    EMR and Health report

    From Lyn McLean, EMR Australia:

    Earlier this year, in a ground-breaking legal case, an Australian man was awarded compensation for injuries received from exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR). This important case has implications for workers and employers, and for the authorities who regulate workplace safety and Australian & international standards.

    You might also be interested to hear that there is now evidence linking mobile phone use with ADHD and brain tumours. International scientists have spoken out about the risks of wireless radiation and called for precautions. And there is fascinating research that an electric sense underlies the process of pollination – and therefore life.
    SNIP

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    • 07 JUN 13

    U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

    The following has direct implications to smart technology. Imagine the treasure trove of information available for “intelligence mining” with the smart grid and all those Wi-Fi enabled appliances, such as WI-See, uploading their data to a wireless cloud somewhere.

    Don

    U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

    By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, Friday, June 7, 7:43 AM

    The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

    The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before.

    SNIP

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    • 06 JUN 13

    The Wi-Fi in your home will be able to track your moves

    With this “Smart” technology your electricity provider (and their owners in Singapore if you happen to live in Victoria, Aust.) will be able to do far more than know which appliances you are using in a smart grid enabled home. Bathed in a sea of Wi-Fi microwaves, your family’s very movements can be monitored and data collected.

    The mind boggles with the implications…thinking of having a sexy night in the sanctity of your bedroom? With “WiSee” technology someone may be seeing your every move and perhaps later sent you a text message on your smart phone advertising relevant sex aids, etc. …… If you want some privacy at least line the toilet with copper mesh…… or throw the damn WI-fi in the trash if you can bare to live without it.

    Don

    The Wi-Fi in your home can track your moves like Xbox Kinect
    Devin Coldewey NBC News

    Want to switch off the living room lights from bed, change channels while washing dishes, or turn the heat up from the couch? A team at the University of Washington has rigged a standard Wi-Fi home network to detect your movements anywhere in the home and convert them into commands to control connected devices.

    Gesture recognition is the latest fad in games and tech, but even the newest systems require high-tech depth-sensing cameras or other special hardware. Microsoft’s new Kinect, for instance, uses a photon-measuring method called “time of flight” sensing that was, until the Kinect was announced, limited to high-tech laboratories. And Kinect isn’t small, either.

    UW computer science students, led by assistant professor Shyam Gollakota, looked at the gesture-detection puzzle another way – specifically, how people affect the environment they’re already in.

    Our bodies distort the Wi-Fi signals we use to beam information to and from our laptops and phones. By watching those signals very closely, the team could determine not just what room you’re in, but where you’re standing and how you’re moving your body. They call the system WiSee.
    SNIP

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    • 04 JUN 13

    The Future According to Google

    We should be skeptical when reading books about the future. We should be outright incredulous if the authors expect to make money out of it. Eric Schmidt, co-author of this particular look ahead, is the executive chairman of Google and Jared Cohen is the director of Google Ideas.

    On top of that the first two pages of their book consist of lengthy and euphoric endorsements by, among others, Richard Branson, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. This is not just hype, it’s a sign that the global establishment wants us to believe in the Schmidt-Cohen vision or, at least, to accept its inevitability.
    SNIP
    Hard to read as it may be, this is an important book, partly as an account of what may happen, but mainly as a picture of the present mind-set of Silicon Valley. As such, its undeniable seriousness is undercut by a touch of parochialism and a lot of, perhaps unconscious, intellectual confusion, primarily hinging on that issue of the neutrality or otherwise of the technology. Read but never forget that Google wants not just to sell you stuff but also to make sure you have no choice but to buy.
    SNIP

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    • 04 JUN 13

    Julian Assange on what the “smart” revolution is REALLY all about

    June 1, 2013

    The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’
    By JULIAN ASSANGE

    Excerpt

    “THE New Digital Age” is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas. The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign policy….The authors offer an expertly banalized version of tomorrow’s world: the gadgetry of decades hence is predicted to be much like what we have right now – only cooler. “Progress” is driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth. Already, every day, another million or so Google-run mobile devices are activated. Google will interpose itself, and hence the United States government, between the communications of every human being not in China (naughty China)…..This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century,” they tell us, “technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st.” Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces – forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy.

    SNIP

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    • 04 JUN 13

    Increasing incidence of burnout due to magnetic and electromagnetic fields

    Increasing incidence of burnout due to magnetic and electromagnetic fields of cell phone networks and other wireless communication technologies

    Ulrich Warnke and Peter Hensinger

    Abstract: Burnout syndrome (BOS) is a psychosomatic stress disorder. Exogenous stress leads to oxidative cellular stress, the formation of excessive reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species, and reaction products (ROS/RNS). This then leads to mitochondrial metabolic dysfunction, which results in a lack of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and subsequently in a diminished performance of cells. Lack of ATP is a crucial factor in BOS, as well as in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). A crucial element in the multisystem disease BOS is inflammation as a consequence of nitrosative and oxidative stress,
    SNIP

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