This is the 11th installment of the Canadian SWEEP Initiative e-bulletin (Safe
Wireless, Electric and Electromagnetic Policy). This newsletter serves as a
roundup of what has been occurring on the EMF/EMR awareness and advocacy front
in Canada. Please send me Canadian links and stories.
SWEEP is assisted by the Breast Cancer Research and Education Fund of Niagara:
we couldn't do this without your foresight and generous support.
*Please return to sender with a brief note if you wish to be removed from this
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Just a brief midweek message.
1. ONLINE RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH OLLE JOHANSSON AVAILABLE FOR ONE WEEK ONLY,
submitted by Don Maisch and Robert Reidlinger
2. WIRELESS COMPANIES DEAL WITH INSURANCE ISSUES, submitted by Milt Bowling
3. THOUGHTS BY SUSAN FOSTER AMBROSE, submitted by Magda Havas
4. ARTICLES ON EM POLLUTION AND AMALGAM FILLINGS, submitted by Anna Jonsson
5. VIDEO ABOUT RF ELECTROSMOG MADE BY SAN FRANCISO NEIGHBORHOOD ANTENNA FREE
UNION
NOTES:
I have heard recently from numerous ES folks who read the piece in the Toronto
Star. Most of these individuals are living in isolation and near-despair from
long periods, in some cases decades, without any support or electrosensitive
peers. Many of these people don’t use computers. If any of you ES folks out
there would like to reach out to them, please contact me, they have given me
their permission to give out phone numbers to other ES people.
And also, apologies to Shivani for not advertising in suffifient time your
online interviews in the US. Please send me links to download this interview if
they exist.
1. ONLINE RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH OLLE JOHANSSON AVAILABLE FOR ONE WEEK ONLY,
submitted by Don Maisch and Robert Reidlinger
http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=11398
>From KFPA in in San Francisco
2. WIRELESS PHONE COMPANIES DEAL WITH RADIATION-RELATED CASES, , submitted by
Milt Bowling
Underwriter.ca Canada’s Insurance and Risk Magazine 10/31/2005
Five class-action lawsuits, originally introduced and dismissed in 2004, against
wireless telephone companies over radiation emissions will be able to go
forward, after the U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to
hear an appeal by the companies.
The lawsuits are seeking money for wireless users to buy a headset or reimburse
those who had already had purchased one.
The appeal, made by two-dozen defendant manufacturers such as Motorola, Nokia,
Nextel Communications, Sprint and Cingular Wireless, challenging the lawsuit
which claimed these companies were aware but covered up risks associated to
wireless phone is based on the fact that the companies say their handsets are
in compliance with federal regulations. The US Federal Communications
Commission Federal Communications Commission must approve any device that sends
out frequency radiation that is emitted by wireless phones as exposure to high
levels can cause adverse health effects from headaches to tumors according to
health advocates. The impact of low level radiation exposure is however less
clear.
The U.S. government however reports that scientific evidence has yet to indicate
instances of wireless phone related health problems.
If the lawsuits are won, the wireless industry may have to begin to adhere to
numerous different emissions requirements imposed by states.
In their appeal to the high court the companies said, "this court's intervention
is necessary to prevent the balkanisation of network standards ... which will,
if uncorrected, undermine the ability of consumers to use an FCC-approved
wireless telephone in every state of the union."
Currently, one lawsuit is set to commence in federal court whereas the other
four lawsuits will be heard in state court.
3. THOUGHTS BY SUSAN FOSTER AMBROSE, submitted by Magda Havas
Very interesting thoughts you shared with Tyler. I agree on all points, and
would like to add a thought re your mention of trying to identify the
mechanism:we have yet to determine is what the mechanism of action is and we
have a number of clues about that as well.
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My best source at the FCC refers to this every time we discuss (& sometimes
disagree) on the hazards of RF radiation. He tells me many of the scientists
at FCC realize there is a connection between exposure to RF radiation and many
of the neurological symptoms we have discussed with respect to the
firefighters. Yet he has repeatedly said until we understand the mechanism
that is the key for understanding physiological changes to non-thermal RF
radiation, it is essentially not considered by the US government to be a
problem.
I’m so glad to hear you have a number of clues. Please encourage all your
colleagues to look quickly and fervently as the mechanism seems to be the key
that might unlock the door of denial promulgated by both our governments.
Yet isn’t it silly – and quite inhumane – to not advise avoidance as you
suggest simply because the mechanism hasn’t been convincingly identified?
Isn’t that like letting babies walk off a diving board (excuse the graphic
example) into freezing cold water in the deep end of a swimming pool? Without
rescue, surely the babies will drown. Now will they die from hypothermia,
because of the lower body temperature? Or will they die because they aspirate
water and their lungs quickly fill with water? Or will their hearts stop from
the sudden shock of cold and fear combined?
We can stand around debating exactly why babies walking off diving board into
deep, freezing waters die, but the point is if we keep the children away from
the pool in the first place we know they won’t die. If one or two creep to the
edge and fall in, we can rescue them – mechanism be damned – by pulling them
out of the water.
It’s simple logic. It’s so simple it painful that more isn’t being done to help
people. We must borrow a page from the 50+ year history of Multiple Chemical
Sensitivity. 50 years ago Dr. Theron Randolph of Chicago, Illinois recognized
that some people with seemingly incurable and inexplicable symptoms (much like
ES) were sensitive to chemicals in the environment. He advised avoidance of
all chemicals possible – changing environments, eating and drinking habits – so
that the body could hopefully recover to a degree, though he felt the
sensitivity could always be aggravated by over-exposure again, even in small
amounts. His crazy approach is now considered ingenious by many.
Likewise, look at why some people become ill from exposure to neurotoxic
chemicals, such as pesticides and many household cleaners. There is a triple
mechanism at work here:
I strongly suspect the same holds true for people with sensitivity to
electricity. One good overdose of dirty electricity and one may be
“sensitized” for life.
We must offer a hand to those who have fallen in the deep end of the pool, and
keep looking for the mechanism if that is what it takes to satisfy the policy
makers that “deep water kills babies” and other such metaphors.
The HPA report falls short of connecting the dots of logic, it seems to me. It
errs on the side of not offending a certain part of the scientific community.
I say we look very hard at what we do have, not what is lacking. What really
seems to be lacking here is compassion for people whose genetic make-up doesn’t
allow them to adapt to the lightening-speed changes of the 21st century. These
people with ES don’t need cognitive therapy, and I say that with an appropriate
level of graduate training in psychology. They need avoidance techniques and
people like you, Magda, who can help their 20th century bodies live in a 21st
century EMF world.
Keep up the great work,
Susan
4. ARTICLES ON DENTAL AMALGAM AND EM POLLUTION, submitted by Anna Jonsson
My article on dental amalgam has been published in the Health Action
Magazine, page 24.
http://www.hans.org/newsletters/
Milt Bowling wrote an EMF article on government inaction, page 20.
Anna
5. VIDEO ABOUT RF ELECTROSMOG MADE BY SAN FRANCISO NEIGHBORHOOD ANTENNA FREE
UNION
Go to http://www.antennafreeunion.org/ and click on ‘documentary.’
Bad Reception
"the Wireless Revolution in San Francisco"
produced and directed by Doug Loranger
co-produced by Gordon Winiemko
2003. 56:50 minutes
More images
The dot-com era in San Francisco provoked responses from the activist community
over live-work lofts, illegal evictions, and the displacement of working people
and artists from their traditional communities. Less widely reported was the
response by ordinary residents to another by-product of this technological
revolution -- the proliferation of wireless antennas to feed the booming use of
cell phones throughout the city.
Spurred by credible but often suppressed scientific research, San Francisco
residents formed the San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) to
resist the potentially hazardous placement of wireless antennas near their
homes, schools and health care centers. This conceptually fascinating one-hour
documentary follows SNAFU as a growing number of grassroots volunteers takes on
one of the most powerful corporate entities in the world.
Providing insight into similar struggles throughout the United States and across
the globe makes "Bad Reception: the Wireless Revolution in San Francisco" a
timely and uplifting look at the local face of an international movement to
safeguard individual freedom, personal choice and the safety of our health and
environment, followed by discussion with the producers and invited guests.
--
Dr. David Fancy
Department of Dramatic Arts
Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario,
Canada L2S 3A1
tel: 905-688-5550 ext 3584
fax: 905-984-4861