ASOCIACI�N VALLISOLETANA DE AFECTAD@S POR LAS ANTENAS DE TELEFON�A

Electrosensitivity: is technology killing us?

AB — 2013-04-03T16:06:36Z

Electrosensitivity: is technology killing us?

Is modern life making us ill? Yes, say those who suffer from electrosensitivity. Are they cranks, or should we all be throwing away our mobile phones?

Tim Hallam is just tall enough to seem gangly. His height makes the bedroom feel even smaller than it is. Muddy sunlight filters through the grey gauze hung over his window. His narrow bed appears to be covered with a glistening silver mosquito net. The door and the ceiling are lined with tinfoil. Tim tells me there is also a layer of foil beneath the wallpaper and under the wood-effect flooring. He says, "The room is completely insulated; the edges are sealed with aluminium tape and connected with conducting tape so I could ground the whole room. It's a Faraday cage, effectively. Grounding helps with the low frequencies radiation, apparently. The high frequencies just bounce off the outside."

Tim is trying to escape atmospheric manmade radiation caused by Wi-Fi, phone signals, radio, even TV screens and fluorescent bulbs. It's a hopeless task, he admits: "It's so hard to get away from, and it's taken a toll on my life." I offer to put my phone outside the room and he happily accepts, firmly closing the door. He explains the phone would have kept searching for a signal. "And because it wouldn't find one, it would keep ramping up." With the tinfoil inside his cage, the signal would hurtle around the room like a panicked bird.

Tim estimates he spent �1,000 on the insulation, taking photographs at every stage to share with others via ElectroSensitivity UK, the society for sufferers. He found the whole process stressful, especially after a summer sleeping in the garden of his shared house in Leamington Spa to escape a new flatmate's powerful Wi-Fi router. How did he feel about the flatmate at the time? "Oh, I hated him. It wasn't really him, of course. But I was so angry." Among the symptoms Tim experiences - headaches, muscular pain, dry eyes - there are memory lapses and irritability. He now says his bed is the single most important thing he owns. "I climb in and zip it up so I'm completely sealed. Inside, I sleep extremely well. Without it, my sleep is fragmented, and without sleep, then lots of other things go wrong."

Tim demonstrates the effectiveness of the tinfoil using a radiation detector called Elektrosmog, manufactured in Germany. It is blocky and white, which makes it look both retro and futuristic. On the front of the box, a picture of an electricity pylon is surrounded by jagged black lightning flashes. The machine gives a reading close to zero: Tim's room is radiation-free.

As a child in the 70s, I watched a BBC science-fiction serial called The Changes, which imagined a future after humans became allergic to electricity. Pylons were the greatest danger, making people violently sick. On cross-country runs, I would speed up when I had to pass beneath a power cable, feeling the weight of the buzzing electricity above me. The idea that electromagnetic fields affect our health took root in the 1960s. A US doctor named Robert O Becker became the face of the campaign against pylons after appearing on the US TV show 60 Minutes. Professor Andrew Marino, now of Louisiana State University, was Becker's lab partner. Marino says, "He's the reason nobody wants to live near power lines."

If electromagnetic radiation is dangerous to humans, there are far more risks now than 40 years ago, thanks to the telecommunications industry. More than a billion people worldwide own mobile phones. In the UK, there are more mobile contracts than people. The new 4G spectrum will cover 98% of the country, erasing all but the most remote "not spots".

Dr Mireille Toledano runs Cosmos, a 30-year, five-nation study into the effects of telecoms radiation on humans. She knows how rapidly things are changing. In 2000, a 10-year study into mobile phones and brain tumours pegged heavy use at 30 minutes a day. The study found the 90th percentile had spent 1,640 hours of their lives on their phones. In the UK, Toledano says, "heavy use is now defined at 86 minutes a day; 30 minutes is in the median range. Across the whole [international Cosmos study], the top 10% of users have now clocked up 4,160 or more hours."

The earlier study found no evidence linking phone use and cancer in the short term, yet as our love affair with technology keeps deepening, anxieties grow. Two years ago, the European Assembly passed Resolution 1815, which, among other things, calls for restrictions on Wi-Fi in schools and the use of mobile phones by children. The World Health Organisation has classified electromagnetic fields of the kind used in mobile telephony as Group 2b carcinogens - that is, as possibly cancerous.

The issue of electromagnetic sensitivity is immediately political. It places sufferers on the other side from both industry and the governments that profit from leasing wavelengths. Over and over, I hear the phrase, "We are the canaries in the coal mine": sufferers believe we are approaching a tipping point. Tim Hallam worries about the effects of electromagnetic fields on the most vulnerable: on his sister's young family; on children in schools bathed in Wi-Fi rays; or old people in sheltered accommodation, each with their own internet router. "I think it's affecting everyone's cells. There are test-tube experiments which show it damages DNA and affects the blood-brain barrier. I do think there's going to be a surge in the people who are sensitive in years to come. But my sister's not fully taken that on board."

Yet electro hypersensitivity syndrome is controversial. Sweden recognises EHS as a "functional impairment", or disability, but it is the patients, not doctors, who make the diagnosis. The fact is, everyone who suffers from EHS is self-diagnosed - and each has their own story to explain the cause of their problems.

Tim was 16 years old, at a gig by the industrial band Sheep on Drugs, when the singer produced a pistol and fired blanks into the ceiling. Tim, who is now 36, says, "It was the loudest thing I had ever heard." His ears began ringing but he continued going to gigs without using ear plugs and the problem grew worse. He played clarinet in two orchestras but had to stop: "Immediately, my musical life and my social life ended." Today, his sister is a professional classical musician. Tim, a Cambridge graduate, is a van driver for Asda. He works shifts that allow him time alone when his flatmates are out and the house is free of Wi-Fi and phones. It was the arrival of Wi-Fi in his house, just 10 months ago, that led Tim to identify the cause of his problems, but it was the tinnitus that started it all. Michelle Berriedale-Johnson Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, 65, is wearing a jacket made from a silver-coated material that reduces the strength of electromagnetic fields. Photograph: Thomas Ball

Michelle Berriedale-Johnson has worked in the field of food intolerances and allergies for more than 20 years. She runs the industry awards for "Free From" foods from her home in north-west London, as well as foodsmatter.com, a website that raises awareness around food intolerances. Five years ago, at the age of 60, she began to feel unwell. She was sitting at her desk when she identified the cause. "I looked up and there was the Royal Free Hospital with the phone masts on the top, beaming straight through my window, and it just clicked." Michelle is bright and lively, happy to dive beneath her desk to show the precautions she has taken to shield herself from the spaghetti of wires. Her walls are painted with carbon paint, lined with foil and papered over. The windows have the same netting as Tim's, though when she uses her Elektrosmog meter she discovers to her consternation that the netting is old and no longer works. Her front rooms buzz with electromagnetic radiation, though her office - now at the back of the house - shows far better readings. She says, "I'm lucky to work from home, but I often feel like a prisoner." When she leaves the house, she wears hats lined with material similar to Tim's mosquito netting and even has blouses made of the same material. "The important thing is to protect your head and upper torso," she says.

Michelle precisely identifies the moment she became sensitised to radiation. She was an early user of mobile phones. "Do you remember the type with the little aerial? I had one where the antenna had broken off, but I continued to use it pressed to my ear, which people who know tell me meant that I was using my entire head as an aerial." In her view, we are all sensitive to electromagnetic fields, but events can tip us over into hypersensitivity, like a kitchen sink filling so fast that the overflow becomes overwhelmed and water cascades to the floor.

The problem, in clinical terms, is that "hypersensitivity" refers either to allergies or to auto-immune conditions. EHS may be like hay fever or, in extreme cases, like rheumatoid arthritis but only via analogy. If we speak of "hypersensitivity" we are using a metaphor - or we are talking about something entirely new. Does this "new" condition exist?

Long-time researcher Dr Olle Johansson, from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, coined the term "screen dermatitis" to explain why computer users in the depths of the Stockholm winter could complain of sunburn-like symptoms. Johansson has a theory that could explain how extremely high levels of radiation could affect histamine levels in cells. Yet telecoms radiation is low and becoming lower as gadgets become more efficient. Johansson acknowledges that if anyone is found to be truly allergic to their phone it would be an entirely new kind of allergy, but he hopes that an awareness of EHS will lead to revolutionary changes. "In Sweden, we take accessibility measures seriously for disabilities. You think of changes to sidewalks, or wheelchair access, or ramps on buses. These are also helpful to mothers with prams, people with shopping or to rollerskaters. The big winner is everyone." Similarly, he believes that cutting off the telecoms signals would not only help EHS sufferers, it would benefit all of us, returning us to a society based on face-to-face human interaction.

Dr James Rubin of King's College Institute of Psychiatry is adamant EHS is not a genuine syndrome. "With most conditions, patients don't necessarily know what's going on. But with electrosensitivity there's an absolute certainty about the cause. Self-diagnosis is at the core of it." He prefers the term "idiopathic environmental intolerances", or IEI, which covers conditions with no obvious cause, like multiple chemical sensitivity, sick building syndrome, food intolerances - even a physical reaction to wind turbines. "The problem is, if you look for a coherent set of symptoms, you are not going to find it. You even find that people's symptoms change over time. Many have other intolerances in addition to the electrical sensitivity."

Tim is intolerant to milk and gluten. He is also allergic to wool, and cannot sleep in a room with a carpet. Michelle has no intolerances but admits she is unusual in the community: "Most people do." She made her diagnosis because she was familiar with EHS through her work. She is familiar with Rubin's research and has written blogs condemning his methods: "These stupid so-called provocation studies where they place a mobile in your hand and ask if you feel unwell. And if you say yes, they go, ho-ho, the phone wasn't switched on." These tests pay no attention to the way that people are sensitised, or react to their sensitivity in different ways, she believes.

Rubin is a bogeyman in the electrosensitive community thanks to a 2008 paper that suggested the condition was psychosomatic. Yet he has also undertaken a review of all the research - more than 50 provocation studies - and found no evidence of sensitivity to telecoms radiation. He says, "The suffering is very real - I don't doubt that - and I take it very seriously. But we've spent millions on the research and the time comes when you have to say, in the future the money would be better spent on looking for effective treatments, rather than chasing a cause."

Professor Andrew Marino is less sceptical. "When people say they feel unwell and trace that to a Wi-Fi signal or a phone, that is a kind of experiment. It may not be well designed, they may not understand blinds and double blinds, but if they are reasonable people, carefully noting what they are suffering, we should take a look at that."

Marino was a first-year postgraduate in 1964 when he began working with Dr Robert Becker. Once he and Becker began campaigning against electricity pylons, their funding disappeared. Becker retired at the relatively young age of 56. Today, Andrew Marino will not look to industry for research funds. He has reviewed many of the same 50 papers on EHS as Rubin, concluding, "It's easy to find nothing." The common denominator he identified in the papers casting doubt on EHS is that they were funded by the telecommunications industry.

EHS sufferers have criticised Rubin's research because it is funded jointly by mobile phone companies and government. They believe this shows direct bias. Marino's criticism is different. He recognises Rubin's money was placed in a fund and administered by scientists separate from the industry. Yet, he argues, the industry approves funding because statistical modelling of large-scale studies averages out experiences and produces no clear-cut results. Big business is happy to back risk studies, but they favour projects that minimise risk: "You look at the statistics and see the way they design the experiments and they have no ability to find anything."

Rubin's research is statistic-driven. If Rubin is a pollster, then Marino is a canvasser. He believes vast overviews hide the way people really feel. Marino chose to focus on a single sufferer, a female doctor. His two-week study began by first discovering which wavelengths affected her. Once her symptoms had subsided, Marino and his team began again, using provocation studies of real and fake signals. Their results were published as Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity: Evidence For A Novel Neurological Syndrome.

Marino and Rubin have exchanged a series of letters about the study in the Journal Of Neuroscience. If the research stands up, Marino's syndrome is novel because it is unlike other kinds of hypersensitivity. In truth, it depends upon singularity. Marino speaks urgently: "I'm not interested in measuring the prevalence of the syndrome. I want to establish its existence." In his view, humans - complex living organisms - are all different. In the economy of our bodies, Marino says, "causes becomes effects and effects becomes causes which become effects, and so on". It is an endless and unpredictable cycle.

So should we all make radical lifestyle changes, like cutting down our mobile phone use or getting rid of our Wi-Fi?

"Why?" Marino sounds perplexed.

"Because we might get sick."

Marino dismisses the idea. He may disagree vehemently with Rubin, but he views EHS sufferers as outliers, far removed from the average human experience and with few lessons for the rest of us. "Listen, I use an ear bud with my phone, and I minimise use. I don't know if you'd call it radical but I don't have acute reactions to anything. So there's nothing for me to worry about."

Ver la noticia original AQU�

My View: Nothing fake about EMF sensitivity

AB — 2013-03-24T15:44:58Z

My View: Nothing fake about EMF sensitivity By Victoria Jewett | Posted: Saturday, February 23, 2013 7:00 am

Dorothy Klopf's opinion piece, (“Mad science in City Different,” Jan. 27) denigrates an entire class of people about whom she knows nothing.

I work for a national organization that provides desperately needed support to people who, like Arthur Firstenberg, have been sensitized to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and can now barely exist in modern society because of the proliferation of antennas and wireless devices. Hospitals, courthouses, airports, hotels, almost all workplaces, and most other public places are dense with smartphones and Wi-Fi signals and are difficult or impossible for these people to endure, depending on the severity of their disability. We provide referrals to doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals who can serve this population. We are asked almost daily, by a wide range of people, if we know of a safe place where they can relocate, away from radiation. Many are professionals - some doctors and lawyers themselves - who, forced into “retirement,” just want to find a place where they can survive. Many are living in their vehicles in remote places, and, increasingly, cannot find a safe haven anywhere because, contrary to Ms. Klopf's assumption, it is no longer easy to escape the reach of wireless infrastructure. You cannot imagine what life has become for these people who are then also subject to disbelief and disrespect.

This is not pseudoscience. Our organization's library contains more than 1,000 studies showing harm at the cellular and organ levels from even the smallest doses of microwave radiation, and elevated risk for cancer, Alzheimer's, autism, ADD, diabetes, heart disease and sleep disorders. As with any other disease or environmental factor, human beings are extremely variable. Some are much more vulnerable than others. These individuals should not be pilloried. Rather, like the canaries in the coal mine, they are warning us that something is wrong.

We have a letter, dated Oct. 26, 2000, from James Raggio, General Counsel for the U.S. Access Board, the federal agency that administers the Americans with Disabilities Act. He states: “We have heard from thousands of people across the country who are sensitized to chemicals and electromagnetic, radio and cellphone emissions. ... There are many people with these and related disabilities whose condition is so severe that they cannot live in conventional housing.”

In 2011, the Council of Europe unanimously passed a resolution concerning wireless technology. The council, whose mission is protecting human rights, founded the European Court of Human Rights in 1959. The council has now recognized “biological effects on plants, insects and animals as well as the human body,” recommended wired Internet connections in schools, and urged its 47 member nations to “pay particular attention to �electrosensitive' persons suffering from a syndrome of intolerance to electromagnetic fields and introduce special measures to protect them, including the creation of wave-free areas not covered by the wireless network.”

This is outside of most people's paradigm - until it happens to them.

In 2002, Gro Harlem Brundtland, then head of the World Health Organization, told a Norwegian journalist that cellphones were banned from her office in Geneva because she personally became ill if a cellphone was brought within about four meters (13 feet) of her. Brundtland is a medical doctor and former prime minister of Norway. This sensational news, published March 9, 2002, in Dagbladet, was ignored by every other newspaper in the world. Michael Repacholi, her subordinate in charge of the International EMF Project, responded with a public statement belittling her concerns. Five months later, for reasons that many suspect were related to these circumstances, Brundtland announced she would step down from her leadership post at the WHO after just one term.

Victoria Jewett lives in Santa Fe.

Ver el art�culo original AQU�

Alguien hablar� de vosotr@s cuando hay�is muerto

AB — 2013-03-04T21:02:59Z

Alguien hablar� de vosotr@s cuando hay�is muerto 02.03.2013 | 01:32

Adri�n Mart�nez Hace unos d�as recib� una carta de �ngel. Despu�s de leerla, tras epifan�a que atrapa por el bajo vientre y se manifiesta en n�usea, entend� que, fuera de la salud, nada es tan importante como para seguir concedi�ndole la m�s m�nima atenci�n. No, cuando contemplamos c�mo se atiende en este pa�s a los enfermos de fibromialgia, fatiga cr�nica, sensibilidad qu�mica m�ltiple e hipersensibilidad electromagn�tica. As� que estimado Urdangarin y resto de familia; admirado y ubicuo B�rcenas; querida Iglesia, amiga de ni�os y azote de Papas; absorta ministra de Sanidad en su estudio sobre los v�rtices de un confeti; inextinguibles pol�ticos dedicados al en�simo y vacuo discurso del estado actual de su naci�n; deleznables adoradores de u�eros que son extensi�n de unas manos que donde se meten, mierda que sacan; impert�rrito, agotador y corrupto sistema: �v�yanse todos al guano! Nada de lo que ustedes dicen, hacen u ofrecen es importante. Nada justifica su posici�n y sus prebendas. Y mucho menos el que les prestemos siquiera una mirada de perplejidad o sufrimiento. Hay cosas infinitamente m�s importantes �ngel era hijo de �ngela. Esa mujer que decidi� quitarse la vida tras un v�a crucis personal al que algunos diagnosticaron de trastorno psicol�gico cuando lo �nico que le pas� a �ngela es que fue incapaz de encontrar determinadas cosas en una Espa�a que tampoco se encuentra a s� misma: un sitio para vivir alejada de las radiaciones electromagn�ticas de los centros de trasformaci�n, de las subestaciones el�ctricas, de las l�neas de alta tensi�n y de los dispositivos inal�mbricos de comunicaci�n radioel�ctrica como son las antenas de telefon�a, los radares, el Wi-Fi, el wimax, el WLAN y el bluetooth; un m�dico, un servicio dentro del sistema sanitario, que le guiara en ese derecho constitucional que indica que "compete a los poderes p�blicos organizar y tutelar la salud p�blica a trav�s de medidas preventivas y de las prestaciones y servicios necesarios". Pero no, �ngela no tuvo acceso ni siquiera a la protecci�n de aquellos que un d�a juraron indecentemente sobre su c�digo deontol�gico y pusieron su mano en pecho ajeno para admitir espuriamente aquel Juramento Hipocr�tico ajado por el tiempo. Algunos han acabado por no permitir que la tozuda realidad cl�nica de muchos enfermos doblegue su prepotencia desplazando la necesaria preparaci�n que les haga entender qu� es exactamente lo que les ocurre a los primeros. Esto puede convertirse en una lacra social que si no es la peor -viniendo de quien viene- es la m�s indigna. No dudo que �ngela sufriera depresi�n o cualquier otro diagn�stico psicol�gico tan bien tra�do a mano cuando se desconoce, incluso se niega, que existen determinadas circunstancias que se deben incluir ya en el necesario diagn�stico diferencial ante las manifestaciones, que esta mujer presentaba, y que no eran sino consecuencia de un s�ndrome de hipersensibilidad electromagn�tica en grado severo. Nada m�s. As� que nadie se sienta aliviado o autocomplacido pensando que ha hecho todo lo posible cuando en realidad solo consigui� la amargura y la soledad de una paciente que, finalmente, decidi� quitarse de en medio. No pasar� mucho tiempo hasta que el enmudecido Ministerio de Sanidad se re�na con una amplia representaci�n de asociaciones de afectados por el citado s�ndrome y decida crear un grupo experto de trabajo que, tras estudiar y evaluar este grave y emergente problema de salud, establezca un documento de consenso que sirva para su adecuada asistencia sanitaria. Ya existe la urgente necesidad de mejorar el nivel de conocimiento cient�fico sobre este proceso, su diagn�stico, su tratamiento y otros aspectos relacionados con el mismo. Estos pacientes est�n ah� y no van a desaparecer por mucho que nos arrodillemos ante las presiones del lobby de la industria de las telecomunicaciones. Mientras tanto ning�n agente de salud debe ignorar la aplicaci�n de aquel principio de precauci�n que le obliga no a curar, pero s� a alentar, a guiar y ante todo a no hacer m�s da�o del que ya existe. Igualmente ninguna compa��a el�ctrica o de telecomunicaciones debe ignorar las sentencias que le obligan a demostrar que sus tecnolog�as son inocuas. Les recuerdo que el Tribunal Supremo dict� una sentencia el pasado 9 de junio de 2012, anulando la modificaci�n del Plan General de Ordenaci�n Urbana del Ayuntamiento de Valladolid que permit�a instalar antenas en edificios de viviendas -recurrido en su d�a por la Asociaci�n Vallisoletana de afectados por las Antenas de Telefon�a-. La sentencia afirma que la instalaci�n de infraestructuras para servicios de telecomunicaciones es una actividad "con efectos significativos en la salud y el medio ambiente" y entra�a "riesgos para la salud humana". Blanco, y en botella.

Ver el art�culo original AQU�

Great article by Andrew Marino: Five of the Top EMF Scandals of 2011

AB — 2013-02-21T20:04:43Z

Great article by Andrew Marino

Five of the Top EMF Scandals of 2011 January 30, 2012

A recent article in The Scientist: Magazine of the Life Sciences listed the top five science scandals of 2011 (science scandals). Diederik Stapel, University of Netherlands, fabricated data that misled some readers into believing that thinking of meat makes people surly. Judy Mikovits, of the Whittemore Peterson Institute, fabricated data that made it look like a mouse leukemia virus caused chronic fatigue syndrome. Paolo Sebastiani, Boston University, falsified data that made it look as if 19 specific genes were associated with living longer. Science, the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, retracted his paper even though it was cited only 25 times, which gives you an idea of how many people read it. Felisa Wolfe-Simon reported discovery of a species of bacteria that was unusually tolerant to arsenic. It's not clear why The Scientist thought this was a scandal rather than just a case of a young scientist making observations that displeased her establishment adversaries (see “Scientist in a Strange Land,” Popular Science, October, 2011). Science didn't retract the article, but it published eight other articles that criticized Wolfe-Simon's work. Edward Wegman, George Mason University published a paper showing that climatology is an inbred field where researchers collaborate and review each other's work (as if that were a bad thing). It turned out that he had plagiarized his analysis.

These five obscure instances are what a big-time science journal considered the premier ethical lapses in science during 2011. But these cases of fraud, falsification, and plagiarism, if that's what they were, probably affected only a few hundred people at most-the rest of the ten billion people on earth were unaffected. For this reason, the magazine article seriously trivialized the concept of ethical misconduct in science. Meaningful misconduct hurts people, and a scientist should hurt a lot of people to qualify for a top-five ranking. By this standard, my candidates for the top five science scandals of 2011 involved publications by Leeka Kheifets, James Rubin, Michael Repacholi, Joe Elder, and Mays Swicord. Articles they published in 2011, which were continuations of their life work, directly and materially contributed to the occurrence of cancer and other dreadful diseases in many million men, women, and children.

Leeka Kheifets, of UCLA, published papers in which she argued against the existence of health risks due to exposure to environmental EMFs (magnetic fields and cell phones). As she has done many times throughout her career, she employed the ambiguities and uncertainties inherent in the methods of epidemiology as shields to deflect attention away from the realization and recognition that environmental EMFs are major determinants of human disease. She has lobbied continuously since the late 1980s on behalf of her clients, particularly the Electric Power Research Institute which named her one of its top scientists and heavily supported her financially. Her investigations have consistently been badly designed, poorly reasoned, and inarticulately expressed. Her attractiveness to EPRI and her other clients has not been her brains, but her consistency. When someone says the same thing in public and quasi-public forums over and over for more than two decades, there is a tendency on the part of some people to accept the rhetoric irrespective of analysis. She is a bad scientist who knows or should know that she grossly misleads people, tricking them into causing their own cancers. She was a one-woman super-PAC before super-PACs became popular.

James Rubin, King's College London published a blindingly biased paper in which he argued that there was no such thing as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (no robust evidence). His numerous studies on electromagnetic hypersensitivity are all negative, but that negativity was manufactured by employing experimental designs and statistical analysis that were virtually guaranteed to produce negative results. By means of jaundiced analyses he comes to the conclusion that EHS sufferers have a purely psychosomatic disease, a viewpoint that has untold benefits for his clients and funders, particularly the cell-phone companies.

His work is a scientific Ponzi scheme in which he gets money from the phone industry effectively by promising negative results, creates and publishes such results, and is then rewarded by the industry with even more funds, like petting a trained dog. The natural consequence of his work is to stigmatize EHS sufferers as neurotics who need the care of a psychiatrist, not an internist or allergist. Rubin is almost a perfect example of a scandalous scientist in a scandalous system that consists of cell-phone companies having enough money to buy any results they want, dependable trained dogs who produce the desired results, and scientific journals such as Bioelectromagnetics that publish the results without properly vetting them, and without insistence on simultaneous publication of conflict-of-interest statements.

Next we have Joe Elder and Mays Swicord, who come as a matched set because of their long career of cooperation in an effort that has at its natural consequence the worldwide increase in human disease. Elder began his career in EMFs working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Swicord began working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. After a few years they went over to the dark side and began working for EMF-producing companies, tasked not to do EMF research, but to lobby governments in favor of the safety of environmental EMFs. The fraud they sought to and succeeded in establishing-a two-headed abomination-is so pervasive and pregnant in society that it's hardly recognized, but rather remains hidden in plain sight. First they argued, in effect, that it was scientifically and ethically acceptable to perform involuntary human experimentation. That is, to expose human beings to cell-phone EMFs and determine the nature and extent of their health impacts by counting the dead bodies. Second, they popularized the notion that what is or is not safe should be determined by a committee of experts wherein economic interests are represented by the sharpest minds on that side, and all other stakeholders in the issues are unrepresented. The fruits of the labor of Elder and Swicord are on display in an article published in Lancet Oncology in 2011. The article is intrinsically heinous because it is based on the proposition that involuntary human experimentation is acceptable. The article is also ethically corrupt from a procedural perspective because the administrative organization, staffing, research design, and funding were all controlled by the industries whose activities were putatively under investigation. It simply doesn't matter what the authors (there were 60 of them) had to say, or that a handful of them were intellectually honest and not industry sycophants like Elder and Swicord. Value-laden conclusions and judgments of any non-representational EMF committee are worthless, whether they are positive, negative, or neutral. The reasoning would be important, but such committees are invariably devoid of reasoning because they operate by consensus, which is more affective than rational.

The best of the worst is Michael Repacholi. In 1996 the World Health Organization began what it said was a project to assess the scientific evidence of possible health effects of EMFs. But the project was corrupted from the start because it was controlled by the power- and cell-phone companies in the industrialized countries. The companies designated Michael Repacholi as the project head. For many years he had been a consultant and spokesman for power companies, so it was unrealistic to expect he would conduct an open and honest inquiry. But his performance in office was even more miserable than could have been anticipated based on what had been known about his personal opinions when he was appointed.

During the time he headed the EMF project at WHO, Repacholi dealt almost exclusively with experts on the payroll of cell-phone and power companies. He produced a series of reports and evaluations that exonerated these industries from any responsibility for human disease produced by the EMFs they generated and dispersed into the environment. Scientists who disagreed with the viewpoint of the EMF companies were systematically excluded from the WHO EMF adjudicatory process. The general public, a major stakeholder in the EMF debate, had no representation at the table when Repocholi's committees broadly sanctioned widespread EMF exposure. Instead, the WHO scientific reviews of EMFs were star-chamber processes in which only pro-industry spokesmen were heard, and the results of the processes were foreordained.

Repacholi gave many speeches but was never held accountable in any serious dialogue or debate, and was never required to justify his extreme positions. He invariably appeared in forums that were friendly to his mission, and under conditions that insulated him from the necessity for reasoned discussion. Using his bully pulpit at WHO, he encouraged human beings, including young children, to chronically irradiate their brains with EMFs by falsely proclaiming that they were safe. 2011 was no different (cell phones safe). He bears direct personal responsibility for many cases of human disease.

If you want to see examples of scandals in science-true scandals, not cases akin to the number of angels that can fit on the tip of a pin-look at the life work of Kiefets, Rubin, Elder, Swicord, and Repacholi.

Ver el art�culo original AQU�

Electrosensibilidad, la enfermedad que afectar� a la mitad de la poblaci�n en 2017

AB — 2012-12-17T18:40:17Z

Electrosensibilidad, la enfermedad que afectar� a la mitad de la poblaci�n en 2017

Hoy, en Queremos hablar hemos estado con �ngel, el hijo de �ngela Ja�n Mart�n, la primera victima de la hipersensibilidad. La madre de �ngel se suicid� hace 10 d�as y hoy su hijo ha querido que nuestros oyentes conozcan su historia. Se dice que esta enfermedad afectar� a la mitad de la poblaci�n dentro de 5 a�os.

Ver el programa de radio AQU�

Forced to Disconnect. Gunilla Ladberg. About electro-hypersensitive persons in Sweden who have become fugitives in their own country.

AB — 2012-05-18T20:51:55Z

Forced to Disconnect. Gunilla Ladberg About electro-hypersensitive persons in Sweden who have become fugitives in their own country.

Libro Original Completo en pdf

Afectados por sensibilidad qu�mica m�ltiple y electrohipersensibilidad piden en Bruselas un registro de enfermedades

AB — 2012-04-14T06:19:23Z

27.03.2012 Afectados por sensibilidad qu�mica m�ltiple y electrohipersensibilidad piden en Bruselas un registro de enfermedades

Los europarlamentarios Ra�l Romeva, Kriton Arsenis, Willy Meyer, Mich�le Rivasi y Oreste Rossi han presentado en el Parlamento Europeo una Declaraci�n escrita donde, a petici�n de asociaciones de afectados por sensibilidad qu�mica m�ltiple (SQM) y la electrohipersensibilidad (EHS), solicitan que a todos los pa�ses miembros que apoyen una clasificaci�n internacional de enfermedades.

La iniciativa, que apoyan enfermos de toda la Europa a trav�s de la campa�a 'One Code 4 MCS-4 EHS', debe reunir la mayor�a de las firmas posibles antes el 14 de junio de 2012; siendo necesarias al menos las de 378 diputados. Concretamente, se�ala, "el objetivo es conseguir un c�digo en la Clasificaci�n Estad�stica Internacional de Enfermedades y Problemas de Salud Conexos (CIE) para la SQM y para la EHS".

En Espa�a, aquellos que deseen participar apoyando esta campa�a pueden contactar con la Asociaci�n Estatal de Afectados por S�ndromes Sensibilidad Qu�mica M�ltiple y Fatiga Cr�nica, Fibromialgia y para la Defensa de la Salud Ambiental (ASQUIFYDE).

Se trata de enfermedades de sensibilizaci�n central, aunque en la SQM predomina la intolerancia a los qu�micos ambientales y en la EHS la intolerancia a las ondas electromagn�ticas.

"Ambas son enfermedades emergentes, de alta prevalencia e infradiagnosticadas o mal diagnosticadas, debido al desconocimiento que se tiene de ellas en el �mbito sanitario", explican.

La SQM est� reconocida en el �mbito europeo en Alemania, Austria, Francia y Luxemburgo, pero no es as� en el resto de los pa�ses miembros, lo que para las asociaciones genera "desigualdades para los enfermos de los diferentes pa�ses". En cuanto a la EHS, ya est� reconocida como discapacidad en Suecia.

En Espa�a, el Ministerio de Sanidad public� el pasado 30 de noviembre un Documento de Consenso sobre Sensibilidad Qu�mica M�ltiple, recomendando su inclusi�n en la Clasificaci�n Internacional de Enfermedades.

Ver la noticia original AQU�

Importante Testimonio recibido en AVAATE: "Yo quit� el inal�mbrico y el wifi, y desde entonces mi peque de 3 a�os ha dado un cambio bestial. Est� m�s tranquilo, ha dejado de correr de puntillas por toda la casa, y lo m�s importante duerme la noche de un tir�n y ha dejado de ser son�mbulo. Su profesora me ha enviado una nota a casa diciendo que ha notado un grandisimo cambio, est� bastante m�s tranquilo y presta m�s atenci�n". Casualidad?

AB — 2012-03-27T13:45:18Z

Mi hijo de tres a�os era superinquieto, no paraba, saltando en el sof� todo el rato, no aguantaba 5 minutos viendo la tele, son�mbulo, andaba por las noches con los ojos abiertos y asustado... desde que nos pas� lo de mi madre (es elctrosensible), he quitado el wifi (estaba pared con pared a menos de 2 metros del cabecero de la cama del ni�o) y el inal�mbrico y ya no sabemos lo real de lo ireal...lo que si sabemos es que el ni�o ha cambiado totalmente de conducta, est� tranquilo, aguanta quieto en un sitio nos mira a la cara cuando le hablamos (cosa que antes era imposible a�n sujet�ndole la cara no te miraba), y ya no es son�mbulo y duerme de un tir�n... Espero contribuir con mi testimonio para avisar a otras personas del verdadero peligro

Rosa Mar�a Mart�n Ja�n

Recluidas en una cueva por una afecci�n causada por los m�viles. Una ex azafata y la directora t�cnica de una universidad viven refugiadas en una cueva en los Alpes para protegerse de los �dolores insoportables� que les producen las ondas electromagn�ticas.

AB — 2011-11-05T21:18:41Z

Recluidas en una cueva por una afecci�n causada por los m�viles. Una ex azafata y la directora t�cnica de una universidad viven refugiadas en una cueva en los Alpes para protegerse de los �dolores insoportables� que les producen las ondas electromagn�ticas.

Dos francesas viven recluidas en una cueva por una afecci�n causada por los m�viles e Internet Diccionario Inteligente 3 Noviembre 11 - - I. Blanco

Cautain Anne, de 55 a�os, y Bernadette Touloumond, de sesenta, se han visto abocadas a pasar su tercer invierno bajo los rigores de la vida en una cueva en los Alpes. �El motivo? Una rara afecci�n producida por las ondas electromagn�ticas de tel�fonos m�viles e Internet. Las dos mujeres son hipersensibles a la radiaci�n electromagn�tica causada por las ondas de la comunicaci�n inal�mbrica. Una circunstancia que les provocaba �dolores insoportables� y, ante lo cual, cualquier estrategia val�a para protegerse de la radiofrecuencia: dormir en el maletero de un coche, en el s�tano de un restaurante, aparcamientos subterr�neos y la campi�a Borgo�a serv�an de refugio por unas horas.

Ambas llevan ahora una vida propia de ermita�os, refugiadas cerca de Saint-Julien-en-Beauch�ne, en la regi�n de Haute-Alpes. El interior de la gruta ha sido acondicionado con dos camas, una mesa, un armario y contenedores de pl�stico para la ropa. Se alumbran s�lo con velas y carecen de calefacci�n y electricidad.

�Este ser� mi tercer invierno aqu� y cr�eme que yo preferir�a estar en casa, sentada delante de la chimenea�, dijo Cautain. Antes viv�a en una casa de campo, pero despu�s de la instalaci�n de antenas de telefon�a m�vil tuvo que mudarse. Ahora abandera junto a su hija Laure una campa�a para la creaci�n de las llamadas �zonas blancas� o �reas libres de la contaminaci�n electromagn�tica, seg�n recoge el canal de noticias galo �RTBF�.

Una dolencia pareja al desarrollo tecnol�gico S�lo en Francia, una docena de personas padece esta forma extrema de sensibilidad, aunque alrededor de un 3 por ciento de la poblaci�n gala es propensa a las formas m�s leves de esta dolencia.

�No hay pruebas de un v�nculo causal entre la exposici�n a frecuencias de radio y de hipersensibilidad�, asegura la Agencia Francesa para la Alimentaci�n, Salud Ambiental y Ocupacional y Seguridad (ANSES) en un informe de 2009. Fuentes m�dicas aseguran que ambas mujeres podr�an ser tratadas con antihistam�nicos que har�an remitir los efectos.

�Cuando llegu� a esta cueva me pregunt� qu� hab�a hecho yo para terminar aqu�, no lo pod�a creer. He perdido un mont�n de amigos y a mi familia le resulta dif�cil de entender�, dijo Touloumond, ex azafata. Cautin, que se siente como �un animal cazado�, trabajaba como directora t�cnica de la Universidad de Niza.

Ver la noticia original AQU�

"Muchas personas electrosensibles viven un drama"

AB — 2011-10-26T19:29:51Z

MINERVA PALOMAR MART�NEZ - Afectada por hipersensibilidad electromagn�tica "Muchas personas electrosensibles viven un drama" La afectada aboga por prevenir: "No sabemos si estas exposiciones van a pasarnos factura" 08:10 Minerva Palomar (Madrid, 1969) es la primera espa�ola que logra el reconocimiento judicial de incapacidad permanente por hipersensibilidad electromagn�tica. Ayer present� el documental "Full signal" (Cobertura total).

SUSANA REGUEIRA - PONTEVEDRA En el municipio de Pontevedra funcionan 120 antenas base de telefon�a m�vil, a mayores de las antenas Wi-Fi en varias plazas p�blicas, la subestaci�n el�ctrica de Ponte Sampaio, lineas de alta tensi�n... Todo ello hace muy dif�cil la vida de personas como Minerva Palomar, a pesar de su velo, sus chaquetas y su pantalones especiales que la protegen de la radiofrecuencia. Su caso sirvi� anoche de punto de partida a la asociaci�n ecologista APDR para debatir sobre los riesgos de la contaminaci�n electromagn�tica y solicitar l�mites m�s estrictos.

�Qu� es la electrosensibilidad?

Una serie de s�ntomas que aparecen asociados a una exposici�n a campos electromagn�ticos, de alta o de baja frecuencia.

�C�mo descubri� que era electrosensible?

Enferm�, me sent�a muy enferma, cuando tuve el primer brote yo no sab�a nada de lo que me pasaba, simplemente me encontraba muy mal, me llevaban en brazos al m�dico porque no pod�a estar de pie, tampoco sentada tiempo en una silla, son todos los s�ntomas que ahora padezco cuando estoy muy expuesta: dolor de cabeza, un fuerte cansancio, confusi�n mental, malestar general, n�useas, p�rdida de memoria. Pero hay muchos grados, hay personas que solo sufren dolor o cansancio, o una nebulosa mental... Para mi fue un milagro descubrir que era electrosensible y poder volver a pensar con claridad, recuperar el cerebro.

�Cu�ndo empezaron los s�ntomas?

En 1996, despu�s de un verano, de repente no me pod�a levantar de cama, incluso al inicio no pod�a ni describir los s�ntomas, que adem�s aparec�an de cero a cien, solo estaba muy asustada y no sab�a lo que me pasaba.

�Hab�a estado particularmente expuesta a radiofrecuencias?

Con el tiempo he descubierto, a�os despu�s, que hab�a temporadas que estaba bien o muy mal, y cuando me diagnosticaron comprob� que si ten�a que ver con casas en las que yo viv�a, eran casas que irradiaban, cerca de antenas, entonces sospecho que en la primera casa conectaron en ese momento una antena que sigue ah�.

�Est�n familiarizados los m�dicos con estas dolencias?

No, por desgracia en Espa�a no caen en esta problem�tica, te tratan, prueban con medicaciones y vas a peor....

Ha sido la primera persona que ha ganado una sentencia por incapacidad...

B�sicamente es que desde que empec� los problemas de salud no he podido cumplir adecuadamente en mi trabajo, he tenido la suerte de tener un puesto en la administraci�n y gracias a eso no estoy en la calle debajo de un puente porque muchas personas con mis problemas de salud viven un drama, situaciones dram�ticas, en la empresa privada sencillamente me habr�an echado y mucho m�s si la medicina oficial no te da respuestas, estas perdida. Mi batalla fue porque muy al final fueron a�os malos, empez� todo el despliegue masivo de wi-fis en interiores, tel�fonos inal�mbricos... Y ya aun sabiendo el problema e intentando evitarlo no pod�a pasar 8 horas en un sitio irradiado, por lo que inicie esa batalla para que se reconociese mi problema de salud.

Tampoco le resultar� f�cil la vida cotidiana en general...

No, ahora mismo me tendr� que ir de mi casa aunque mis vecinos hacen un esfuerzo por no conectar cosas pero siempre pueden conectar algo, como un aparato para beb�s que necesitan realmente, y yo lo entiendo, pero tiene un nivel de radiaci�n con el que no puedo vivir. A no ser que encuentre una alternativa, aparatos que reducen un 90% radiaci�n, si consigo encontrarlo porque no lo hay en Espa�a, pero cada d�a me ponen un l�mite m�s dif�cil y ya no se donde puedo vivir.

�Qu� tipo de telas viste?

Son telas de protecci�n de radiofrecuencia fabricadas seguro inicialmente para el ej�rcito, para que no penetren las ondas de radiofrecuencia y me da much�simo margen, desde que lo tengo m�s capacidad para estar en un sitio m�s protegida, pero es muy relativo: si aumenta tanto la radiofrecuencia en todos los sitios al final no hay f�cil protecci�n.

�Qu� medidas de prevenci�n puede adoptar una persona que no tenga sus niveles de sensibilidad?

La gente normal puede adoptar medidas preventivas, no podemos someter al organismo a exposiciones que no sabemos si nos van a pasar factura, yo recomendar�a no tener tel�fonos inal�mbricos (que est�n 24 horas radiando), preferiblemente tel�fono de cable o si no ecol�gicos. �El wi fi? Preferiblemente por cable o el sistema PLC que da cobertura de Adsl por la corriente el�ctrica o el cable de red de toda la vida. Si alguien vive frente a una antena de telefon�a y tiene s�ntomas que podr�an asociarse a la exposici�n hay que ver personalmente la posibilidad de aislarse: he conocido personas que ten�an problemas de salud, ellos mismos han aislado (eso si, sabiendo muy bien por donde est� entrando a partir de un estudio) y apantallado la zona, con lo que reducimos, pero a priori no hay una sola soluci�n, hay que verlo sobre la marcha.

Ver la noticia original AQU�