Hello friends,

It was a few months ago when I posted my last message here. I guess I needed kind of some rest of mind for continuing this blog. And I am impressed that even with such a long break the traffic is OK here. Thanks all interested people) Just now I am running two European educational projects at my university (on the Environmental Policy and on Food Sustainability in the EU). And it’s kind of interesting challenge, for example, for comparing a progress in assessment of chemical contamination and EMF risk issues in the EU. The difference is huge. While we can see strict and careful safety limits on key toxic compounds in the environment in EU legislation and a bulk of research projects on the chemicals, the EMF risk assessment just kind of does not exist here. Yes, there are some out-of-date “safety” limits on EMF exposure based on primitive thermal approach, some great research carried out on pure enthusiasm and it’s all. The EMF safety limits are inadequately weak, the public concerns are relatively low (due to “smart” policy of the industry), and there are no funded research projects on EMF risk issues. The situation is such pessimistic as almost anywhere around the world. Here is just one recent example. A couple of months ago, during one international meeting on smart cities and sustainability in Europe, I asked one of British experts if they plan to assess EMF levels along with chemical contamination in the environment in term of their Pan-European research project on smart cities. The answer really surprised me: Oh, it’s very hard to assess levels of EMFs in the environment. So, they can detect levels of benzopyrene in nanogram concentrations easily, they can calculate fraction of CO₂ from different sources precisely, but it’s hard for them to put standard EMF-meters around and read the numbers. No comment.

National Toxicology Program (NTP) study

Recently, some new hopes have come due to National Toxicology Program (NTP) study in the US. You could find a careful analysis of the issue in blog of Prof. Joel Moskowitz from the University of California, Berkeley. Briefly, US government’s $25 million study on long-term cell phone radiation (GSM and CDMA) exposure of lab mice and rats revealed some significant carcinogenic effects, including brain cancer in male and female rats, cancer of the adrenal glands in male rats, cancer of pituitary, adrenal, and prostate glands and pancreas and liver in male rats and adrenal glands in female rats, skin and lung cancers in male mice and lymphomas in female mice. (Technical reports of the study are presented here and here. Thanks Wilma Miles for the links. Those reports are very interesting in many ways and I’ll definitely return to its analysis.) And while some American experts assess this study as the ever first experimental evidence of carcinogenic effects of cell phone radiation, I could modestly remind that such carcinogenic effects were reliably demonstrated in lab firstly yet in 1992 in … the USA [1], then in 1997 in Australia [2] and later on in two independent studies in Germany [3, 4]. See details in my free eBook on the issue.

Rollout of 5G under support of FCC

While some people ask me if the NTP study is a real game changer as some optimistic American scientists affirm, I am pessimistic here. Just look at the rollout of 5G under support of FCC (Federal Communications Commission) despite the results of this NTP study, and you’ll be not too optimistic as well. Current FCC chairman and former wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler recently literally confirmed that 5G is going to go ahead without the FCC waiting for [any stupid] governmental standards. Wheeler proudly proclaimed that “unlike other countries”, the US cares about being “first out of the gate”. He suggests “we turn innovators loose” rather than wait for committees to decide things. He defiantly declares that, “We won’t wait for the standards” [5].

Come together to health friendly environment

I am going to return to 5G issue in my next posts and discuss if it’s really a road of progress and an inevitable component of the Internet of Things or they just want more our money despite the inevitable new risks for our health. But the message of this post is definitely not about my pessimism on the issue. Just opposite, we have some real reasons for optimism. Let’s see. Despite lulling songs of the wireless industry and dependent regulatory bodies, more and more people are starting to realize, that something is going wrong with that great future wireless world without any real assessment of emerging risks for people health. People become more and more educated even despite the flow of disinformation on the issue from the industry “experts”. Moreover, more and more people are starting just physically feel some side effects of that great wireless future through the chronic headache, fatigue, irritation, sleep disorders and so on. (See details in my previous posts.) And I am really hope that after appeals from responsible representatives of scientific and medical communities, ordinary people, just informed and educated people also will become smart enough and strong enough to force their local authorities to provide 5G-free zones in their neighborhoods, towns, cities, and hopefully in whole regions. And business and municipalities will be forced to develop in those regions really great modern high-tech services, based on optical fiber and other wired high-tech approaches, as that was done in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the USA. The city has become an example of a successful municipal broadband fiber network spent about $220 million developing its system, which attracted dozens of tech firms to the city that take advantage of the fast connections for their businesses. It’s given downtown Chattanooga a vibrancy rare for small city centers, and it has translated this investment into $865 million in economic growth for the city [6]. And it’s all have been done without any questionable wireless approaches, with much more health friendly high-tech environment.

Take care,

Dr. Igor Yakymenko

References:

1. Chou C K, Guy A W, Kunz L L, Johnson R B, Crowley J J, Krupp J H. Long-term, low-level microwave irradiation of rats. Bioelectromagnetics 1992; 13: 469-96.
2. Repacholi M H, Basten A, Gebski V, Noonan D, Finnie J, Harris A W. Lymphomas in E mu-Pim1 transgenic mice exposed to pulsed 900 MHZ electromagnetic fields. Radiat Res 1997; 147: 631-40.
3. Lerchl A, Klose M, Grote K, Wilhelm A F X, Spathmann O, Fiedler T, Streckert J, Hansen V, Clemens M. Tumor promotion by exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields below exposure limits for humans. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 2015.
4. Tillmann T, Ernst H, Streckert J, Zhou Y, Taugner F, Hansen V, Dasenbrock C. Indication of cocarcinogenic potential of chronic UMTS-modulated radiofrequency exposure in an ethylnitrosourea mouse model. Int J Radiat Biol 2010; 86: 529-541.
5. http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/5g-iot-technological-control-grid/
6. Schoechle T. Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks. Boulder, Colorado, 2018.