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    • 27 JUL 13

    Surge in ‘digital dementia’ in Korea

    Doctors in South Korea are reporting a surge in “digital dementia” among young people who have become so reliant on electronic devices that they can no longer remember everyday details like their phone numbers.

    By Julian Ryall, Tokyo

    8:36AM BST 24 Jun 2013

    South Korea is one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and the problem of internet addiction among both adults and children was recognised as far back as the late 1990s. That is now developing into the early onset of digital dementia – a term coined in South Korea – meaning a deterioration in cognitive abilities that is more commonly seen in people who have suffered a head injury or psychiatric illness. “Over-use of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain,” Byun Gi-won, a doctor at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul, told the JoongAng Daily newspaper. “Heavy users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or underdeveloped,” he said. The right side of the brain is linked with concentration and its failure to develop will affect attention and memory span, which could in as many as 15 per cent of cases lead to the early onset of dementia.

    SNIP

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    • 26 JUL 13

    Does Fisher Price’s latest gadget for the kiddies constitute a significant health hazard for children?

    Fisher Price has launched a new gadget called a Laugh & Learn case for small children that allows the toddlers to “safety” play with iPhones and iPods but an unintended consequence will be a significant increase in the children’s exposure to microwave energy. Is it really wise for Fisher Price to continue to market this device? read on……

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    • 25 JUL 13

    British Columbia Utilities Commission report rejects any health risks from smart meter emissions – but gives an opt-out provision

    The British Columbia Utilities Commission’s panel hearings on the introduction of advanced metering infrastructure (smart grid and meters) have concluded with the Commission’s expert panel publishing its findings in a 213 page report. I have copied below the main conclusions (in my opinion). The only ‘good’ thing is that the commission has mandated an opt out provision so that people who do not want a smart meter can opt for a smart meter that has the wireless capability disabled. However I think this is only because the Commission is hoping that by this move the vocal public opposition to the smart grid will disappear with the opposition quietly opting out with a supposedly silenced smart meter. Then FortBC can get on rolling out their smart grid all over the province with no opposition. Then at a later date all those people with silenced smart meters, and who will be getting excessive electricity bills as a result, will give in and accept an active smart meter. As for the reported health hazards the Commission is its wisdom has rejected it entirely by claiming that the ICNIRP based Safety Code 6 provides protection from thermal effects, non-thermal effects and incorporates an adequate degree of precaution.
    SNIP

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    • 25 JUL 13

    A Rising Addiction Among Youths: Smartphones

    Wall Street Journal, Jul 23, 2013
    SEOUL–Lee Yun-soo has some regrets that she replaced her faded old clamshell phone with a smartphone six months ago. The smartphone-penetration rate among children and teenagers in South Korea tripled last year, and the government says roughly one in five students is addicted to the devices. The WSJ’s Alastair Gale talks with Jake Lee about the problem. The South Korean high-school student enjoys tweeting funny photos, messaging friends and playing online games. But she said her smartphone is increasingly disrupting her life at school and home. “I hate doing it but I can’t help it,” she said as she fiddled with the palm-size gadget. Ms. Lee is among the roughly 1 in 5 students in South Korea who the government said is addicted to smartphone use. This addiction is defined as spending more than seven hours a day using the phone and experiencing symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia and depression when cut off from the device.
    SNIP

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    • 24 JUL 13

    Merchant Law Group LLP is pursuing litigation concerning cellular phone use and brain tumours in Canada.

    Excerpt from Merchant Law Group’s circulated flyer asking for participants in a class action:

    Cell Phone Radiation Litigation

    Merchant Law Group LLP is pursuing litigation concerning cellular phone use and brain tumours in Canada.

    If you wish to receive updates about this action, particularly if you have used a cell phone and have been diagnosed with a brain tumour, please join the contact list by completing the form below. Please note that joining our contact list for the Cell Phone Litigation creates no financial obligation for you and your information will be kept confidential.

    Merchant Law Group LLP has 12 offices across Canada, with lawyers practising law in six provinces. Merchant Law Group and Tony Merchant Q.C. are well known for pursuing class action lawsuits in Canada including litigation regarding Complete Contact Lens Solution,Winners/HomeSense, Various Cellular Phone Fees, BCE Dividends, GM Gasket Manifolds, Hip Implants, Lead Paint in Toys (and similar consumer products), Maple Leaf, Celebrex/Bextra, Vioxx, Sony, Residential Schools, Zonolite and various other cases. Tony Merchant is known to be one of Canada’s most active litigators with more than 600 reported cases in leading Caselaw Journals, having argued thousands of cases before the Canadian and American Courts, in Trial and Administrative Courts, and the Courts of Appeal of various American and Canadian jurisdictions, the Federal Court of Canada, and the Supreme Court of Canada. Tony Merchant, Q.C., has a long history in pursuing public policy cases and is a former Member of the Legislative Assembly (M.L.A.)

    IF YOU WISH TO JOIN THIS CLASS ACTION OR TO SIMPLY GET MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE COMPLETE THE BELOW FORM

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    • 23 JUL 13

    The Israeli Supreme Court Ordered the Israeli Government to Investigate the Number of Children Currently Suffering From EHS.

    On July 18, 2013, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli Government to investigate how many children in Israel already suffer from EHS.

    The Order was issued in response to a Petition to the Israeli Supreme Court to ban Wi-Fi in schools that was submitted in August, 2012. The Government must submit the result of its investigation to the court by November 16, 2013. The Israeli Supreme Court’s decision seems to indicate that the Court does not trust the government’s statements as:

    (1) Not only did the court order the Gov. to check how many children are already sick with EHS, thereby accepting the existence of EHS and its correlation to radiation, but it also demanded that the Gov. specify in its statement the exact measures it took in order to conduct the inquiry.

    (2) Another indication that the Court found the statement of the Gov. unreliable can be found in the fact that the Supreme Court ordered that the Gov.’s reply on November 16, MUST be supported with a sworn affidavit; Meaning that every fact mentioned, data collected or statement made in the Gov.’s answer must be supported by an Affidavit, attesting to the truthfulness of the claim.

    SNIP

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    • 18 JUL 13

    Power switch may mean smart meter cost unless ‘metering competition’ is delayed (Herald Sun)

    Power switch may mean smart meter cost unless ‘metering competition’ is delayed | Herald Sun
    Posted on July 18, 2013 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    VICTORIAN households and small businesses risk being charged up to $140 for a new smart meter if they switch retailers. Rules allowing only distributors, rather than retailers, from installing or replacing meters are due to expire at the end of the year, exposing customers to potential extra costs. The State Government fears consumers could face higher costs and safety risks unless the introduction of “metering competition” is delayed, documents reveal. It has requested an Australian Energy Market Commission rule change to prevent Victorians from being disadvantaged. Its submission states, among other reasons, that this would avoid “the risk that consumers may be required to replace their meter with a change of electricity retailer and face charges associated”, or the risk of higher electricity prices due to switching carriers.
    SNIP

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    • 15 JUL 13

    British Columbia backs down on wireless smart meters

    Customers will be able to pay extra for meters without wireless technology, says minister
    CBC News

    The B.C. government won’t force people to get a wireless BC Hydro smart meter if they don’t want one, but they are likely going to pay an extra fee for the opting out of the system. Energy Minister Bill Bennett says the details are still being ironed out, but it is clear someone will have to pay the extra cost and it won’t be those who have agreed to have the wireless meters installed. “The 96 per cent of B.C. ratepayers who have taken the smart meters should not pay the additional expense of the four per cent who don’t want one,” said Bennett. The details are still being ironed out but the extra costs would likely have to cover having the wireless component removed and employing meter readers to the non-wireless devices. According to the government there are about 60,000 household that have yet to have smart meters installed.
    The $1 billion plan to install 1.8 million smart meters across B.C. has met with opposition for several reasons, including the cost of the program, concerns about privacy and hacking of the systems, and possible health effects of the wireless technology.

    SNIP

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    • 13 JUL 13

    A victory for the vets would destroy the current ionizing radiation risk model and open the floodgates for more claims

    (NaturalNews) A pensions case has become the site of a vicious battleground between the Anglo-American establishment and a British scientist in a row over accepted safe levels of radiation exposure.

    It began in 2011 when a group of 16 veterans of UK nuclear bomb tests in Australia and Christmas Island applied for pensions on the grounds that their illnesses (and those of their children and grandchildren) were most likely caused by particulate uranium inhalation.

    In a tale with more twists than a John Grisham novel, the veterans have had their appeals quashed after being forced to change their firm of solicitors and their expert witness – international radiation authority and Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, Dr. Chris Busby, who has a track record of winning five similar cases in a row.

    The veterans, originally represented by Rosenblatts Solicitors, had commissioned Dr. Busby to provide evidence. But Rosenblatts suddenly pulled out of the case in December 2012 after funding provided by the Royal British Legion dried up. Washington-based Hogan Lovells International – a firm with a history of representing government and pharmaceutical companies, quickly filled the gap.

    SNIP

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    • 10 JUL 13

    Re-sent: Biological Effects from RF Radiation at Low-Intensity Exposure and the Implications for Smart Meters and Smart Appliances

    From Stop Smart Meters Australia:

    Posted on July 8, 2013 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

    Excerpt

    Physicist Ronald M. Powell (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1975), in layman’s terms, explains the implications of the BioInitiative 2012 Report for Smart Meters and Smart Appliances. He compares the low RF power density levels at which biological effects have been reported occur against the calculated RF power density levels that Smart Meters and Smart Appliances can produce using RF Colour Charts. A Single Smart Appliance inside a Home Can Produce RF Power Density Levels Shown to Cause Biological Effects. When these Smart Appliances are installed in a home, they will significantly increase the radiation levels in that home for several reasons:

    SNIP

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    • 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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