From the ABC website:
Coming up
Wi-Fried? Could wifi-enabled devices be harmful to our health? A growing number of scientists are concerned that the widespread wifi and wifi enabled devices could be slowly making us sick.Dr Maryanne Demasi takes a closer look at the link between mobile phones and brain cancer and explores whether our wireless devices could be putting our health at risk.
SNIP
From Agenta Jonsson who has been in contact with Finnish professor Rainer Nyberg. The following is a current update from a Jan 14, 2014 interview with Professor Rainer Nyberg
Finnish education professor’s warning: Wireless technology in schools may lead to a global epidemic of brain damages.
“We must protect children and youth more than we do today.”
Yle Arenan. Yle Nyheter, Finland Jan. 24, 2014
Translated by Agneta Jonsson
Revised by Rainer Nyberg. Nov. 27, 2015
Professor Rainer Nyberg changed his opinion of wireless technology in March 2013. At that time he had been lecturing in Finland and Sweden for many years and had written books about the uses and benefits of online learning. In this interview, for TV-Finland’s Channel, he explains how he found out about the health risks directly linked to wireless emissions from the technology he had assumed would only have positive effects.
SNIP
From Olle Johansson
BBC NEWS
9 December 2015
Excerpt
The security services could remotely take over children’s toys and use them to spy on suspects, MPs have been told.
The draft Investigatory Powers Bill would place a legal duty on internet providers to assist in hacking devices.
But it would not be restricted to phones and PCs, a tech industry chief told the Commons science and technology committee.
Antony Walker, of techUK, said anything that connected to the internet could “in theory” be hacked into.
In the future, this could include driverless cars or household appliances connected to the internet – the so-called Internet of Things – said Mr Walker.
‘Child’s bedroom’
SNIP
From The Age, September 15, 2015:
Timna Jacks, Education Reporter
Excerpt:
Investment in computers and iPads in schools does not improve numeracy and literacy skills, a new OECD report has warned.
In fact, the report, just released by the organisation which is considered the definitive authority on global academic performance, found frequent use of computers in schools is often associated with lower results.
Investment in computers and iPads in schools does not improve numeracy and literacy skills, a new OECD report has warned.
In fact, the report, just released by the organisation which is considered the definitive authority on global academic performance, found frequent use of computers in schools is often associated with lower results.
SNIP
From the New South Wales Department of Education website:
Friday 6 November 2015 – Excerpt
Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli has unveiled some of the innovative technology and teaching practices being trialed for new and refurbished classrooms across NSW.
Mr Piccoli visited the Department of Education’s Futures Learning Unit at Australian Technology Park to see students and teachers testing prototyped flexible learning spaces that will enable education to adapt to the digital age.
“The way our children learn is evolving as times change and it’s exciting to see first-hand how the traditional classroom is being transformed into an interactive learning space,” Mr Piccoli said.
SNIP
Now for comparison, see this posting from 2014 by Olle Johansson:
Is wireless technology in Swedish schools adversely affecting the kids?
An English translation! – ”KI researcher: ‘Kick out politicians who give students hazardous e-readers with unproven educational value’”
Thanks to the so-called PISA* (OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment) survey, in Sweden we now know: student scores in maths, reading comprehension and natural sciences are plummeting. The results are prompting rage in Swedish schools. Something is wrong.
SNIP
Read more →The following was written by a mother who took action to inform her child’s school on EMR health issues specific to children. This action resulted in the school enacting an EMR precautionary policy.
Don
***************
Excerpt:
An Australian mum has been successful in preventing installation of WiFi at her child’s school and has worked with the school in drafting EMR precautionary measures by requesting compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and Article 9: Accessibility from the Conventions on the Rights of the Disabled to accommodate her child’s functional impairment.
She stated “My child has a sensitivity to EMR, specifically WiFi and Bluetooth elicit symptoms.” The school environment was very good already, to change that by installing WiFi would exclude the child’s access to the school. The first step she took was to register a compliment/complaint/ feedback form on the Dept of Education’s website she said. “I requested help to find a WiFi- free high school and stated my child’s health complaints and symptoms. Rather than sending an email which could get “lost” in the system, I chose to use the education department’s processes for registering my complaint regarding accessibility to schools.” Around the same time, the child’s school initiated the WiFi installation discussion again. This quickly led to further conversations with the school and district education officers covering both accessibility issues……
SNIP
Read more →An exciting new area of RF studies has just opened up with the results of a wi-fi study on rabbits (Saili, Hanini, Smirani, et al. Effects of acute exposure to WIFI signals (2.45 GHz) on heart variability and blood pressure in Albinos rabbit. Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology. 40(2):600-605. September 2015.
“These results suggest for the first time, as far as we know, that exposure to WIFI affect heart rhythm, blood pressure, and catecholamines efficacy on cardiovascular system; indicating that radiofrequency can act directly and/or indirectly on cardiovascular system.”
SNIP
From Lloyd Burrell
For 3 days only, I’m pleased to bring to your readers a FREE STREAM of Kevin Kunze’s acclaimed film MOBILIZE.
Excerpt
“Mobilize is an investigative documentary that explores the potential long-term health effects from cell phone radiation, including cancer and infertility. The film examines the most recent scientific research, follows national legislative efforts, and illuminates the influence that technology companies have on public health. Mobilize features interviews with numerous doctors, politicians, cancer patients, and technology experts.
SNIP
From the IEMFA, 20 August 2015:
Ex-WHO General-Director and Ex-Prime Minister of Norway: Wireless Technology Has Negative Health Effects. There Is No Doubt.
On Friday the 14th of August 2015, retired WHO General-Director and Prime Minister of Norway, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, was interviewed by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten*. One of the issues raised in the interview was her current thoughts on wireless radiation. Her statement was crystal clear.
SNIP
Excerpt:
Despite the fact that both Australian nuclear advisory bodies and the World Health Organisation have downplayed the link between brain cancer and the radiation emitted by devices like Wi-Fi routers and mobile phones, Monash University yesterday issued a press release that might give parents second thoughts about having Wi-Fi and other wireless gadgets in the home. What gives?
The press release, titled “Policies on children’s tech exposure confusing” details a study conducted by Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. The study looked at 34 different countries and the advice they all gave parents surrounding a child’s exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields, also known as RF-EMF.
SNIP
PRESS RELEASE
International Scientists Appeal to U.N. to Protect Humans and Wildlife from Electromagnetic Fields and Wireless Technology
WHO’s conflicting stance on risk needs strengthening, says 190 scientists
New York, NY, May 11, 2015 (Business Wire) — Today 190 scientists from 39 nations submitted an appeal to the United Nations, UN member states and the World Health Organization (WHO) requesting they adopt more protective exposure guidelines for electromagnetic fields (EMF) and wireless technology in the face of increasing evidence of risk. These exposures are a rapidly growing form of environmental pollution worldwide.
The “International EMF Scientist Appeal” asks the Secretary General and UN affiliated bodies to encourage precautionary measures, to limit EMF exposures, and to educate the public about health risks, particularly to children and pregnant women.
The Appeal highlights WHO’s conflicting positions about EMF risk. WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified Radiofrequency radiation as a Group 2B “Possible Carcinogen” in 2011, and Extremely Low Frequency fields in 2001. Nonetheless, WHO continues to ignore its own agency’s recommendations and favors guidelines recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). These guidelines, developed by a self-selected group of industry insiders, have long been criticized as non-protective.
The Appeal calls on the UN to strengthen its advisories on EMF risk for humans and to assess the potential impact on wildlife and other living organisms under the auspices of the UN Environmental Programme, in line with the science demonstrating risk, thereby resolving this inconsistency.
Martin Blank, PhD, of Columbia University, says, “International exposure guidelines for electromagnetic fields must be strengthened to reflect the reality of their impact on our bodies, especially on our DNA. The time to deal with the harmful biological and health effects is long overdue. We must reduce exposure by establishing more protective guidelines.”
Joel Moskowitz, PhD, of University of California, Berkeley, says, “ICNIRP guidelines set exposure standards for high-intensity, short-term, tissue-heating thresholds. These do not protect us from the low-intensity, chronic exposures common today. Scientists signing the Appeal request that the UN and member nations protect the global human population and wildlife from EMF exposures.”
International EMF Scientist Appeal: EMFscientist.org
Video Statement (3 min.) by Spokesperson Martin Blank, PhD: EMFscientist.org
Contacts:
Elizabeth Kelley, MA, Director Joel Moskowitz, PhD
EMFscientist.org School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
info@EMFscientist.org jmm@berkeley.edu
1-510-643-7314
—
Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., Director
Center for Family and Community Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
Electromagnetic Radiation Safety
Website: http://www.saferemr.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SaferEMR
News Releases: http://pressroom.prlog.org/jmm716/
Twitter: @berkeleyprc
Excerpt:
Sent in by Sarah Benson for distribution:
Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space
For Immediate Release
Date: March 25, 2015
Who: Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space (GUARDS)
Contact: Ed Friedman, Maine USA, 207-666-3372 edfomb@comcast.net
Planned Global WiFi from Space Will Destroy Ozone Layer,
Worsen Climate Change, and Threaten Life on Earth
Five companies are gearing up to provide high-speed global WiFi coverage from space within the next three to four years. This would be an ecological and public health nightmare, according to a recently-formed international coalition: the Global Union Against Radiation Deployment from Space (GUARDS).
According to GUARDS, the extensive satellite networks required will endanger the ozone layer and significantly contribute to climate change. Rocket exhaust contains ozone-destroying chlorine, water vapor (a greenhouse gas), and aluminum oxide particles, which seed stratospheric clouds. Complete ozone destruction is observed in the exhaust plumes of rockets.
The New York Times (May 14, 1991, p. 4) quoted Aleksandr Dunayev of the Russian Space Agency saying “About 300 launches of the space shuttle each year would be a catastrophe and the ozone layer would be completely destroyed.”
SNIP
Read more →I just had a look at the redesigned EMR Aware website from Byron area, in New South Wales, Australia. An excellent resource for Australians concerned about the unintended consequences of wireless technologies.
Recommended!
Don
************************************************
Excerpt
Welcome
This website is published by EMR Aware, a not-for-profit community association based in Byron Shire on the Northcoast of NSW Australia. We offer technical support to residents and government agencies in our vicinity, and worldwide, regarding the health, social and environmental impacts of technologies that subject users to electromagnetic radiation (EMR).
We are not anti-technology or anti-corporation. Our premise is simply this. In instances where products or services carry a documented risk consumers have a right to know the benefits vs. potential negative impacts. This enables both a change in habits, and motivation to demand safer products or legislation where appropriate.
– See more at: http://www.emraware.com/
Read more →From Louis Slesin, Editor, Microwave News:
The New York Times went into damage control mode yesterday after Nick Bilton, a tech columnist and a rising star at the newspaper, suggested that precaution is the best approach to the use of cell phones and wearable electronics.
No sooner had Bilton’s column hit print that Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ Public Editor, chastised him for his naive analysis. Sullivan targeted the lack of “sophisticated evaluation of serious research.”
SNIP
From Forbes online
Excerpt
Most parents would be concerned if their children had significant exposure to lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, or the pesticide DDT. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRIC), part of the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), classifies these and more than 250 other agents as Class 2B Carcinogens – possibly carcinogenic to humans. Another entry on that same list is radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF). The main sources of RF/EMF are radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones, and Wi-Fi devices.
Uh-oh. Not another diatribe about the dangers of our modern communication systems? Obviously, these devices and the resulting fields are extremely (and increasingly) common in modern society. Even if we want to, we can’t eliminate our exposure, or our children’s, to RF/EMF. But, we may need to limit that exposure, when possible.
That was among the conclusions of a survey article published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure entitled “Why children absorb more microwave radiation than adults: The consequences.” From an analysis of others studies, the authors argue that children and adolescents are at considerable risk from devices that radiate microwaves (and that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk). The following points were offered for consideration:
SNIP
From the blog of Dariusz Leszczynski:
Excerpt
In the Finnish news media, there is a complete silence (nobody dares to speak?) about the new law introduced in France, limiting the spread of the wi-fi networks (story in the French Le Monde) (for the translation in English, see below).
In fact, the situation in Finland is just the opposite to what is happening in France. In Finland wi-fi is allowed to be spread freely and everywhere, including daycare centers and schools.The justification for this “freedom” are the obsolete safety limits from 1998 (!) that were “reaffirmed” in 2009.
The freedom to spread the wi-fi is scientifically unwise in the situation when the research evidence on the effects of the wi-fi-emitted radiation is extremely limited but, at the same time, the wi-fi radiation is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
SNIP
From The Guardian
In an era of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, we’re all required to do several things at once. But this constant multitasking is taking its toll. Here neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin explains how our addiction to technology is making us less efficient
Daniel J Levitin Q&A, Sunday 18 January 2015
Excerpt
Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting. At the same time, we are all doing more. Thirty years ago, travel agents made our airline and rail reservations, salespeople helped us find what we were looking for in shops, and professional typists or secretaries helped busy people with their correspondence. Now we do most of those things ourselves. We are doing the jobs of 10 different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our favourite TV shows.
SNIP
From Lloyd Morgan, author of the paper mentioned in the Forbes article
Forbes, January 13, 2015
Excerpt:
Most parents would be concerned if their children had significant exposure to lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, or the pesticide DDT. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRIC), part of the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), classifies these and more than 250 other agents as Class 2B Carcinogens. Another entry on that same list is radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF). The main sources of RF/EMF are radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones, and Wi-Fi devices.
Uh-oh. Not another diatribe about the dangers of our modern communication systems? Obviously, these devices and the resulting fields are extremely (and increasingly) common in modern society. Even if we want to, we can’t eliminate our exposure, or our children’s, to RF/EMF. But, we may need to limit that exposure, when possible.
That was among the conclusions of a report published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure entitled “Why children absorb more microwave radiation than adults: The consequences.” From an analysis of peer-reviewed studies, the authors argue that children and adolescents are at considerable risk from devices that radiate microwaves (and that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk). The following points were made:
SNIP
Source:EMF Refugee
BERLIN – Dr. Manfred Spitzer knows that people find his arguments provocative. In his first book, he warned parents of the very real dangers of letting their children spend too much time in front of the TV. Now, in a second book called Digitale Demenz [Digital Dementia], he’s telling them that teaching young kids finger-counting games is much better for them than letting them explore on a laptop.
Spitzer, 54, may be a member of the slide-rule generation that learned multiplication tables by heart, but his work as a neuropsychiatrist has shown him that when young children spend too much time using a computer, their brain development suffers and that the deficits are irreversible and cannot be made up for later in life.
South Korean doctors were the first to describe this phenomenon, and dubbed it digital dementia – whence the title of Spitzer’s book. Simplistically, the message can be summed up this way: the Internet makes you dumb. And it is of course a message that outrages all those who feel utterly comfortable in the digital world. In the aftermath of the publication of Spitzer’s book, they have lost no time venting their wrath across Germany.
And yet Spitzer has accumulated a wealth of scientific information that gives his thesis solid underpinnings, and the studies and data he draws on offer more than enough room for consternation.
SNIP
Read more →Excerpt
A notice from WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA):
‘Safe use of technology – Your guide’ a new video by WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA) published 12 December 2014
The video raises awareness on the new recommendations from the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) for the safe use of wireless radiation emitting devices. Since these recommendations have not yet been made publicly available to students and parents, WISA have produced this short informative video on DETE’s publications.
DETE’s ICT Policy now puts the responsibility of ensuring the safe use of wireless devices (tablets, laptops etc) onto principals, who in turn, have to ensure that parents and students acknowledge the correct usage according to the manufacturer’s guidelines.
Parents from WISA raised wireless radiation safety concerns with DETE continually over the last two years – urging DETE to seriously consider the potential long-term health risks to children, future legal ramifications, and the need to reduce unnecessary exposure. As a minimum precautionary measure, parents from WISA have been calling for DETE to educate students and staff on the safe use of WiFi enabled devices and to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines.
In passing the responsibility onto parents and students, DETE is covering their legal liability for student use of wireless devices. Their installation of wireless access points may meet current standards for individual devices based on the current thermal based standard. However, who is going to be held responsible for ignoring the impact of multiple devices (30+ laptops and tablets in a classroom + mobile phones + WiFi access points) and the cumulative effect of simultaneous use of all these devices over the duration of a student’s school life?
The Australian standards that are being applied to classrooms were developed for individual Radio Frequency (wireless radiation emitting) devices. More importantly, these standards are based solely on short-term heating of body tissue. They do not take into account any biological effects that may occur from prolonged or cumulative low-level wireless radiation exposure.
SNIP
Read more →