More Doctors’ Notes, Testimony and Health Concerns Regarding Duke Energy AMI “Smart” Meters

By B.N. Frank

Activist Post has reported many times about people and organizations who have fought for the right to refuse “Smart” Meters installed by utility companies on their homes and throughout their communities. This includes Duke Energy customers in 6 states. Some organized efforts regarding Duke Energy’s AMI “Smart” Meters include:

There has been much media coverage about complaints regarding Duke Energy AMI “Smart” Meters especially recently in North Carolina. Some residents had their power cut off a few months ago because they refused to allow Duke Energy to install these meters on their homes due to health concerns.

Just last week we posted an article about another TV news story out of North Carolina. Two days later, Mountain Express in Asheville published: “Duke smart meter rollout sparks health concerns for some customers”. Excerpts include:

Brasunas and his family don’t have Wi-Fi in their home. Instead, their internet connection comes through wired Ethernet, and they keep their cell phones on airplane mode — or turned off — as much as possible. He and his wife, Nadine, only allow their kids to use the family’s landline phone. “We keep a very clean, radiation-free house,” Michael says.

The only device they couldn’t control was their electric meter. Michael Brasunas says the meter emitted an unnerving amount of RF radiation, which he tested using a piece of equipment called an “electrosmog detector.”

Facing the prospect of adapting to a life without electricity, Brasunas and five of his neighbors documented their interactions with police and Duke Energy employees on camera.

“They’re cutting off our power because we don’t want smart meters,” Rene Catano, one of the residents whose power was cut, can be heard saying in a video posted on YouTube. She appears to be speaking to two Duke Energy employees that are looking up at the power lines near her house. “We pay our bills on time. We don’t want our children exposed to radiation, and we ourselves are protecting and defending our own health.”

Mary Ann Tierney, the founder of SafeTech Kids NC, says that hundreds of local people are affected by RF emissions — too many for the local doctors who treat these issues. She estimates that at least seven area doctors have written notes for patients, but adds that the physicians she’s worked with don’t want to talk to the media.

“They don’t want to be involved on this on a public level,” Tierney says. “They don’t have time.”

Although the commission’s ruling is a victory for people who say RF emissions are harmful to their health, some commenters dispute a requirement that notes from doctors must be notarized. Dr. Sonia Rapaport, the director of Chapel Hill-based Haven Medical, submitted a comment to the commission criticizing this decision.

“As I do not have a notary in my practice (nor do most physicians),” Rapaport wrote, “this additional requirement adds a significant burden to patients seeking this exemption and is a significant obstacle, both financial and logistical, to their safety.”

RF emissions aren’t the only concern that customers brought to the utilities commission during its deliberation about Duke Energy Carolina’s opt-out program. Several customers claimed that their electric bills increased after receiving a smart meter. Others expressed the belief that smart meters would have a much shorter useful life than analog meters. About a third of the 130 customers who submitted comments during the approval process pointed to concerns about privacy. “Some stated that, in their opinions, the meters constitute a form of trespass or surveillance that requires informed consent,” the commission wrote in its report.

In 2016, there was a news report out of Greensboro about a Lake Daniel, North Carolina neighborhood whose residents were sick and Duke Energy officials actually admitted that their power lines were emitting a high level of radiation:

“…there is a higher level of radiation present. The company’s own measurements prove as much.”

The company’s examination of the electromagnetic field around Fisher’s house on Seminole Drive — measured in something called a milliGauss — found levels that some studies have considered harmful to humans, particularly children.

Those levels can be as high as 35 milliGauss on hot summer days, when residents are drawing a lot of current to their air conditioners.

The news report didn’t say whether or not these homes had Duke Energy AMI “Smart” Meters. But would you be surprised if they did?