Liar, Liar My Brain is on Fire

By Patricia Burke

In the chemical industry’s glory days, around the 1960s and 1970s, innovation ran wild, and the economy was booming.

For example, in the textile industry, experimentation with new fabrics sourced from fossil fuels enabled manufacturers and designers to offer consumers a vast array of clothing choices.

Givenchy suit (1960): Source

I still remember the day when I was swimming with my friends, and we heard the ambulance’s siren. A short while later we heard the story from a neighbor. One of the children in our town was cooking pancakes on the stove in her bathrobe when it caught fire. Only, the fabric of her robe and pajamas did not burn like natural wool or cotton; it melted into her skin.

I distinctly remember the visceral reaction that I experienced as my gut shut down – instantaneously, I felt sick, and I wanted to scream. My breathing shallow, my heart rate disturbed, my spirit traumatized by the news – but in fact my young mind did not even comprehend the magnitude of what happened to that child in that kitchen that day.

Flammability was not the only unintended consequence of innovation running awry; the clothes did not “breathe,” thereby causing a perspiration problem for some, and the clothes did not launder well either.

We addressed these challenges readily with creative socially acceptable strategies, simply by adopting more innovation run wild, more economic growth, and more chemicals.

If we could turn back time, we might not have decided to apply carcinogenic fireproofing chemicals to children’s pajamas and furniture. [1]

We may not have decided to support the antiperspirant and deodorant industries, with unknown and un-tested health implications. [2]

We may not have chosen to launch the dry-cleaning industry. [3]

We may not have used the planet’s waterways as a dumping ground for chemical byproducts. [4]

We could have used more caution, more pre-market safety testing, and more integrity.

We could have listened much sooner to the citizens being harmed by the weedkiller in Monsanto’s glyphosate. [5]

With the perspective of foresight, harmony with natural law, and economic wisdom about the planet and its resources, we would not have accepted the proposition that more chemicals would have been the solution to the issues caused by wanton use of chemicals in the first place, and perhaps we would not have allowed the chemical industry to provide the remedies for the problems it was creating.

Had we as a society made different choices then, we would be living on a different planet today.

50 Years Later – Another Toxin, Another Paradigm, or a Possible Paradigm Shift

We sit at another crossroads regarding the paradigm that we choose as the next wave of human innovation surrounds the planet.

There are a number of possible insights that can be drawn from the choices made in the ’60s and ’70s.

1. Innovation needs to be balanced by appropriate caution, with vigilance for unintended consequences – for the wireless industry.
2. Pre-market safety testing is valuable, and should reflect real world conditions of real world usage and, should be conducted by independent non-industry funded researchers – and should be required for the wireless industry.
3. Insurance and liability and regulation by captured agencies and captured politicians does not provide a sufficient system of checks and balances – for the wireless industry.

Evidence that we are on the brink of another misguided course of action is both suppressed and mounting. For example, the National Toxicology Study radio frequency and cancer results have been dismissed because they were performed on the older 2G and 3G technology – implying that the new 5G technology is safer,[6] when it has not been tested.

We should be testing 5G, the fifth generation of telecommunications, before we roll it out.

And, we should be testing for more than just cancer effects.

There is a very simple and compelling reason for this. There are individuals whose physiology is being hijacked by wireless frequencies.

That day when I was swimming with my friends, when another child was severely burned while making pancakes, I experienced my body’s shock response to an emotional trauma.

As the industry moves data across the wires and the airwaves and conducts surveillance, without the knowledge and consent of communities, a portion of the population is being unnaturally awoken at night, in a physiological, and not an imaginary or psychological trauma response.  With reactions ranging from a racing heart to urgent thirst or urination, or feeling frequencies waves in the brain itself, it is akin to driving with a foot on the gas and the brake. We are experiencing an artificially imposed and involuntary state of overcharge and exhaustion that is destroying our lives. [7]

We are the canaries.

The Question of 5G

To learn more about the issues arising regarding 5G and radio frequency exposures, Americans cannot depend on The New York Times, or Popular Science. [8],[9]

Fortunately, we can look to another media outlet.

RT’s new comedy show Redacted Tonight features “Americans in America covering American news who are foreign agents.”

This week, host Lee Camp has some sad news for selfie addicts and chatterboxes everywhere: cellphones do, in fact, cause cancer. A $25 million study this year confirmed the link, by testing rats exposed to cellphone radiation.

“The effect was not high scores on Pokemon Go,” Lee explained. “The effect was cancer, which is, like, worse than Pokemon Go.”

Questioning the Industry Science

One legislator has called for evidence regarding safety claims concerning 5G, (along with the Communications Workers of America.)

History will record the choices we make about the wireless industry.

Smothering the environment with wireless infrastructure in order to address a temperature increase attributed to fossil fuels and climate change is like using carcinogenic flame-proofing chemicals to address the flammability of sleepwear.

(In addition, we could have appropriately regulated the addictive tobacco industry, and, we can address the addictive qualities of our technologies.)

It is stupefying to rely on the fossil fuel industry and telecom industry to ensure the safety of the wireless industry.

Media Advisory

Blumenthal Presses FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to Disclose Evidence of ‘5G Safety’

Washington, D. C., December 3, 2018. The National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy (NISLAPP) applauds Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) for pressing FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Esq. to provide documentation substantiating the Commissioner’s remarks defending ‘5G safety’.

NISLAPP seconds this request.  

Jim Turner, Esq., President of NISLAPP, says:

 “NISLAPP considers it a mistake to place new high-frequency radiating antennas in local communities, in very close proximity to homes, office and schools, when no pre-market health testing at scale has been conducted on the effects of the radiation emitted, to our knowledge, and when much safer hard-wired internet access technologies are readily available. We strongly support Senator Blumenthal’s request of FCC Commissioner Carr to provide the documentation evidencing the FCC’s ‘safety determination for 5G’, along with the supporting scientific citations used in making that determination.”

Senator Blumenthal’s formal request to Commissioner Carr requesting these documents was announced at a press conference in Hartford this morning. In the letter, Blumenthal explained that recently, in a Senate Committee field hearing in South Dakota regarding 5G, Mayor Paul TenHaken of Sioux Falls, SD was looking for “clear direction, talking points, studies that have been done that show that there is no harm to our constituents and to the taxpayers on putting these small cells on towers close to libraries, close to schools, close to their homes”. And that Commissioner Carr responded at the time, saying, “Federal law actually says that state and local governments can’t take [radiofrequency] concerns into account given how much work has gone into this issue at the federal level…Both at the FCC and other expert health agencies in Washington, they stay very much up to speed on these issues and have reached the determination that these are safe.”

Following this exchange, Senator Blumenthal is presently calling on FCC Commissioner Carr to send the following documentation to his office:

1. The 5G safety determination from FCC and other relevant health agencies to which Commissioner Carr referred during the field hearing.
2. Current citations for the studies informing that safety determination.

He said his own constituents have similar concerns about 5G, and that he wants to provide them with accurate information.

Senator Blumenthal said we “are interested in acquainting ourselves with the latest studies evaluating the health effects of high-band frequencies and modulations that would be used in 5G networks”. He noted “Most of our current regulations regarding radiofrequency safety were adopted in 1996 and have not yet been updated for next generation equipment and devices”. He also mentioned the large U.S. government funded study by the National Toxicology Program, published this year, using earlier generation technologies (2G and 3G), showed a link between radiofrequency radiation and cancer.

Blumenthal added, “Carriers will also need updated guidelines governing the authorization of devices to be used with 5G”, and “We also believe it is critical for the FCC to act on its March 27, 2013 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Inquiry to ensure all individuals, and especially those working in close proximity to the hundreds of thousands of small cell facilities to be deployed, are protected from any kind of excess radiofrequency radiation.”

The Communications Workers of America was present at the press conference, as was science writer and expert in electromagnetic fields, B. Blake Levitt. See Levitt remarks.

The National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy considers Senator Blumenthal’s line of inquiry about the extent of safety evaluations of next generation 5G radiation to be critically important.  Camilla Rees, Senior Policy Advisor to NISLAPP, says, “All Members of Congress, as well as state and local government officials, might consider asking similar questions about the new, different and dangerous fifth generation radiofrequency technologies that the telecom industry intends to deploy widely within our living environments, and about whichscientists around the world are warning.

International scientists in many countries are calling for a moratorium on 5G until the potential hazards are fully investigated.

Additional Warnings about Radiofrequency (RF) and 5G Health Effects from Scientists:
Beatrice Golumb, MD, PhD,Professor of Medicine, UC San Diego
Martin Pall, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Washington State University
170 Review Studies on RF Biological Effects prepared by Martin Pall, PhD

NISLAPP Paper Explains the Far Better Alternative to 5G ‘Antenna Densification’
“Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks”by Timothy Schoechle, PhD
http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/wires-long-press-release/

We recommend Members of Congress and state and local government officials seriously evaluate safer alternatives to ‘antenna densification’ and the many angles from which 5G distributed antennas are a very serious mistake for the United States.

(Source)

As smart meters are rolled out, legislators were provided with unsubstantiated talking points. Safety claims and assumptions were based only on the opinion of tobacco scientists, despite reported harm. [10]

We need to be smarter than that this time around.

Please contact your legislator and ask that they provide proof of 5G safety, before proceeding. If they don’t assist, it is time for a new legislator.

Notes:

[1] NTP Toxicology and Carcinogenesis Studies of Tris(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate (CAS No. 78-42-2) In F344/N Rats and B6C3F1 Mice (Gavage Studies).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12748680

[2] Antiperspirant, Deodorant Health Risks: Fact or Myth
https://www.cleure.com/Antiperspirant-Deodorant-Health-Risk-s/244.htm

[3] Can dry cleaning give you cancer? The hidden hazards of delicates
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/18/dry-cleaning-toxic-process-carcinogen-cancer

[4] ‘Love Canal’ still oozing poison 35 years later
https://nypost.com/2013/11/02/love-canal-still-oozing-poison-35-years-later/

[5] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-glyphosate/u-s-judge-allows-lawsuits-over-monsantos-roundup-to-proceed-to-trial-idUSKBN1K02ME

[6]  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/health/cellphone-radiation-cancer.html

[7] https://www.saferemr.com/2014/10/electromagnetic-hypersensitivity_30.html

[8] https://www.popsci.com/cell-phones-cancer-studies

[9] https://ehtrust.org/retract-popular-science-article-cell-phones-arent-public-health-risk-no-matter-california-says/

[10] http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart-meters/smart-meter-health-complaints/

Patricia Burke works with activists across the country and internationally calling for new biologically-based microwave radio frequency exposure limits. She is based in Massachusetts and can be reached at [email protected].

Top image credit: Waking Times