BioInitiative 2012 Report Issues New Warnings on Wireless and Electromagnetic Fields

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 1/24/14 through 1/31/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER)  This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety.  Here is this week’s top headline:

•  BioInitiative 2012 Report Issues New Warnings on Wireless and Electromagnetic Fields

A new report by the BioInitiative Working Group 2012 says that we know enough to take action to lower the levels of exposure to low-intensity electromagnetic fields and wireless technologies.  The BioInitiative report, subtitled “A Rationale for Biologically-based Exposure Standards for Low-Intensity Electromagnetic Radiation,” says that since 2007, the health risks from electromagnetic radiation fields (EMFs) and wireless technologies have substantially increased.  http://www.bioinitiative.org

The study covers EMFs from powerlines, electrical wiring, appliances and hand-held devices, including cell and cordless phones, cell towers, smart meters, WiFi, wireless laptops, wireless routers, and baby monitors.  Health impacts include damage to DNA and genes, effects on memory, learning, behavior, attention, sleep disruption, cancer and neurological diseases.  The report reviewed over 1800 new scientific studies and concluded that all cell phone users are at risk, and that parents-to-be, pregnant women, and young children exposed to EMFs are at particular risk.  The BioInitiatives Working Group says that new safety standards are “urgently needed for protection against EMF and wireless exposures that now appear everywhere in daily life.”

One of the authors, Lennart Hardell, a physician at Orebro University in Sweden, says, “There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma, [a malignant brain tumor] and acoustic neuoma with use of mobile and cordless phones.  Epidemiological evidence shows that radiofrequency should be classified as a human carcinogen.  The existing [] public safety limits and reference levels are not adequate to protect public health.”

Martha Herbert, a physician and PhD, says, “While we aggressively investigate the links between autism disorders and wireless technologies, we should minimize wireless and EMF exposures for people with autism disorders, children of all ages, people planning a baby, and during pregnancy.”  New studies indicate that wireless devices, such as phones and laptops, may alter brain development of the fetus.  In addition, hyperactivity and learning and behavioral problems have been linked to such use in both animal and human studies.

The BioInitiative website states, “Each wireless need had a wired solution in counterpart that has none of the health effects that wireless [radiofrequency radiation] does, with the exception of cell phone use for talking directly to someone.  It is time to re-think the wireless tsunami and educate people about health, privacy and security risks.  It is past time to develop new safety standards.  It is necessary now to look at less harmful ways to communicate, move ourselves from place to place, shop, sleep, recreate, save energy, and educate our children in school.  It is time to rethink our global commerce, energy, banking, transportation and communications infrastructures so we are all committed to sustaining healthy living spaces and conserve safe sanctuary for all species on earth.”

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