In the 90's there were several books published that tried to alert the public to the dangers of unresearched levels of exposure to electromagnetic radiation, especially to children and women.
I have been researching this issue lately, and the majority of books available online have publication dates ranging between 1985 and 1995. After that, there are studies, but few popular and authoritative studies that communities and families can actually use in their own interest.
Recently the World Health Organization has undertaken the role of global broker of electromagnetic health issues. And they have set standards, based on the daunting task of establishing scientific theories of causality, that have shelved most of the flagged issues of the last two decades. Despite the correlation between childhood leukemia and power lines, despite the elevated incidence of miscarriage and birth defects noted in women exposed to high levels of occupational electromagnetic fields, the WHO says we are safe. It is important to note that the WHO itself has come under fire for its research and reporting by the British medical journal Lancet. The criteria set by WHO make it far harder to establish standards for EMF than it was to establish dangers for, among otherthings, second hand smoking and automobile emissions.
In reaction to this, a number of physicians, researchers, and concerned citizens have attempted to create an alternate voice, keeping the question in front of a susceptible public. Most people cannot understand the issues involved. They rely upon academic, scientific, and government authorities to make sense of the dense jargon of studies, and compare the protocols, and render a verdict in language available to us all.
In the recent case of economic policies and regulations, this faith was misplaced. Badly enough to scar a generation of investors for life.
The good faith of a nation is actually a non-renewable commodity.
Where do we start? Why has the "establishment' rejected the furor and concern that was raised in the 90s?
You've heard that the way to boil a frog is to put it in a cold pan and turn the heat up gradually, until it is too weak to hop out. ( I will never find out by any actual frog experiments, believe me!) But we might be in the process of being "boiled" by a sea of human-generated electromagnetic fields.
Let's see what we can find out.
20.4.09
Biology and electricity, basics
Every cell in your body carries an internal electrical charge that is slightly different from the surrounding fluid. That difference of a few thousandth's of a volt between the inside and outside of a cell is the difference between life and death, sickness and health, memory and blankness, love and despair.
Despite not knowing exactly how this vital, vulnerable balancing act works, we are saturating our bodies with increasing amounts of high and low energy electromagnetic radiation daily.
The body has, we believe, an amazing capacity to regulate its internal electrical distribution within a considerable range of environmental field strengths and frequencies. We think. But we aren't exactly sure.
We have noted that the incidence of cancer and other systemic diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder in children and adults, AIDs, and others have increased at the same rate as electromagnetic energy has pervaded our living and working environments. Are these coincidences or correlated events?
The tiny difference in the electrical charge across the cell membrane must be maintained actively and precisely in a living body. Without the difference that the cells maintain against what is called the potential gradient, life is impossible. Yet we continue to add to the amount of cyclical voltage fluctuations and artificial magenetic fields that the cell must deal with.
Let's look in more detail at this process.
Biological voltage differences are maintained by differences in the concentration of ions in the fluids inside and outside the cell. (The body has trillions of cells) Ions are atoms which have lost or gained an electron. An electron has a negative charge, so an atom that has gained an electron has a slightly more negative charge than its counterpart with the normal number. Living cells are very sensitive to these differences, and have some amazing methods for keeping the charges in the range necessary for life, for communicating nerve signals, for acquiring and using sugar, for building bones, etc.
We know for sure that living tissue in an alternating electrical field, or any magnetic field, is going to be effected at these extremely sensitive boundary mechanisms that keep the cell charge in the correct relationship to its surrounding fluid. What we don't know, and haven't pursued research on, is what exactly these effects are.
According to Robert Becker (whom we have encountered before), research in these areas was stifled by a dominant model of health of the cell in electrical fields that depended upon a measurable increase in the temperature of the cell in response to the electromagnetic radiation. As he put it, we treated the cell as a plastic bag of minestrone soup, and wanted to see the soup cook in the bag before we considered radaiation harmful. That model produced military and industrial limits on the amount of ionizing radiation (Microwaves, gamma waves, etc) that workers and soldiers could be exposed to.
The model has improved slightly in the last 50 years, but not enough. Results from various labs in the 80s and 90s began to indicate there were other mechanisms than mere heating involved in patterns of illness associated with high levels of exposure to electromagnetic radiation.
In effect, Becker asserts that it is not the heat generated in the minestrone soup by the radiation that is the issue of concern at this point. We need to be concerned with the fact that the bag itself is effected by much lower energy fields, and even if the soup isn't heated, the bag's ability to function as a container, and an interface to the rest of the world, is very much affected by the existence of even low energy, low frequency radiation.
I am looking at the sodium and potassium ion transfer mechanisms of the cell as a point of vulnerability in organisms exposed to alternating current /or magnetic fields.
Please see this animation for a clear picture of the cell process, if you skipped the link above.
In my next post I will look at some of the arguments against concern about environmental electromagnetic radiation as a health issue.
Despite not knowing exactly how this vital, vulnerable balancing act works, we are saturating our bodies with increasing amounts of high and low energy electromagnetic radiation daily.
The body has, we believe, an amazing capacity to regulate its internal electrical distribution within a considerable range of environmental field strengths and frequencies. We think. But we aren't exactly sure.
We have noted that the incidence of cancer and other systemic diseases such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder in children and adults, AIDs, and others have increased at the same rate as electromagnetic energy has pervaded our living and working environments. Are these coincidences or correlated events?
The tiny difference in the electrical charge across the cell membrane must be maintained actively and precisely in a living body. Without the difference that the cells maintain against what is called the potential gradient, life is impossible. Yet we continue to add to the amount of cyclical voltage fluctuations and artificial magenetic fields that the cell must deal with.
Let's look in more detail at this process.
Biological voltage differences are maintained by differences in the concentration of ions in the fluids inside and outside the cell. (The body has trillions of cells) Ions are atoms which have lost or gained an electron. An electron has a negative charge, so an atom that has gained an electron has a slightly more negative charge than its counterpart with the normal number. Living cells are very sensitive to these differences, and have some amazing methods for keeping the charges in the range necessary for life, for communicating nerve signals, for acquiring and using sugar, for building bones, etc.
We know for sure that living tissue in an alternating electrical field, or any magnetic field, is going to be effected at these extremely sensitive boundary mechanisms that keep the cell charge in the correct relationship to its surrounding fluid. What we don't know, and haven't pursued research on, is what exactly these effects are.
According to Robert Becker (whom we have encountered before), research in these areas was stifled by a dominant model of health of the cell in electrical fields that depended upon a measurable increase in the temperature of the cell in response to the electromagnetic radiation. As he put it, we treated the cell as a plastic bag of minestrone soup, and wanted to see the soup cook in the bag before we considered radaiation harmful. That model produced military and industrial limits on the amount of ionizing radiation (Microwaves, gamma waves, etc) that workers and soldiers could be exposed to.
The model has improved slightly in the last 50 years, but not enough. Results from various labs in the 80s and 90s began to indicate there were other mechanisms than mere heating involved in patterns of illness associated with high levels of exposure to electromagnetic radiation.
In effect, Becker asserts that it is not the heat generated in the minestrone soup by the radiation that is the issue of concern at this point. We need to be concerned with the fact that the bag itself is effected by much lower energy fields, and even if the soup isn't heated, the bag's ability to function as a container, and an interface to the rest of the world, is very much affected by the existence of even low energy, low frequency radiation.
I am looking at the sodium and potassium ion transfer mechanisms of the cell as a point of vulnerability in organisms exposed to alternating current /or magnetic fields.
Please see this animation for a clear picture of the cell process, if you skipped the link above.
In my next post I will look at some of the arguments against concern about environmental electromagnetic radiation as a health issue.
18.4.09
Sci Fi Author predicts Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 1941
My earliest exposure to the idea that electricity, and particularly radiated electricity, might be harmful came through a Robert Heinlein short novel I read in the sixties. Written in the 1940's and set in the 1980s, it was based on the idea of power being broadcast through the air to vehicles and appliances. This idea came from Nicholas Tesla, the Serbian genius who invented alternating current. Tesla expected that, by the mid 20th century, all power could be broadcast and not require wires. Heinlein jumped on this notion, among several others, and wove a fascinating study of power, self-discovery, and a world consisting of two superimposed universes, each having a slightly different physics.
In Heinlein's 1980's, humans are suffering from progressive physical weakness and neurological impairment...including a foreshadowing of what is now called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A key character retains his health into his 80s by wearing a lead-lined overcoat to protect him from the radiant energy. To our cynical thinking, this invokes the aluminum foil hats that stereotype the fringe and wacko paranoids of pop culture.
Some very non-wacko researchers and scientists are interested in these issues, however.
"Fifty-two years ago in 1948, Robert Becker graduated from New York University's College of Medicine. Later, he became a certified orthopedic surgeon and spent thirty years as Director of Orthopedic Surgery at the Veterans Hospital in Syracuse as well as Professor of Medicine at New York University's Upstate Medical Center there. During those decades, Dr. Becker pioneered laboratory research in the field of regeneration of bone and muscle after injuries using weak electrical currents. In his 1985 ground-breaking book, The Body Electric, Dr. Becker described the exciting progress in his regeneration research while simultaneously warning the public about the growing electromagnetic pollution in the environment which could do harm. Twice Dr. Becker has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Medicine."
"There are now, he says, too many industrial and political interests vested in the exponential growth and profits of the global telecommunications industry, regardless of the impact on cancers and neurological disease. I asked him what his current perspective is on the controversy surrounding the safety of cell phones and electromagnetic pollution."
Becker is a courageous man, and has the freedom to say what he thinks about these things. His position gives me a clue, if not an answer, to the relative silence on these issues over the last decade.
15.4.09
Sunset on Lake Superior
Spent a few days last week on Lake Superior. This was the view out of our room at the Blue Fin resort. Sunset, looking southeast.
12.4.09
Electromagnetism and Health - EMF, Bioelectromagnetics
This is a weird field. There is some serious research in very limited areas, and some seriously far-out stuff going on at the grass-roots level. One of the top references on Amazon, from 2005, is this construction industry guide which runs $200. If you search on electromagnetic field meters on Ebay, you wade through pages of new gadgets designed to let you copy the ghost hunters whose antics are enlivening cable tv with their trademark green phosphorescenct videos shot in infra red in some believer's attic.
I like to think of myself on the conservative side of the line that borders unsubstantiated fear of electromagnetic fields in public health issues. But I am more than curious about them. As someone trained in journalism, I sense a story here.
One thing I note is that many of the references that come up for internet searches back to the early 90's. The first two hits in Google on "electromagnetic health" are links to the World Health Organization. That has some authority behind it, and we will get back to their offerings in a minute. Third hit is to an article from Popular Electronics, March 1993, by John Iovine. On Amazon, the top five results for the same search include three books older than 1994.
You would think with the fantastic advances in technology in the last 15 years that research into the effects of something as pervasive as electromagnetic fields would have kept pace with the proliferation of electrical devices designed for personal use, in intimate proximity to our bodies.
That is not the impression a cursory review of the internet literature creates.
I like to think of myself on the conservative side of the line that borders unsubstantiated fear of electromagnetic fields in public health issues. But I am more than curious about them. As someone trained in journalism, I sense a story here.
One thing I note is that many of the references that come up for internet searches back to the early 90's. The first two hits in Google on "electromagnetic health" are links to the World Health Organization. That has some authority behind it, and we will get back to their offerings in a minute. Third hit is to an article from Popular Electronics, March 1993, by John Iovine. On Amazon, the top five results for the same search include three books older than 1994.
You would think with the fantastic advances in technology in the last 15 years that research into the effects of something as pervasive as electromagnetic fields would have kept pace with the proliferation of electrical devices designed for personal use, in intimate proximity to our bodies.
That is not the impression a cursory review of the internet literature creates.
6.4.09
Is democracy really crowd-sourced governance?
This is a good post on O'Reilly Radar.
It succinctly gives the argument in favor of allowing meaningful government participation by citizens. It doesn't give enough of the picture to get you started changing things overnight. But it is going to make you look in the right direction, and maybe take some baby steps.
Citizen energy and interest are far more important to governance than mere taxes. Citizen involvement in community and governance is critical to the survival of any system.
Our national self image is founded on a narrative of equality, generosity, fairness. It is founded on the faith in enlightened self-interest buffered by a set of checks and balances that protect us against our worst impulses. But that narrative doesn't cover enough ground. It doesn't speak to the changes that technology has imposed on us at an overwhelming rate.
Citizen involvement is the vital blood of the body politic. It may sound like heresy, but I will tell you, the vote isn't enough input. Investigative reporting isn't enough oversight.
I have worked behind the scenes at local government for over 28 years, with access to enough information to know how decisions are really made.
I am not pessimistic. I am not cynical. I am not even ironic when it comes down to the prospects for decent governance among decent people.
The real barriers to meaningful interaction with government exist at the information level. Governments must protect necessary complexity and the fragility of processes against the impulses of crowds. But they must start allowing intelligence and responisible citizenship to be expressed at a more intimate level than mere letters to the editor or volunteer work in a food shelf.
I don't see many signs of the wide-angle view that must replace the microscopic level of control that dominates government action today. This essay by John Geraci is a start. Read it. Think about it. Pass it on.
It succinctly gives the argument in favor of allowing meaningful government participation by citizens. It doesn't give enough of the picture to get you started changing things overnight. But it is going to make you look in the right direction, and maybe take some baby steps.
Citizen energy and interest are far more important to governance than mere taxes. Citizen involvement in community and governance is critical to the survival of any system.
Our national self image is founded on a narrative of equality, generosity, fairness. It is founded on the faith in enlightened self-interest buffered by a set of checks and balances that protect us against our worst impulses. But that narrative doesn't cover enough ground. It doesn't speak to the changes that technology has imposed on us at an overwhelming rate.
Citizen involvement is the vital blood of the body politic. It may sound like heresy, but I will tell you, the vote isn't enough input. Investigative reporting isn't enough oversight.
I have worked behind the scenes at local government for over 28 years, with access to enough information to know how decisions are really made.
I am not pessimistic. I am not cynical. I am not even ironic when it comes down to the prospects for decent governance among decent people.
The real barriers to meaningful interaction with government exist at the information level. Governments must protect necessary complexity and the fragility of processes against the impulses of crowds. But they must start allowing intelligence and responisible citizenship to be expressed at a more intimate level than mere letters to the editor or volunteer work in a food shelf.
I don't see many signs of the wide-angle view that must replace the microscopic level of control that dominates government action today. This essay by John Geraci is a start. Read it. Think about it. Pass it on.
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