The name probably does not sound familiar, but Dr. Eleanor Adair should be remembered as one of the most important figures in advancing our understanding of the health effects of microwave radiation. She did some of the first controlled large-scale trails on humans, including herself, which helped establish the thermal effects of non-ionizing radiation.

As it turns out, I also live in the same town where she did, but sadly I did not know this until after her passing.

Obituary Via the New York Times:

Eleanor R. Adair, Microwave Proponent, Dies at 86

Eleanor R. Adair, a scientist who spent decades exposing monkeys and eventually people (including herself) to microwave radiation to determine whether it posed serious health risks — she concluded, emphatically and somewhat controversially, that it did not — died on April 20 in Hamden, Conn. She was 86.

The cause was complications of a stroke, her daughter, Margaret Adair Quinn, said.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Adair, who had done her doctoral work in sensory psychology, was pursuing an interesting but not necessarily provocative topic: how people and animals react physiologically to external heat sources. Yet over the next three decades — after her research led her to study heat generated through microwave radiation, which is used in microwave ovens and emitted at low levels by things like cellphones and electrical transmission lines — Dr. Adair became an increasingly prominent and firm voice of assurance that microwave radiation posed no health risk.

“All the emphasis that we need more research on power line fields, cellphones, police radar — this involves billions of dollars that could be much better spent on other health problems,” Dr. Adair said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “Because there is really nothing there.”

For some people close to the issue, those were fighting words.

Even as numerous studies have found that microwave ovens are safe and many scientists say there is no evidence that cellphones cause cancer or other health problems, the rising use of cellphones, wireless Internet signals and some medical and military devices has continued to raise questions about their risk. Last year, a panel of the World Health Organization listed microwave radiation as “possibly carcinogenic.” In March, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would review its standards for cellphone use for the first time since 1996.

Some scientists do not use the term microwave radiation because they are concerned it is misleading and scares people unnecessarily. Microwave radiation is far weaker than the radiation in X-rays or gamma rays.

Advocates for more research count Dr. Adair in to a camp that focuses too much on heat or thermal effects from microwaves and is too quick to dismiss other ways microwaves might affect health.

“There’s something going on, and the question is what that is and whether it’s dangerous,” said Louis Slesin, the editor of Microwave News, a Web site that is often skeptical of the role industry and the military play in influencing health standards related to the issue. “Don’t let anyone tell you they know the answer to that question.”

Although Dr. Adair said she did not receive money from cellphone makers or industries whose products released microwave radiation, she served for five years late in her career as a senior scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory in San Antonio. The Air Force uses radar that emits microwaves.

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You may remember Arthur Fishtenberg.   Back in 2008, I described him as “The Jackass in the foil hat” for his various antics against various municipalities who dared to allow wireless devices to be used in their buildings.   According to Fishtenberg, a dental X-ray in 1982 somehow transformed him into an elector-hypersensitive and perpetually tortured victim of all things wireless.   Apparently he bounced around various communities in the US pulling this claim out to anyone who would listen.

Firstenberg has written several articles and a book about the dangers of wireless devices.  He has founded groups and is cited on a number of websites as a crusader for the rights of those who supposedly are harmed by these devices.  He has also filed many many lawsuits.

Apparently, in more recent years, Firstenberg has decided to take his battle directly to the individuals who dare to use RF-emitting devices in their own homes.  That’s what happened in 2010 when Raphaela Monribot had the misfortune of renting a home next to Arthur Firstenberg.   Miss Monribot, a graphic artist, didn’t do anything to cause conflict with her new neighbor other than daring to own a cell phone and a laptop computer.

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Much to do has been made of the s0-called “smart meters” – electric meters that monitor the times electricity is used and transmit the data back to the utility company in order to bill customers based on the time they use electricity – charging higher rates for peak demand time and lower rates for electricity used during times of low demand.  The idea is that by doing so, they could encourage customers to better manage their electricity use and schedule energy intensive tasks for times of low demand – for example, washing and drying clothes.  This could help balance demand and lead to less need for more expensive peaking and load-following generation.   It also can supposedly save the customer money, but it often does not.

There are some valid reasons to oppose having a smart meter:

• They could be considered part of an effort to shift the burden for reliable power and grid stability to the end customer.
• Depending on your usage, they may not save you money and could result in your costs going up.
• Life is complicated enough without having to worry about scheduling your tasks around the electric price schedule.
• Once you get one installed, it’s likely to be impossible to get it removed, so if your electric company is asking for customers to volunteer for the new meters, it might be worth waiting to see if they really do end up saving money before taking the plunge.
• You can tell a lot about someone from the times they use electricity (what days of the week they work, when they get up, when they leave for work, when they get home, when they go to sleep, when they are away from home etc)  Not all utilities have been very forthcoming about how they treat the information and whether they consider it private.  A telemarketer would definitely like to know what time would be good to call and bother you.   Even if the utility company does not sell the information, the government could certainly get it, and these days, at least in the US, the authorities have been acting like search warrants are obsolete.
• The utility company may charge you a fee to install or for rental of the unit.  Not all utilities have been forthcoming about this, and it would be especially irritating if it turns out that the meter does not save you any money, AND you had to pay for it.

For all of these reasons, if my utility company were to offer the option of having a smart meter or opting out, I would opt out, at least until the meters had been installed for a few months and it was possible to find out whether other customers really did experience savings and did not end up getting targeted advertisements for insomnia medication or to have pizza delivered right at the time they have dinner.

But there is also a completely bogus reason to oppose smart meters: fears of radiation.   It’s ridiculous, not only unproven but completely out of line with decades of understanding of non-ionizing radiation.   Despite this, claims that smart meters are causing everything from cancer to headaches have become rampant.

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A few months ago, a law requiring cell phones sold in San Fransisco to carry a warning label failed to pass the city council. Now it seems they are trying again. It may sound a bit odd that a city would require this – things like product safety are usually legislated on the national level. This is, however, San Fransisco, and so they’re a lot better than everyone else and want us to all know that they’re much more progressive and special, and also, their farts don’t smell. (that was sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch that)

This time the law is likely to pass, because everyone supports it, since if they don’t, it proves that they are just a shill for the evil big corporations that want to eat your children.

Via PC Magazine:

San Francisco Gives Cell-Phone Radiation Law Another Try

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has approved a bill that would require a warning at stores that sell cell phones about the possible hazards of cell-phone radiation.

Last June, the City of San Francisco tentatively approved a bill that would have required merchants who sold cell phones within the city of San Francisco to display the “Specific Absorption Rate,” an FCC-mandated specification of radiation, next to the phones. Failure to comply would result in fines of between $100 to $300.

The bill approved this week would amend that bill with new provisions. Interim Mayor Ed Lee must still sign it into law.

In July 2010, however, the CTIA filed suit against the city, arguing that officials had no right to hand down regulations on an issue already addressed by the Federal Communications Commission.

There has been no definitive link that scientists have found linking the radiation emitted by cell phones to cancer. In late May, the World Health Organization classified mobile phones as a possible risk for a specific type of cancer in humans.

….

The new bill would mitigate the 2010 bill by proposing instead that customers would be notified of the dangers of cell-phone radiation, which would represent a strengthening of the law, as it includes an educational component, said Supervisor John Avalos.

“We are amending this ordinance…that would instead of having a rating per make and model of cell phone at point of sale, we would have a sign that merchants would provide in the stores close to the cell phones,” Avalos said. “I would say that cell phone emit radio frequencies and that they would also have to provide at the point of sale — they would have to provide at the point of sale a document sharing — to share with buyers on how to protect themselves from radiofrequency emissions.

“Those measures you can take to protect yourself, include using a headset instead of having the phone next to your ear, or keeping the cell phone in a casing that is less conductive of radiofrequency and there are other measures as well,” Avalos said.

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Lets get something straight:� I don’t like the TSA.�� They’re not very good at keeping air travel secure and their searches are invasive, annoying and time consuming.�� They make air travel miserable.�� I don’t like their “body scanners” either.�� They’re very expensive, of limited value in actually protecting the traveling public and they can be a very unpleasant experience for those forced to use them or have a full body pat-down.

But they are not giving TSA Agents or anyone else cancer, as it has been alleged recently.

Via Time Magazine:

Did Airport Scanners Give Boston TSA Agents Cancer?

Could radiation from full-body scanners be responsible for a “cancer cluster” among airport security workers? That’s what Transportation Security Administration union representatives in Boston have claimed.

Now, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has obtained documents from the Department of Homeland Security, which EPIC says provide evidence that the government failed to properly test the safety of full-body scanners at airports, and dismissed concerns from airport agents about excessive exposure to the machines’ radiation.

The documents, which include emails, radiation test results and radiation studies, were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by EPIC. The advocacy group says they indicate that Homeland Security “publicly mischaracterized” safety findings by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), by suggesting that NIST had “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners.

But in an email obtained by EPIC, a NIST official stated that the agency had not tested the scanners for safety and does not in fact do product testing. Rather NIST had merely measured the radiation dose from a single machine against the standard of what is considered an acceptable. It had not done the rigorous product testing required to determine safety over time.
…

In the case of the Boston “cluster,” however, too little is yet known to suggest a link: neither EPIC nor the union reps have indicated what types of cancers the security agents in Boston have been diagnosed with. The scanners’ radiation, which typically targets the skin and the muscles right beneath it, would most logically be tied to a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma.

The actual amount of radiation produced by backscatter x-ray systems is very low. While there has been some dispute about the accuracy of the measurements, since they were not independently verified for each and every machine under all possible conditions, even by the most liberal estimates, the maximum dose that a person might get from working near such a machine is on par with that one receives from flying in a commercial airliner. The radiation is also very low energy or “soft” so it does not have much penetrating power at all. It is barely able to penetrate the skin and would not result in much exposure to internal organs.

Even if the dose were ten times higher than the worst case estimates, it would not result in any noticeable increase in cancer in a small group, such as the TSA employees at one airport.

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Cell Phones don’t cause cancer. RF radiation does not cause cancer. Those statements I am willing to stand behind. If you don’t believe me, please use the search function on this site. I can assure you I have plenty of posts with citations of both the theoretical reasons why non-ionizing radiation does not cause cancer and the studies that have shown no link.

There’s a lot of pressure to say that they do, however. Claiming cell phones cause cancer sells books and magazines. Some dishonest people have made a whole career out of telling these lies. They become media darlings because everyone loves to hate the “big companies” and to talk about how some poor little guy is being kept down by those evil powers that be. Groups make a lot of money too. Especially when the emotion-charged issue of children is dragged into the mix, dishonest charities can grab headlines and donations. Groups that contribute nothing useful to the world are treated as charities while paying their top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or more.

Oh, and by the way, I’m not afraid to name names when it comes to these dishonest people and groups: Lennart Hardell, George Carlo, Devra Davis, The Environmental Health Trust, Bioinitiative, EMF-Health, Microwave News. (there, so sue me. I’d love to see you in court about this)

Thankfully the WHO has been one organization that has been steadfast about the fact that there is no evidence to indicate a relationship between RF radiation and cancer. There are lots of claims, a few very poorly controlled experiments but no evidence, and this is despite some enormous studies and decades of trying.

Unfortunately, however, the WHO has recently made some more ambiguous statements on the issue. Bowing to pressure from those with a financial stake and those stupid enough to believe them, the WHO has now stated that mobile phone radiation is “possibly carcinogenic” – in other words, there’s no absolutely certain empirical evidence that shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that there’s no remote possibility that maybe somehow by some unknown mechanism, radio waves might have once in the history of the universe caused a cell to become cancerous. (They also claim to base this in part on largely discredited studies linking glioma, a certain form of brain cancer to mobile phones.)

Still, this is a bad idea.� It’s a horrible message to send out.� The problem is not that it’s entirely scientifically invalid to say that something is very remotely possible, but how politicians, the media and society take such statements.�� It sometimes seems that research scientists don’t fully understand just how badly a statement can and will be butchered and taken out of context.

This non-story has already spawned over one thousand media reports.�� Here are a few to provide a taste of just how this plays out:

Los Angeles Times: Experts say cellphones are possibly carcinogenic
Financial Times: WHO signals mobile phone cancer fears
Dallas Morning News: World Health Organization says cellphones might cause brain cancer
The Australian: Risk of brain tumour from mobile phone use is similar to pesticide DDT, petrol exhaust and coffee
Bellfast Telegraph: Brain cancer warning over mobiles
Newsday: Panel sees possible cellphone-cancer link
PC Magazine: WHO Finds Tentative Link Between Cell Phones, Cancer
Seattle Post Intelligencer – Experts: Cell phone use raises risk of cancer

Those are, of course, just a few.

A couple comments about this shameful reporting:
What the hell is a “tentative link?”�� Does that mean that they don’t have a shred of evidence but are pretty sure they will at some point?

Also, in case you did not know:� DDT has never been conclusively linked to cancer in humans, though there were some conflicting studies about chronic exposure in prepubescent girls and breast cancer later, the link appears very weak.� There’s not even the slightest evidence that DDT is related to brain cancer.

Coffee has never been linked to brain cancer in any way shape or form, though some studies have found a small risk of increased bladder cancer in very heavy coffee drinkers.�� The evidence of this is considered inconclusive, in part because the increase was very small and not found by all studies of coffee and bladder cancer.� There may be other confounding factors at play.

Automobile exhaust may be carcinogenic depending on the circumstances, such as the fuel burned, the exposure levels etc.�� There’s little evidence that the combustion byproducts of properly and completely burned gasoline are directly carcinogenic.�� Of course, these would be mostly carbon dioxide and water.

How can it be that I’m not getting paid a lot of money to write stories for news papers? Is it because I don’t have a degree in journalism? Well, despite that I can write a hell of a lot better than a lot of reporters seem to, and that is without the benefit of having editors to look over and approve what I write. Sometimes I wonder how some of the idiots who write for major media outlets managed to graduate high school, much less get hired.

In fact, one report from the Herald Sun was so horrible, I had no choice but to do something that apparently none of the professors or teachers of the writer did: I got out the red pen, or in this case, red brush in Photoshop.

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The claim made by a commenter in a previous post amounts to this: A Norway Maple tree existed in a location and was always very healthy, until a mobile tower was built approximately 180 meters away. After this, the tree appeared to be less healthy on the side facing the tower. The commenter claims that this is proof that it is the tower that caused this apparent problem with the tree.

Can we show this is a crock of bull? Thanks to the inverse square law, we can. In fact, we can do so with just one 620 by 680 pixel diagram.�� In this case, we’ll assume that the estimate of 180 meters to the base of the tree is accurate, however it really does not matter that much.�� The principle is the same, whether the actual distance is 170 meters, 190 or 200.�� The numbers would work out to be slightly different but the fact that one side of the tree does not actually have a significantly higher or lower exposure to the RF energy from the tower does not change.

Note that the frequencies that mobile phone and data systems operate on pass through tree foliage easily without being reflected or shielded to any major extent, so the argument that parts of the tree are shielded by the closer foliage is not valid here.

What, you don’t believe in math?

A new study has come out proving yet again what we knew all along:
“Children” + “Radiation” +� “Study” = LOTS OF PRESS ATTENTION

The study claims to have found evidence that children born to mothers who used mobile phones heavily during pregnancy are more likely to have behavioral problems than those whose mothers did not use mobile phones heavily.

Via CNN:

Do cell phones cause behavioral problems?

Evidence of harm from cell phones continues to emerge: First there was the possible cancer link, and now there’s suggestion that those little hand-held devices may affect children’s behavior.

Children who had exposure to cell phones both in the womb and after birth, up to age 7 had a higher likelihood of behavioral problems than those who had no exposure, researchers said in a new study in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

The behavioral problems include hyperactivity and attention and social issues.

“These are important findings, but we are just at the beginnings of learning about potential effects of cell phones,” said Leeka Kheifets, of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health.

Kheifets and colleagues had previously found similar results in a smaller sample, of 13,000 children from the Danish National Birth Cohort. But she said that analysis needed further scrutiny because the mothers in it had been among the earliest adopters of cell phones, she said.

In this study, the researchers looked at more than 28,000 children. More than 10 percent of children who had prenatal exposure to cell phones had mothers who said they spoke on their cell phones four times a day or more. Nearly 50 percent of mothers said they had a cell phone turned on at all times. Again, these figures are based on self-reporting by the mothers who participated in the study.

They found that, as with the previous study, the more frequently a mother used a cell phone, the greater the risk that her child would have a behavioral problem. This time around, they also ruled out a family history of behavioral problems, as well as the inattention of the mother. Cell phone use and behavior problems were not related to time breast feeding and spent with the child, either, the researchers found.

The association between cell phone exposure is not terribly strong, Kheifets said. Also, the authors do not yet know the mechanism behind the connection between cell phones and behavioral problems. One theory is that cell phone use may lead to excess secretion of the hormone melatonin, which can affect the mother’s metabolism and may influence the development of the fetus’s brain. But this is just a speculation, Kheifets said.

Sorry, I missed the link between phones and cancer (maybe because it does not exist), but the link between mobile phones and media hype is pretty clear cut. This story has exploded in the media.

Some of the headlines:

AFP: Cell phone exposure linked to bad behavior in kids: study
Slate:� Cell Phones Linked to Childhood Missbehavior
The Australian: Mobiles linked to naughty children
WebMD: Cell Phone Use in Pregnancy: Risks for Child?
Reuters Canada: Study links cellphones to child misbehavior
The Sydney Morning Herald: Controversial study finds mobile phones a risk to foetuses
The Daily Mail: Using phone while pregnant ‘can lead to behavioural problems in children’
Time: Study: Could Cell-Phone Use in Pregnancy Affect Kids’ Behavior?
Today Online: No Mobile Use When Pregnant?

The actual study looked at children who reached age seven by the year 2008 and who had mothers who owned cell phones and used them regularly at birth and shortly after. Thus the time period represented is the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, a period of time when mobile phones began to become extremely popular.

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A rather interesting contention made by a new Dutch study is that trees are being harmed by wifi and mobile phone radiation. Apparently these trees all did fine with CB radios, VHF dispatch radios, analog mobile phones, television broadcasting, AM and FM radio, air traffic control radar and all the other RF emissions that have been around for many decades.

I should add, I have not yet been able to track down the text of the actual study itself, only the news reports.

Via PC World:

Wi-Fi Makes Trees Sick, Study Says

Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.

The Department of Redundancy Department would like to inform the author that they have used a phrase twice and also that the same phrase was used two times.

All deciduous trees in the Western world are affected, according to the study by Wageningen University. The city of Alphen aan den Rijn ordered the study five years ago after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn’t be ascribed to a virus or bacterial infection.

Additional testing found the disease to occur throughout the Western world. In the Netherlands, about 70 percent of all trees in urban areas show the same symptoms, compared with only 10 percent five years ago. Trees in densely forested areas are hardly affected.

Hmm.. well, that seems like quite a conclusion they have there, but then we have this…

Besides the electromagnetic fields created by mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs, ultrafine particles emitted by cars and trucks may also be to blame. These particles are so small they are able to enter the organisms.

Excuse me for asking, but is it the fine particles emitted by cars and trucks or the mobile phone radiation or both? If it actually is particulate pollution from vehicles then I can’t exactly say I’m shocked. It’s well known that the particulates emitted by vehicles and other fossil fuel uses can be harmful to plant life. This is hardly a new revelation.

And finally…

The study exposed 20 ash trees to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a “lead-like shine” on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. This would eventually result in the death of parts of the leaves. The study also found that Wi-Fi radiation could inhibit the growth of corn cobs.

The researchers urged that further studies were needed to confirm the current results and determine long-term effects of wireless radiation on trees.

20 ash trees? How exactly do we get from that to all the all deciduous trees in the Western world? And for that matter, why the Western world? Are the trees in Japan all immune to this? Also, does Australia count? In other words, are we talking about the geographic western world or the cultural one?

And what is a “lead like shine”? Is that the only symptom? Hell, lead isn’t even really all that shiny.

I think I might see some unfounded conclusions here.