Options:
* Get informed about the health and environmental effects of EMR-exposure. Studies are posted at www.saferemr.com (from UC/Berkeley's School of Public Health) and www.bioinitiative.org.
* Recognize that every reduction in EMR-exposure is worthwhile.
* Encourage students and staff to keep mobile devices off when not in
use. To ensure that a device is off, test its EMR emissions. Www.magneticsciences.com/ rents meters for reasonable fees.
* Choose wired connections--for phones, web access, mice, printers.[39]
* For affordable fiber connections, see Harvard's Berkman Center's Maximizing K-12 Fiber Connectivity Through E-Rate.[40]
* Avoid or correct equipment that defaults to wireless.
* Teach school nurses, teachers, parents and students to identify common
symptoms of EMR exposure, including bloody noses, sleep disturbances,
headaches, fatigue, rashes, migraines, dizziness, nausea and aggressive
behavior.[41],[42]
* Recognize the short and long-term effects of near, whole body, second-hand, combined and cumulative EMR exposures.[43]
* See "Schools, Unions and PTA Actions," an int'l list of schools that
have removed Wi-Fi, posted by the Environmental Health Trust.[44]
* Create Wi-Fi and tech-free zones for children and staff.
Activities:
* Learn which diseases correlate with different kinds of EMR exposure. http://www.bioinitiative.org/rf-color-charts/
* At parent-teacher meetings, encourage family time without electronics
and keeping Wi-Fi off for at least 12 hours each night. Read "Calming
Behavior in Children with Autism and ADHD."[45]
* Stage contests between classrooms and schools to reduce EMR emissions.
3a. Cell phones and health
The situation In the mid-1990s, to determine cell phone safety, the FCC took the temperature of a 220-pound mannequin's head before and after six minutes of cell phone use. Because this mannequin's temperature did not change by two degrees Celsius, the FCC determined that mobiles are safe.[46] In other words, to determine safety, the FCC considered only the immediate, thermal effects of cell phone use.
The FCC has not tested non-thermal effects of EMR exposure, including for children's or pregnant women's cell phone use, nor for combined, chronic or cumulative exposures.
In 2015, Dr. Om Gandhi, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Utah, co-chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE's) Subcommittee on RF Safety Standards (1988-97), wrote: "it is very hard to understand why" FCC's safety guidelines only consider the head of a mannequin whose size is in the 90th percentile of US military recruits--and do not consider children's head size when creating safety guidelines.[47]
Cell phone radiation contributes to brain and heart tumors and damages DNA.[48] It weakens the blood-brain barrier.[49]
In utero EMR exposure results in an 85% greater risk for behavioral problems by the time children reach school age.[50]
Options:
* Keep devices in airplane mode with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, especially in class and around others.
* Do not keep a phone in a bra, pant pockets or shirt pocket. Make the bra a no-phone zone.
* To decrease RF exposure, download images and videos only via a wired (fiber optic, cable or DSL) connection.
* Maintain landlines and corded telephones as long as possible and/or until fiber optics are in place.
* Mitigating EMR emitted by a cell phone or voice over Internet protocol
(VOIP) is unique to each situation. Could local electrical engineers
help students to measure and reduce emissions?
* Create protected areas to prevent second-hand EMR exposure (received
by people and wildlife near cell towers, routers, "smart" meters and/or
people using mobile devices).
Activities:
* View "Cell Phones Cause Cancer."[51]
* View "Save the Girls"[52] and "Save the Males."[53]
* View Dr. Devra Davis' talk at the University of Melbourne.[54]
* Read your cell phone manufacturer's warning. For one week, abide by it--i.e. keep your phone at least 7/8" from your head.
* Make your own flier with warnings and solutions about cell phone use.
* Invite discussion: Should cell phones have warning labels at the point of sale, as Berkeley, California requires?[55] How/could pregnant women limit their cell phone use? For ideas see www.babysafeproject.org.
3b. Wi-Fi and health
The situation: No medical organization has deemed that Wi-Fi is safe. No pre-market safety testing (including by FDA or EPA) was conducted on Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi presents whole body EMR-exposure to users and non-users. Faculty and students who work or study near routers may receive more intense exposure.
British biologist Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy, retired lecturer from Imperial College, explains: "Just after birth, a child's brain goes through an intense period of becoming aware of new sensory input. He or she recognizes his or her mother's face, her expressions, and eventually, other people and their relationships. During this process, the neurons in the brain make countless new connections, and the brain stores what the child learns. Connections that are rarely used are pruned. This pruning process is completed by the time of sexual maturation.[56]
"If the child is exposed to radiofrequency fields during this pruning process, the production of too many and often spurious signals will generate frequent random connections. These will not be pruned, even though they may not make sense. Because the pruning process in children exposed to RF fields may be more random, these children--who may have more brain cells than the rest of us--may lack the mindset for normal patterns of social interaction. This may then contribute to various autistic behaviors.
"Like mobile phone signals, Wi-Fi signals can also cause cell membranes to leak and calcium ions to flow through them in a relatively uncontrolled manner.[57] In the classroom, this may result in children's brains losing the ability to concentrate.
"Further, electromagnetic radiation (such as that emitted by Wi-Fi, cell phones, cell towers and 'smart' meters) may affect the body like light does at night--and inhibit melatonin production. Melatonin is a sleep hormone and a powerful antioxidant. It can reverse oxidative stress that results from radiation exposure.[58]
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
