Oh no, you may be thinking, not another dire health warning. Like most people, I often feel fed up with alarming medical news and conflicting studies (one recent report implicated wine as a risk for breast cancer, and the next day another praised wine as protection from Alzheimer’s Disease). What a choice!
Do you remember when it was a pleasure to sit back and read the newspaper – perhaps with a glass of wine? Most have had enough of the ‘sky-is-falling’ alarms. Yes, it’s tempting to hang up on this wake-up call.
But please don’t! There are effective solutions in Wireless Radiation Rescue.
First, we need to look at how we have become cocooned in convenience, in radiation hot spots, as it turns out. Realizing this hit me hard. I have been a health educator for thirty years yet have never faced an issue as challenging, and personally unsettling, as this one.
Briefly, here’s the problem, as I understand it.
As the physicians Dr. Robert Becker and Dr. Stephen Sinatra reminded us, we humans are magnificently designed bundles of energy living within the Earth’s varied electro-magnetic fields.
The strong forces of the Earth, Sun and Moon affect us, and we have adapted to these.
Yes, we can be killed by a bolt of lightning, or develop cancer from too much sun, but overall we have evolved to deal with this natural radiation.
However, we’re now in a massive soup of human-made radiation, on top of limitless numbers of new chemical toxins.
All the parents I know are concerned about raising children in an environment awash in chemical hazards.
We were justly horrified to discover there was lead in toys and baby bibs, toxic Bisphenol A in plastic baby bottles, carcinogens in baby bath products, an array of chemicals in plastics, in just about everything from plastic wrap to shower curtains, and melamine in many pet foods, chocolate bars – and baby formulas!
And now we hear there are traces of mercury in some high fructose corn syrup, an ingredient in many processed foods and sugary drinks.
Mercury, one of the deadliest heavy metals, is also often found in tuna from our polluted oceans, in most vaccines, and ‘silver’ dental fillings. My dentist once remarked, “If mercury is such a hazardous material it requires a strict protocol for handling, then how could your patient’s mouth be a safe place to put it?” Mercury in dental fillings has been banned in Sweden and Norway. More on this issue when we look at dental health and at autism.
There’s also a seemingly endless list of carcinogens added to color, flavor and preserve our food; toxic chemicals added to our cosmetics, cleaning products, detergents and dryer sheets. Purify and freshen the air with chemically-scented candles, and plug-in, or spray, room deodorizers? What are we thinking?
Whether we’re buying laundry soap, children’s toys, or cell phones, are we assuming that public officials and manufacturers ensure products are rigorously tested for health effects before they are allowed on the market?
I see now that I was relying on the fox for the safety of the hen house. I hadn’t realized that it evidently takes government regulators a few decades after a marketplace exposure before issuing public health alerts.
Remember asbestos? Tobacco? Lead? (And then, there’s the story that the ancient Romans did themselves in with lead-lined wine flasks.)
As you know, environmentalists have, for decades, been raising the alarm about the toxins we eat, drink and breathe.
Rachel Carson took on the chemical companies about DDT and other poisonous pesticides – and won. Carson, the mother of the environmental movement, warned us that the chemicals in our water, soil and air burden our systems and can lead to illness.
Toxic sludge and smog are, at least, hazards we can usually see.
Imagine how horrified Rachel Carson would be about the environmental impact of electro-pollution, and its connection to the disappearance of the bees. And the birds. Her prediction of a silent spring now seems even more chilling.
Throughout this book, authorities explain how the birds, bees and people of all ages are being affected by EMR. Some of this may surprise you. Haven’t we had radio and TV waves swirling around our heads, and microwave ovens and portable phones in our homes, for decades? And aren’t we living quite happily with wireless technology without any apparent harm? We are all being exposed to this stuff and not suffering from it as far as we know.
Not even the mainstream medical community seems aware of this issue; few recognize the symptoms and conditions.
It has taken me some time, and a lot of research, to discover how to reduce our exposure without unplugging from the power grid and moving to a cabin in the woods. I’ll admit, I was resistant to hearing the disturbing evidence.
The disbelief. The worry. The guilt. The overload of depressing information. I didn’t want this bad news….but now that I know what to do, I feel strengthened. And I want the same for you.
Have you heard this: Well, everything gives you cancer, so what’s the point of worrying? There’s nothing we can do so why bother? Feeling overwhelmed and powerless are obstacles that can be overcome.
I am hopeful that as this message is being broadcast more clearly, more people will hear not only that there is a problem, but most importantly, that there are solutions.
Please remember throughout Wireless Radiation Rescue – and when trying to alert others – that we are, at this time, dealing with some areas of scientific uncertainty.
Keep this in mind if you’re talking with scientifically-minded people who may reject claims of harm that do not meet all criteria for the burden of proof.
Dr. Heather McKinney offers this insight:
By the time irrefutable ‘scientific proof ’ from long-term studies makes it to publication, technology – and levels of exposure – will have already moved beyond that which was originally studied, making the results arguably, to some, obsolete.
And a pioneering researcher told me, “By the time we have scientific consensus, if we ever do, we are going to have lost a lot of people.” Not my children, I protested. I am also fighting for yours.
I am often asked how I became so fired up about this issue – my children’s wellbeing. In the spring of 2006, I was concerned about the proximity of high voltage power lines – a health hazard I knew about – too close to a new addition at our youngest child’s school.
Then I discovered the school’s wireless Internet, and the cell tower nearby, were also putting the children at risk. Soon I was alarmed by the massive amount of eye-opening research about cell phone health hazards.
Investigating further, I found out that many things in our environment were adding to the problem. Like most people, I carried a cell phone. I seldom used it though – instinctively it seemed that anything that could push a powerful signal through cement might not be good to press against my head too often. Or my young children’s. (You may rethink whether arming your children or teens with cell phones is really a protective safety precaution.)
My office contained the usual must-have electronic gadgets: the latest cordless phones, a computer – with wireless Internet. So convenient. Being an early adopter I brought the newest conveniences on board. And I took pride in our eco-green home.
Then I had a professional electro-magnetic radiation assessment done.
Talk about an electric shock! Our youngest child’s canopy bed – so beautifully decorated in pale peach and cream, with luminous stars sprinkled on the blue sky ceiling – was a hazardous hot-spot because of the radiation-reflecting metal frame. I gasped when the radiation detector screamed an alert. Who knew? I whipped that metal frame out of there before we moved on to the next room. I couldn’t even bring myself to give it to anyone and thrust it into the recycling bin.
I was also shocked when the cordless portable phone – the high-powered 5.8 GHz model – sent the detector off the scale. Doesn’t everyone have at least one cordless phone? Haven’t we lived happily with this convenience for years?
I read recently that a UK physician, the Harley Street practitioner Dr. David Dowson, urged caution with this surprising statement:
Having a cordless phone is like having a mobile mast (a cell tower antenna) in your house.
I have since replaced all our cordless phones with safer corded landlines…
Testing a friend’s microwave oven was also a jolt! Backing up from it, to see how far the radiation field extended, I crossed her kitchen floor and almost fell down the stairs leading into the living room. The radiation detector was still blaring at 25 feet (nearly 8 meters). She had known that experts say microwaves can carry health risks, so she didn’t use it very often, and always stood back when it was on – but not 25 feet away!
Another shocker: being green at heart we had been replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents.
Guess what? Yes, they are energy-efficient but can emit ‘dirty electricity’; more details in Strategy 3. My husband gasped, “Do you know how much those cost, and how much energy they save?”
I decided to wait until another time to give him the news about the electric hybrid car he was saving for. (You got it: sitting so close to the powerful unshielded electric battery …)
Then I learned how the radiation from the wireless router I had installed, so we could conveniently access the Internet all over the house, was also an unexpected problem. I had no idea.
As a mother, of course I am used to feeling guilty, but I truly shuddered when I realized how I had unknowingly put in harm’s way my beloved family, and myself – and our new puppy snoozing near the comforting electric heater.
Quite honestly, at first I found it a lot to take in. So I understand if you are feeling overwhelmed. Like me, you may go through flashes (just what we need – more hot flashes!) of disbelief, outrage or guilt.
In a short time, however, I did go from being duped to determined! And I resolved to use my skills as a health educator to alert others.
Our team addresses many issues: from how our children can become physiologically addicted to gaming, to the emerging concerns about wireless radiation in aircraft.
“Business customers are hounding us for more in-flight Wi-Fi access,” an airline executive told me. If those travelers (and pilots) only knew how one of our medical contributors, Dr. Hans Scheiner, cautioned the aviation industry, “Some symptoms caused by electro-magnetic radiation like headaches, drowsiness, vertigo, nausea, loss of hearing and vision, and a lack of concentration are a concern in transportation safety, including aviation.”
And there could be cardiac effects; this is another reason to take this issue seriously, without bogging down in fear or denial. Dr. Scheiner, and more than two dozen other experts, have contributed to Wireless Radiation Rescue to cut your risk.
You can transform your environment into a health-enhancing, safer tech zone, while keeping the convenience which electronics can provide.
I speak to you as a mother and a health educator. I am in communication with world authorities, and call upon them often to keep us up to date. All of us care deeply about this and continue researching for you. One of them just told me about safer baby monitors available in Europe. Working together, we can meet this challenge. You have my personal commitment to help you and your family, as much as I can.
It’s your decisions that matter.
This article originally appeared in the Introduction of Wireless Radiation Rescue, © 2011 by Kerry Crofton, Ph.D.; HMDI has reprinted it with her permission.