Is power field pollution making you sick?

EMF&Health - EMF spectrum - Electricity 2 - Official view 2 - Politics 2 - Protection

Well - what do we ever know? For decades, officials were downplaying steadily growing, mainly scientific evidence, indicating that this new, clean form of power may not be safe, even at the common levels of exposure. At this point, the evidence of its ability to cause multitude of adverse health effects is all but impossible to ignore.

Can something that we can't sense in any way hurt us? Officially, it can't; for a long time now, the government maintains that the only EMF health danger comes from radiation strong enough to significantly raise body temperature, or to cause direct neuromuscular disturbance by inducing currents strong enough to affect neural function.

All safety standards for electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure
are based on that assumption.

The real world, as usual, doesn't fit into simplistic schemes. One simple truth we all learned is that no thing is only good. There is always the negative, no matter how small. Should we expect the electromagnetic power to be an exception? Electricity and electronics that we have surrounded ourselves with have made our lives much easier, more comfortable and enjoyable. What is the negative here, besides it costing us money?

It is becoming all but certain that we are also paying for what we're getting with our health. Some people more than the others, but no one is really spared. The culprit is the enormous level of electromagnetic energy use in developed countries, and its invisible companion - the EMF pollution.

These days, we are living in the environment filled with electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies and intensities, with no place to hide. Power lines, electrical wiring, appliances, tools and equipment, radios, telephone, cars, stereo, television, fluorescent lighting, computers, office equipment, medical imaging, cell phones, PDAs and other forms of wireless technology, as well as countless other electronic companions of modern lifestyle, have saturated our living environment with various forms of tissue-penetrating energy fields,

to which our bodies haven't been exposed never before.

    The question is, how this new environmental pollutant affects health? We already know that high-energy ionizing radiation, such as UV light, X-ray, or radioactivity, can be damaging to health. Until now, it was believed that low-energy, non-ionizing radiation, from visible light and infrared to radiofrequencies, does not present health danger at the commonly encountered exposure levels.

However, first indications that this assumption could be wrong are now three decades old. Back in 1979, Wertheimer and Leeper became aware of a link between exposure to power-frequency fields around power lines and the rate of incidence of childhood leukemia. Ever since, the evidence was mounting that the exposure to this form of EMF radiation

can also present serious health hazard,

particularly to the children, sensitive individuals and those with chronic illnesses.

As mentioned, the official medical/governmental safety standards recognize two mechanisms through which non-ionizing radiation can adversely affect the body. One, for mid and higher radio-frequencies, is raising tissue temperature by heating the water molecules.

The other, for the lowest frequencies, too weak to produce appreciable heating, is causing acute behavioral and neurological symptoms as a result of EMF induced electrical currents. Either requires levels of exposure much higher than those that we commonly encounter.

Officially contested but with too many scientific confirmations to be ignored, are immediate and long-term adverse health effects of much weaker fields resulting from their

interference with bioelectricity,

a very low-power, low-frequency electrical currents and potentials within the body, vital to the flow of life.

interfering with cellular processes, altering cellular function, or being linked to adverse health effects and diseases, has been piling up for decades, and more is added by newer, more sophisticated studies every year.

Some studies, on the other hand, have not confirmed these findings.

Nevertheless, a small but growing segment of population doesn't need any proof: they are convinced that EMF exposure, such as that to the EMFs created by power lines, appliances, home wiring, and other sources, as well as stray currents originating from power lines and wiring, negatively affect their health and wellbeing.

The variety of symptoms related to this new form of environmental illness is known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Its actual mechanism is still unknown, but it is officially acknowledged as "real" by the World Health organization (WHO, International Workshop on EFM hypersensitivity, Prague, 2004).

That the effect of weak non-ionizing radiation on biological tissue is real is also supported by most in-vitro (test tube) studies. At present, Sweden is unique in that it, in fact, recognizes the common-level EMF exposure as a

legitimate cause of debilitating diseases.

Despite all that, major international health organizations, such as WHO (World Health Organization) and most governments around the globe still maintain that there is "no sufficient evidence" proving that low energy EMF can have significant bio-effect, or that there is a direct link between exposure to low-energy electromagnetic fields and symptoms of compromised health. Consequently, they don't see the need to lower the official safe exposure limit to power-frequency fields, set at 100μT.

Maybe we should turn it around, and look for "sufficient evidence" proving that it does not negatively affect health? Just assuming that this new form of environmental pollution is not silently contributing to the epidemic of diseases plaguing developed countries appears to be very risky proposition. Also, a proposition that is contrary to the most of existing scientific evidence.

In the following series of articles, we'll explore:

∙ the most widespread EFM pollutant, electricity

∙ the basis and (in)adequacy of the official EMF safety standards

∙ powerful interests supporting the status quo, and

∙ how to protect yourself from potentially harmful EMF exposure