The BioInitiative Report

A recent report highlights concerns with electromagnetic fields and our burgeoning wireless world.

Today I listened to a fascinating conference call sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and Environment on electromagnetic fields and their potential health impacts. Electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, are created by the vast array of wired and wireless technologies that have provided us with light and heat historically, and have recently created the wireless revolution that brings us everything from cell phones to Wifi-wireless computer technology. No one denies the remarkable benefits of these technologies, but The BioInitiative Study shows the dark side of EMFs also.

The conference call featured some of the BioInitiative Study report authors, including Dr. David Carpenter, of the University at Albany, SUNY, Dr. Lennart Hardell, of the Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Orebro, Sweden, and Cindy Sage, editor of the report and coordinator at the Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields, as well as Dr. Raymond Neutra, from the Division of Environmental & Occupational Disease Control, California Department of Health Services, Dr. Ted Schettler, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network, and Louis Slesin, PhD, Editor of Microwave News.

The bottom line? Dr. Carpenter summed it up well when he said, “The public health evidence points to the fact that by this unbridled expansion of our electromagnetic environment we are harming our health, harming our children, and harming the next generation.”

The report (a little light reading, at over 600 pages) looks at all the available science, and with dozens of participating scientists and public health experts from around the globe, comes to the conclusion that we should be increasing our regulation of EMFs. As the report points out, "human beings are bioelectrical systems. Our hearts and brains are regulated by internal bioelectrical signals. Environmental exposures to artificial EMFs can interact with fundamental biological processes in the human body.”

Anyone with even an iota of consciousness will recognize that our exposures to these fields have been on the increase. The report’s authors point out that “since World War II, the background level of EMF from electrical sources has risen exponentially, most recently by the soaring popularity of wireless technologies such as cell phones (two billion and counting in 2006), cordless phones, WI-FI and WI-MAX networks. Several decades of international scientific research confirm that EMFs are biologically active in animals and in humans.”

The authors generally conclude:

We cannot afford ‘business as usual” any longer. It is time that planning for new power lines and for new homes, schools and other habitable spaces around them is done with routine provision for [reduced EMFs]. The business-as-usual deployment of new wireless technologies is likely to be risky and harder to change if society does not make some educated decisions about limits soon. Research must continue to define what levels of RF [radio frequency] related to new wireless technologies are acceptable; but more research should not prevent or delay substantive changes today that might save money, lives and societal disruption tomorrow.

New regulatory limits for [EMFs] based on biologically relevant levels of [EMF] are warranted.

While it is not realistic to reconstruct all existing electrical distribution systems, in the short term, steps to reduce exposure from these existing systems need to be initiated, especially in places where children spend time.

For regulators and policy makers, the report recommends specific exposure limits.

What can you do to protect yourself? Go back to an old-fashioned corded phone for regular use, and use a corded earplug for your cell phone. Disconnect in-home wireless transmitters for routine use (hook your computer to the internet via a wire), and if you have kids in school, encourage your school board to use wired alternatives also. Next, encourage regulators and elected officials to review this report (why not forward this post to them) and to give serious consideration to the author's recommendations.

Links: The BioInitiative Report can be found here. The most valuable information for the public and policy makers is in Section 17, KEY SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, beginning on page 567.

More information on today's call, and within the next several days, a MP3 recording of the call, are available here.