EMFguru #4-95, Palm Springs

The Public Has the Right To Know ... Everything

It is a tall order to suggest that one might summarize the results of an entire 4-day meeting which included some 51 oral presentations from the podium and some 80 different poster presentations, but the "mood" and atmosphere of this meeting contrasted so strikingly with the previous two "contractors review" meetings which Guru attended (Savannah and Albuquerque) that we are tempted to try a summary with a few key words.

The first word is "consensus." In Palm Springs there was clearly evident a strong feeling of consensus on the part of those who are actually doing the biological research. There was consensus that a great many different biological effects (resulting from EMF exposure) are now being observed and reobserved by others.

The second word is "comfortable." No longer is this group of trail blazing scientists on the defensive against those who have in the past maligned their efforts and their findings. They now are comfortable with the realization that their findings (however surprising and unexpected by some) are genuine and that most of their results will stand up to the rigid "replication" procedure. Some already have.

We digress for a moment to speak of the "big debate" which has surrounded this EMF Health Hazards issue from the beginning. That is the contention that these biological effects *cannot* be occurring because they defy the known laws of physics. i.e., The contention is that the energy levels of these non-ionizing magnetic fields are too low to impact in any biological way. (Recall that Charles Darwin was greeted with the same kind of skepticism and doubt when he put forth the theory of evolution.)

"It cannot be because it does not conform to what we already 'know'," said his scientific peers. That kind of thinking was not scientific then ... and it is not today.

We cannot cover all of the biological effects or results reported at Palm Springs in this short message. Here are a few, however, that we found particularly interesting:

A number of the researchers talked about the importance of the "intermittent" EMF exposure effect. i.e., EMF exposure that is not "level" or constant in character seems to result in greater biological response than that which is constant. (Supporting this thesis were a number of presentations about the highly irregular, even "trashy," EMF signals, which contain many power spikes and harmonic frequencies that are being observed on most power lines.)
Another effect cited more than once was the "cell stress" effect that is observable after exposure to discontinuous or repeated EMF signals separated by short intervals. Each time the cell experiences more stress than before and reaches a higher level of agitation. The result may be actual cell damage if the cell is not afforded enough time to repair itself before the next exposure.
Again, as at Savannah and Albuquerque, EMF effects upon the immune system were noted. It is not clear what these effects mean in the performance of the immune system ... but it is difficult to conclude that they are beneficial. It is more likely that they are retarding the immune system's normal behavior.
Tamoxifen (one of the most widely used medications for the treatment of breast cancer) does not behave in its usual effective way when it is exposed to a medium level (continuous) magnetic field. It may also make a difference whether the field is "in line with" or at 90 degrees to the earth's magnetic field. This is not the first time that the alignment of the two fields has been suggested as an important factor.
Finally, among the most important results, certainly, must be those that reported on the brain motor neuron diseases--Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) and Alzheimer's Disease. For the first time an association between ALS and EMF exposure (in the workplace) was reported. The odds ratios (risk factors) were higher than most of the previously reported EMF exposure cases, but the number of observations were low. So that finding is preliminary.
The Alzheimer's report, however, was simply the most compelling of all those presented at Palm Springs. Again, the odds ratios were high and four different studies in four different locationsover four different time periods have all reported a high level of association between employment in EMF environment jobs and later succumbing to Alzheimer's Disease.

Summary

We here have not attempted to cover everything from the Palm Springs meeting. We have attempted to communicate the flavor and the mood of the meeting as we experienced it. The research results eventually will speak for themselves. They do not uphold the "rosy picture" of paternalistic reassurance that has been fed to the public over the past decade or so.

The public has been receiving its carefully filtered information about EMF health hazards via a governmental and private industry (mostly electric and telecommunications) "PR" bureaucracy that is "groupthink" dedicated to the proposition that "The public should not know of this until we know all." Under that criterion the public will not know for years--because progress on resolving the uncertainties will be slow. And there are uncertainties. But along with the uncertainties there is now a massive body of evidence which supports the following conclusions:

many different biological effects are being observed

some if not all of these effects are deleterious to good health

To the latter point, it is arguable that most of the biological effects will ultimately be determined to be harmful.

Human life evolved over some 3 billion years in an environment totally devoid of alternating current magnetic fields. These fields differ from the earth's magnetic field (in which evolution has taken place) by the 60 times per second reversal of their magnetic poles. This 60 times per second reversal does not occur in the earth's geodetic field. The earth's field is direct current.

In terms of the biological consequences, it now appears that this difference in the behavior of magnetic polarity is a very important difference. The evidence is becoming persuasive that these "man-made" AC-current magnetic fields--even at barely detectable levels of 2 or 3 milligauss--can interact-with or "stress" human cells to the point where adverse reactions result.

Those who take it upon themselves to deny this knowledge to the public are manipulating the system for their own benefit.

Whatever is to be done about this unfolding condition of probable public health hazard ... it is not a decision to be determined by the scientific community ... or the "PR" community. It is the public's decision.

The Public Has The Right To Know ... Everything.

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@mail.llion.org

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