A World Wired with Wireless by Robert James Parsons
On 27 March 2018, the Swiss Senate voted to refuse the increase in cell tower output necessary for Generation Five (G5) technology. This vote was conspicuous for the little attention given it by the Swiss media, and, where it was mentioned, it was reported in small articles with no background, much less overall context.
The vote was the result of a major lobbying campaign against G5, organized by the Swiss Medical Federation (Fédération médical helvétique or FMH in French), based on serious and growing concerns about the health risks of exposure to electromagnetic radiation. That it was the conservative medical profession that had blocked the vote was highly significant, yet the mainstream media managers did not see fit to inform the Swiss public of this concern.
My work in the area of electromagnetic radiation has been built on my work in the area of ionizing (atomic) radiation, which started in 1996, when I began tracking Gulf War illness (which turned out to be radiation poisoning, although this has never been officially acknowledged by the Pentagon – not surprising since it took years for the Pentagon to admit that the almost 400,000 veterans suffering from it could even be sick).
For me, from the outset, twenty-three years ago, the crux of the matter in ionizing radiation was that the norms for exposure are bogus. Already in the early nineteen fifties, it was known, and accepted, that there is no such thing as a safe dose of ionizing radiation. The norms are based on the idea of total absorbed dose by the body, thus how much a body can take without being harmed. Yet the danger is at the level of the single cell, not the body. All one needs is for one cell to be irradiated, mutate and survive, and it can divide and create two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, and so on to form a cancerous tumor.
However, the need to build nuclear bombs and to build nuclear power generating plants to create plutonium for those bombs was judged greater than the safety of the genetic heritage of humankind. The WHO, beholden to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has veto power over anything that the WHO might do in the area of ionizing radiation and human health, has done nothing in the area since 1957.
With electromagnetic radiation, it is no different, for the norms are equally bogus. Called “thermal”, they are based on whether the skin is heated by the microwaves. If not, the effect of the waves is considered innocuous. Yet, as with ionizing radiation, the danger is at the level of the cell, and there is no safe dose.
The best effort to make sense out of this in a format that does not over simplify yet makes it entirely intelligible for the public is Jean Hêche’s brilliant documentary, Ondes, science et manigances (Microwaves, Science and Lies in its English version). It dates from 2014 and was premiered at the Festival du film vert in Geneva in early 2015, but it has not aged at all. On the contrary, it is more relevant than when it first came out.
The film is a well-aimed frontal attack on the World Health Organization, which I know well from over twenty years of dealing with it and reporting on matters of international public health. The main point made in the film is precisely that the WHO’s « safety » norms for human exposure to electromagnetic radiation are bogus and that the elaboration of these norms has been anything but scientific.
I can vouch for this personally, for I had many a wrangle with Dr Michael Repacholi at the WHO, who was hired to codify those norms.
Included in Dr Repacholi’s hiring contract was the understanding that he would raise the money to pay for this immense project extending over several years. In the end, it was discovered that the money came from the telecommunications industry, an outrageous conflict of interest, if ever there were one.
When I questioned Dr Maria Neira, Repacholi’s supervisor, if the WHO intended to have the work redone, properly, she replied that there were no funds and, in a round-about way, said that the only entities interested in funding such a project were telecommunications companies… Thus, Repacholi’s « safety » norms stand and are cited by industry without hesitation to prove that their products are perfectly safe.
Having left the WHO, Dr Repacholi now works as an industry consultant, using the norms he formulated at the WHO to support industry’s claims. Among his statements are such gems as “… epidemiological evidence cannot be used as a basis for standards (exposure limits).”
The matter of « electrosmog » or ambient electromagnetic radiation is of ever greater concern as the use of mobile devices spreads, with the enthusiastic support of the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union (ITU – part of the United Nations system). Hundreds of millions of people are affected by it to varying degrees, mostly without understanding what is wrong with them. In France, where its harmful effects have been much more studied than in most other countries, it is estimated that over ten percent of the population (some 6.5 million persons) are electro-sensitive, and the number is climbing.
France has a specialized public health agency that must test all cell phones before they are put on the market. The results of these tests, supposed to be public, were never released until Dr Marc Arazi took the French government to court to obtain them. It was thus revealed that, even under a regime of bogus thermal norms, ninety percent of some 450 models tested were not safe. The scandal was dubbed « phonegate » by a French journalist writing in Le Monde, and the name has stuck even as Dr Arazi has continued his at times exhausting court fight against the French government over this its refusal to enforce its own norms.
The incidence of brain cancer is rising exponentially; however, glioma, the worst form, and one of the worst cancers known, is often not entered on the cancer registries, hence not taken into account for statistical purposes. Generally, cancers are entered only if a death can be irrefutably attributed to them. Thus, for example, if a person dying of cancer contracts pneumonia and dies of it, the case does not go on the cancer registry, for the patient is considered to have died from pneumonia. In other words, for statistical purposes, the patient is treated the same as somebody whose cancer has ended in remission, hence “cured” and is not counted, for the criterion is mortality not morbidity.
The WHO’s specialized agency on cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has listed electromagnetic radiation as a « possible cause » of cancer. In its ultra-cautious terminology, this means that such radiation causes cancer but that there are still some hold-outs in the scientific community unwilling to admit this. These hold-outs are the scientists who have been paid by industry to produce bogus science. At the time of this designation, there was pressure both to have electromagnetic radiation listed as a carcinogen and to not have it listed at all. The current designation was thus something of a compromise, although the pressure is building, greatly, to change the designation to « carcinogen » outright.
So far, the telecommunications industry, backed by the military, has spent billions on bogus scientific « studies », all of which have at least some element of truth to them, hence can appear at least plausible. The greatest obstacle in assessing health effects, however, is the long gestation period for most cancers, which makes establishing a clear cause-and-effect relationship difficult and costly.
As the pressure heats up to launch G5, 170 scientists from 37 countries last November launched a major petition to the United Nations demanding a halt to its implementation. (INTERNATIONAL APPEAL – Stop 5G on Earth and in Space: ( https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal ).
Its preamble reads: “We the undersigned scientists, doctors, environmental organizations and citizens from (__) countries, urgently call for a halt to the deployment of the 5G (fifth generation) wireless network, including 5G from space satellites. 5G will massively increase exposure to radio frequency (RF) radiation on top of the 2G, 3G and 4G networks for telecommunications already in place. RF radiation has been proven harmful for humans and the environment. The deployment of 5G constitutes an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law.”
The petition continues to grow as knowledge of the danger slowly – finally – permeates the minds of the general public. As of 7 June 2019, 100,091 more persons from at least 187 countries had added their signatures and their refusal of G5 to the document.
- Robert James Parsons
- Independent Journalist
