Beyond Radiation

Happy New Year - Lapland in My Mind

Ever since I returned from Norway, I have been dreaming about visiting the Magical Lapland.

Lapland is something special to me, since our family tradition has been to spend holidays in our Lappi cottage, already 30 years! We love to ski in the winter and hike/do mountain biking in the summer.

To me Lapland means pure nature. Lately, nature in Lapland has unfortunately become more and more polluted. An example: Flying insects (mosquitos, bees etc.) have disappeared almost totally from Lapland [1],[2],[3],[4] and high nesting/flying birds have more and more illnesses [1]. Is it just a co-indidence, that this has happened during the period when 3G, TETRA and Digital TV were installed to thousands of masts and started to cover almost the whole Lapland? Of course we can always blame Kola area for air pollution and chemicals keep on interacting with EMFs [1]. In that sense I enjoyed the discussion with leader Kurt Oddekalv from the Green Warriors of Norway. In his welcome speech in the International EMF Conference in Stavanger he pointed out that electro-magnetic fields are the biggest environmental problem in our planet. 

Funny, I never thought that I would become an environmentalist ;-) I guess I will some day travel across Lapland and will map the least polluted areas. For curiosity.

Thank you for reading and commenting this blog in 2009! My Christmas greeting comes late, so,  don't miss those entertaining Lapland videos (click the reindeer picture above).

I wish you all Happy and Succesful Year 2010!

Misconduct in Science 1: How Power Industry Controls Research

The latest story in the Microwave News (MWN) is worth reading:

 

      The Real Junk Science of EMFs

Stop Electric Field Cancer Research, Say Industry Scientists

It describes how one industry-minded researcher and three industry representatives make a poor literature review and then suggest that there is no reason to do research on electric fields any more. [1],[2].

All this happens in once prestigious Bioelectromagnetics journal, where editorial policy has  been lately quite biased [1],[2] and sloppy.

Why is the power industry acting like this right now? My guess is that it has something to do with the (future) health problems related to transients and harmonic overwaves (aka dirty electricity)  [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7] and installation of Not So Smart Meters [1],[2]. By installing hundreds of millions of these meters world wide as part of this Definitely Not Smart Grid [1] will have a massive impact on health … and environment :-(  

My own definition of Climategate:

”An Illusion Created by the Industry and some Misled Environmental Organisations to Make Consumers to Believe that:
a) By Buying CFL Energy Saving Lamps, Smart Meters and Electric Cars They Would Save the World and Environment.
b) While Simultaneosly These Poorly Constructed Devices Possibly Ruin the Health of Their Users and Create (Electro)Pollution in Massive Scale. - M.A.

Please, don't get me wrong: I have nothing against well-designed energy-saving devices and networks. However, the mass-marketed, existing ones are not well-designed. Additionally The Really Smart Grid would have been based on fibre and wired connections without transients or pulses. I told this to Finnish government ministers (especially Mauri Pekkarinen, but they don't listen since they prefer to spread Wonderful Wireless Technologies and to promote partially government-owned Mobile&Power industry :-\  I also contacted industry representatives, but they were not willing to change their plans. Currently, I am using another channel to promote more sustainable alternatives.

Remember what Robert O. Becker once said?

“I have no doubt in my mind, that at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the Earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be far greater on a global scale than warming and the increase in chemical elements in the environment.”

- MD, Professor Robert O. Becker

Becker's prediction is more precise than I ever could have imagined :-(

Glad to hear/read your comments about this!

P.S. I highly recommend MWN. The chief editor, PhD Louis Slesin is one the best experts in the world in the EMF & Health area. It has been pleasure to meet and discuss with him :-) Please, don’t miss the WHO Files in right frame of the MWN !!

International EMF Conference Stavanger – Setting Healthier Guidance Levels

World’s leading experts of biological effects will gather in Stavanger, Norway. Norges Miljøvernforbund (Green Warriors of Norway) and Radiation Research Trust representatives have been working hard to arrange this conference.

The conference programme is truly interesting on Tuesday 17th November 2009.

After the official conference, experts like professor Carl Blackman, professor Martin Blank, professor Yuri Grigoriev (RNCNIRP), professor Devra Davis  & Co will continue defining new, biologically relevant guidance levels. These guidance-levels are for mobile phones, cell towers, powerlines and generally for existing and forthcoming technologies.

_{(I will be participating the conference, only).}

As you propably know, the current ICNIRP guidance levels  only protect from (acute) thermal effects.

The tricky question is: how to define new, biologically relevant guidance levels?

SIX STARTING POINTS:

Literature Review – Transmitters and Health

What are the health risks of transmitters? How is this issue addressed by the WHO (World Health Organisation)?

I looked at chronic, 24/7 exposure. So, I reviewed research papers focusing on:

-    Mobile phone base stations (cell towers) + TETRA

-    AM / FM Radio + Analog /digital TV masts + Radar

This review is available at:

http://www.uta.fi/~mikko.ahonen/riski-extra.htm

I listed research papers with both positive and negative findings. I also included occupational exposure data and nature related data.

(Photo: Ferihegy airport, Budapest, Hungary, July 2009. An observation: two children very close to antennas.)

Increased leukemia and lymphoma rates come up regularly in FM / AM Radio + Television transmitter research papers (8 out of 10 papers). Mobile phone base stations are a newer phenomenon and the symptoms and illnesses seem to be more versatile ranging from sleep problems to neurological illnesses and breast cancer ( 10 out of 13 papers indicated increased risk ). It is difficult to compare these papers with each other, because not every paper has radiation power density measurements included.

After all these findings, the WHO officially announces:

“Considering the very low exposure levels and research results collected to date, there is no convincing scientific evidence that the weak RF signals from base stations and wireless networks cause adverse health effects.“ .

Definitely, WHO International EMF Project folks are playing with the word ‘evidence’.

Mass-Customization MCPC2009 + EMF & Health Business in Drucker framework

The 5th World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC2009) will be arranged between 4th-8th October 2009 in Helsinki, Finland. This conference gathers together a nice mixture of people (architects, business executives, designers, artists, researchers, etc). What I like in this year's MCPC, is the ability to co-create and customise the actual conference with a toolkit! During the years, I have tried to stay tuned what is happening in this fascinating mass-customization scene [1].

If you are curious about this mass-customisation and personalisation area, I recommend the blog of professor Frank Piller. Frank always has interesting things going on and he is good in telling business stories :-)

My presentation and paper in this year's MCPC2009 Conference is called:

"Sources of Innovative Opportunity and Mass-Customization
 – An Analysis of EMF & Health Business Area"

Abstract (updated): "Systematic innovation means monitoring changes in existing business structures and early entrepreneurs often take risks in entering a new business area. Therefore, the Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity, an innovation monitoring framework from Peter Drucker is presented. Within this paper we investigate how this framework is related to mass-customization and personalization. First we test this framework in real context by evaluating three health product companies and their innovation activities. These companies operate in a new business area called the EMF (Electro-Magnetic Fields) and Health. Recently, several scientists, governments and the European Parliament have emphasized precautionary principle and indicated health risks in mobile phones, base stations and other technologies. At the same time authorities and standard setting bodies (like ICNIRP, IEEE and WHO) have not officially recognized such risks. This tension provides a starting point for the evaluation. At the end of this paper we discuss how crowdsourcing and mass-customization toolkits could be utilized more effectively by entrepreneurs. Open innovation paradigm and the challenges in knowledge brokering in R&D are also introduced."

Update 4th October  2009:  My paper in PDF format can be found here. The presentation in the MCPC2009 will take place on Tuesday, 6th of October 2009, starting at 13:45.

Update 19th October 2009: An interesting concept was mentioned in the MCPC2009: Continuous Innovation. This happened in Joseph Pine 's presentation:"Future of mass customization". I need to focus on this in the future.

Comments about the paper or about the conference are welcome!

Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern + How Susceptible Are Genes to Mobile Phone Radiation?

A new report was released today by the International EMF Collaborative entitled:

"Cellphones and Brain Tumors:

15 Reasons for Concern

Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone"

Conclusions:

• There is a risk of brain tumors from cellphone use

• Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors

• Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors.

Since I was one of the signatories, I would like to see the message of the report relayd first and foremost to families with children:

Please, Check the Personal Actions at Page 31.  Inform Families and Friends Close to You. 

Signatories have drafted the following actions to be implemented globally:

Little Breakthrough, Perhaps? In Finland and Hopefully in USA

Today, 24th August 2009, the major newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, published a small article about mobile phones and health risks of children ("Lasten kännykän käyttö on terveysriski"). This article was written by professor Osmo Hänninen, doctor Seppo Kinnunen and myself. The newspaper did not publish the link to references, so here they are with the article in Finnish.

Update 12th September 2009: Now an English version available: "Mobile phone use of children is a health risk".

Even the Ilta-Sanomat  ("The Sun of Finland") made a news item "Asiantuntijat varoittavat kännykän käytön vaaroista= Experts warn about the risks of mobile phone use" of our little article. Maybe (finally) Finnish parents will stop buying mobile phones to their little children. In this Crazy Mobile Land service providers are actively marketing mobile phones to children in every newspaper, even in the Donald Duck (Aku Ankka) magazine :-( School start is a special campaign time with Habbo Hotel figures integrated to cell phone commercials (1). Really irresponsible behaviour... 

My American friends have been working hard to organise a meeting in Washington: "Expert Conference on Cell Phones and Health: Science and Public Policy Questions" ,  which will be held between September 13-15 in 2009 at the Credit Union House. 

Update 15th September 2009:

The actual Hearing:

"Health Effects of Cell Phone Use"

started on Monday 14th September 2009 at 2:00PM US Eastern time and was broadcasted live on C-SPAN 3 and it can be viewed at:

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=288879-1 , please, click the Flash video icon.

(Link updated).

Special thanks to senator Arlen Specter. I hope that it will be a success and US representatives will (finally) start funding independent health studies of mobile phones.

I am just tired of corruption and misconduct in this area, that is why I wish more independent research.  _{To my Finnish readers: Allekirjoitapa seuraava adressi: "Matkapuhelinteollisuuden edustajat pois terveystutkimushankkeista", että saadaan tutkimuksen näkökulma esille.}  

France just made a nice move, when it is preparing to make scientific boards really scientific without industry representatives.  I hope that other nations will follow.

STUK censored blogs: ICNIRP wall starts to break

The Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK, SäteilyTUrvaKeskus) got worried.

In January 2009 STUK tried a new, more open strategy, so their representatives started blogging and getting feedback.

On  23rd June 2009 all four official blogs (one in English, three in Finnish) were shut down  and removed from the STUK website as “not being in line with the STUK policy” :-(

The content of those censored blogs is revealing and especially comments are worth reading.

Take a look what was censored:

- 2 blog threads in English from Professor Dariusz Leszczynski: “Thermal or Non-Thermal: That is the Question” + “From China with Love”. Dariusz himself writes very wise and neutral blog posts and I am glad that a) he continues blogging in this new Wordpress address, b) he has saved the original comments.

_{- 1 blog thread in Finnish from the Director of STUK, Jukka Laaksonen: “}Ionisoimaton säteily ei ole riskitöntä _{”,  a screen capture. Translation:  ”Non-Ionising Radiation Is Not Risk-Free Radiation”. That director did not respond to any comments he received. What a blogger.).}

No wonder the STUK sponsors: service providers and mobile manufacturers, got upset and perhaps increased pressure towards STUK to shut down those blogs in the STUK website.

The discussion (Comments) in those blog threads contain sensitive topics: Biological effects, the twisted funding of scientific research, thermal hot-spots, risks of TETRA [1],[2], people getting ill/staying ill at 1/10.000 part of thermal-only based ICNIRP guidance levels etc. It seems to me that those "radiation protection" authorities in Western countries just can not handle their job any more to protect population; this censorship shows it very clearly.

- See also my previous story about the closed club called ICNIRP with a nice video ;-)

- Check how difficult it was here in Finland to get the chidren's mobile phone use related recommendation from the STUK.

- Check how the ICNIRP Game is being played (search for "ICNIRP game") and why science is not science any more [1],[2],[3],[4],[5].

Glad to hear your opinions, folks :-)

Robert O. Becker: Cross Currents

For all medical doctors, engineers, researchers and (e)inventors I have a book recommendation: Cross Currents by researcher, medical doctor Robert O. Becker.

Dr Becker early understood  that a human being is an electromagnetic entity. The first edition of this book was written in 1990 and now it is more actual than ever.

For example: The healing of wounds and bones is based on electric currents inside of us. Our cells communicate with electricity. Our body functions and rhythms (including circadian) are based on changes in natural(!) electromagnetic fields. Becker also showed how acupuncture and many other alternative treatments work.

Artificial electromagnetic fields and mobile devices/basestations/powerlines distort this communication inside of us. Being concerned about life on earth, Becker tried to inform military and industry about safer technologies (without immediate success).

 

  In case you have difficulties in getting the 'Cross Currents' book, try Robert O. Becker and Gary Selden’s earlier book Body Electric in eBook, PDF-format.

Update 18th June 2009: Talking about environment: The chapter called Maxwell's Hammer is worth reading. I hope that soon the environmental discussion will focus on the bombardment of ionosphere + abnormal growth/changes caused by microwaves (before it is too late). Hopefully Green Party(ies) and Greenpeace will finally get it: climate change is NOT only about increased CO2-levels. Constantly growing powerline grid and dense base station network has an effect on weather, nature and ionosphere.. Not to mention the risky HAARP installation in Alaska :-( (Update 26th July 2009: The following document of professor Ulrich Warnke describes those mechanisms of harm in detail : "Bees, Birds and Mankind - Destroying Nature by Electrosmog")  

 

Becker was twice nominated for Nobel prize in medicine. For very good reasons.

It would be great to hear your comments about Becker’s books.

 

Moscow - Return to Russia's Creative Dynamo + RNCNIRP

20 years ago, in 1989, I visited previous time Moscow. It was a summer full of strong emotions, youth and great adventure in Soviet time. Now, when I returned in May 2009 the landmarks like Moscow State University (Московский государственный университет имени М.В.Ломоносова) were still in my mental map and my expectations from the new visit were high. To understand Russia, you just need to understand the Russian soul [душа], music and culture. I am slowly learning these elements and perhaps my Carelian roots help me in this process ;-) So, I had a feeling like coming home :)

During my life I have had the honour to have many excellent mentors and hosts. This visit was no exception. Professor in physiology, Osmo Hänninen originally invited me to Moscow in the Environmental BioIndicators conference and the Kotelevtsev family was a great host on site.

Update 25th May 2009: My presentation in the Environmental BioIndicators conference partly focused on:

A) Abnormal growth caused by RF radiation in plants, insects, animals and humans

B) The consequences of ultra-high guidance levels in fostering abnormal growth and other side effects

C) Siting and configuration of base stations and other wireless technologies to minimise damage

D) Interplay of chemicals and RF radiation (and how little we know about it and why for example EU's NORMAN-network and ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) should focus on it).

So, I didn't choose the easiest topic and the knowledgeable audience provided me important feedback and new insights.

Meeting with professor Yuri Grigoriev (Юрий  Григорьев) was  memorable, we talked (in Russian), eat and drink for many hours. As the head of Russian National Committee of Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) Yuri has amazing experience:
- Being a medical officer already in the 2nd World War
- Developing artificial, natural-like electro-magnetic fields to space ships (Sputnik-programme)
- Being one of the first doctors/professors in Chernobyl in 1986 to investigate the catastrophic situation
- Understanding early how the effects of non-ionising radiation are not just ... thermal [Russian research about biological effects[1], Update: see also examples in English : [1],[ 2],[3],[4] . Update 29th July 2009: Check those reports RNCNIRP provided to WHO [1],[2]. Already in 2003 RNCNIRP commented that ICNIRP guidance levels are out of date and children and pregnant women [1],[2] should be protected.

Update: Many times during our discussion Yuri emphasised that children's risks are much greater when it comes to microwave and especially mobile phone exposure [1],[2].

So, we had both serious and non-serious topics.