On Ionizing and Non-Ionizing Radiation
---------------------------------------
Some of the Facts
(Be sure to see the postscript)

Emissions from mobile phones and phone masts are subject to limits defined in guidelines issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Any mast which conforms to those limits is deemed by the government to be safe. The government does all it can to make it very difficult for local authorities to even consider the possible hazards to health that might be posed by a mast which conforms to ICNIRP guidelines.

But what exactly is ‘Non-Ionizing Radiation’? How does this differ from ‘Ionizing Radiation’ (which presumably also exists)? What quantity exactly is being measured, and limited, in these guidelines, and why is this quantity seen as so important? Why are so many independent scientists questioning the validity of these guidelines, and what possible hazards do they consider are not being covered by them?

The answer to the first question lies in the study of Quantum Physics - but don’t stop reading, all will be explained quite simply. Radio waves, microwaves, visible light waves, X-rays and gamma rays are all examples of Electromagnetic Radiation. The difference between them is in their frequency (the number of vibrations they make per second). Radio waves have a fairly low frequency - typically in thousands of Hz (Hertz = vibrations per second). Microwaves vibrate at millions or billions of Hz, light at millions of billions of Hz, and X-rays and gamma rays at higher rates still. An individual ‘bit’ of radiation, belting through the air (or space) at the speed of light - which is also the speed of microwaves, of X-rays, etc, etc - is referred to as a Photon.

Quantum Theory tells us that the energy carried by a photon depends on its frequency: a microwave photon carries more energy than a radio wave photon, and a gamma-ray photon carries much, much more than either of them. Quantum Theory also tells us that a high-energy photon can do things that any number of low-energy photons put together can’t do - for example, dislodge an electron from an atom, or break a chemical bond. It’s like saying that one really massive bullet can do these things but a hail of lesser bullets can’t, no matter how many of them there may be. The first of these examples, dislodging an electron, would of course result in a free negatively-charged electron and a remaining, now positively-charged, incomplete atom - a negative and a positive ion. This is ionization. X-ray and gamma ray photons have enough energy to cause ionization, radio waves, microwaves and visible light waves don’t - the first two are ionizing radiation, the last three are non-ionizing radiation (no matter how intense their combined ‘fire-power’). For this reason microwaves (et al.) are seen as incapable of breaking molecular bonds. Most significantly in the health debate, they are regarded as incapable of breaking bonds in DNA molecules (unlike X-rays and gamma rays) and thereby leading to abnormal cell growth which can result in cancers.

So the ICNIRP’s brief is this: what harm can radiation do, if it is non-ionizing? One very simple answer to that, in the case of microwaves, is that it can cause heating effects in tissue. This is quite obvious to anyone who has cooked a meat pie in a microwave oven. Microwave radiation causes vibration within cell structures, leading to localized heating. In the early days of microwave ovens, before safety cut-outs were standard, some unfortunate users cooked their own kidneys by standing in front of a microwave oven operating with its door open.

The ICNIRP has therefore based its guidelines, quite simply, on whether the level of microwave radiation is more than the body’s own heat regulating mechanisms can deal with. In simple terms, can it cook you? Not surprisingly, radiation levels from any mast, at anything more than a few metres away, are many thousands of times lower than would be needed to experience a heating effect. We are not, at least, being subjected to living in a ‘microwave oven’ environment.

So why are so many independent scientists still so concerned? If it can’t break up your DNA (so they assume), and it can’t overheat you, what is there to worry about?

Basically, because microwave radiation, like all electromagnetic radiation, is vibrational - it carries information (quite apart from the phone conversation!). If you doubt this, just think for a moment about the phenomenon of sight. Visible radiation of different frequencies is translated by your eyes into different colours - it brings you information. Because this visible radiation "light" has been around since the dawn of life on this planet, at much the same level as it is now, living organisms have evolved in harmony with that radiation, have learned to organise it in their thinking processes and to make beneficial use of the information that it brings.

It’s worth taking a moment out here to observe that visible light is non-ionizing radiation, and at non-thermal levels it quite clearly affects living organisms. Usually in a helpful way, as noted above - but if a person whose eyes have got used to the dark suddenly has a torch shone in their face it can cause disorientation and loss of the night-vision they have been using to find their way around. The main point to note here is that a living organism is responsive to non-ionizing radiation at non-thermal levels.

OK, I hear you say, but the eye is supposed to respond to radiation, that’s what it’s there for. What’s that got to do with the rest of the body?

Brain cells, the ones that do our thinking for us, are neurons. The photoreceptors (light and colour sensors) in our eyes are also neurons, brain cells that have been externalized by the evolutionary process to perform a specific task. That same evolutionary process, over the millennia, has refined them to do that task ever more effectively. BUT that evolutionary process could never have got started without those cells having some sensitivity in the first place, to be made use of and improved upon. In other words, those neurons must have been responsive to light before this responsiveness led to formation and refinement of the eye - the eye is a result, not a cause, of that responsiveness.

The logical conclusion from all this is that neurons in general sense electromagnetic radiation to some degree. Evolution has caused bunches of neurons to be organized (i.e. put into organs - our eyes!) to make beneficial use of this facility. But, up until recently at least, the level of microwave radiation has not been such as to prompt specialized receptors to be evolved for this purpose. Now - in the last 20 to 30 years - our neurons have been swamped with a massive increase in microwave radiation that they cannot escape from. Our eyes have pupils that restrict the intake of visible light to manageable levels, eyelids to close off that light when we don’t want it. No such escape from microwaves: they are able to penetrate directly through the skull, where our neurons are bombarded with ‘information’ that they have not been educated to understand. ‘Sensing’ by definition means ‘responding’, usually by releasing chemicals that act as messengers in some form or another. The trial-and-error process of evolution (with its many failed attempts that have fallen by the wayside en route) has produced a system of meaningful responses to visible light. There is no reason that this should be so with this deluge of unfamiliar radiation; it is totally to be expected that this should lead to a confused and unstructured response by the brain.

Which is exactly what was recorded by the Stewart Committee, particularly in respect of pulsed radiation at around 16 cycles per second, and now seems likely to also apply to various other pulsed frequencies. And the NRPB Report on TETRA said "If this genuinely happens the reason is unclear". Unclear???

Long-term low-level exposure to non-ionizing radiation at non-thermal levels clearly also has cumulative effects. The ICNIRP don’t seem to have cottoned on to that, either. To get the inside information on that you’d have to ask a tree. Just mention ‘photosynthesis’. For a tree, the long-termness can be hundreds of years. We’re talking visible light again, and a well-evolved constructive response. Who knows what a totally unfamiliar form of radiation might do to a tree - or to you, or me? Nobody knows.

Biological effects of non-ionizing radiation at non-thermal levels are an established fact - they happen. This is not a subject that is open to dispute. Given this fact, and given both the research findings of the Stewart Committee and the overwhelming flood of so-called ‘anecdotal’ evidence of detrimental effects of microwaves on humans (including long-term cumulative effects), the only rational response is to call a halt to microwave irradiation of our living-space until the possible consequences are better known.

The ‘P’ in NRPB and ICNIRP both stand for ‘Protection’. Who is it exactly that is being protected?

Postscript
Since writing this article the latest issue of ‘Microwave News’ ( http://www.microwavenews.com) has printed an article on this subject, of which the following is an extract (full article available free from above site). It makes very interesting reading.

Hans-Albert Kolb in Hannover lost a bottle of champagne betting that relatively weak EMFs cannot induce DNA breaks (see p.2).

To his credit, Kolb ran the experiment despite his initial skepticism and proved himself wrong. By repeating the work of Vienna’s Oswald Jahn and Hugo Rüdiger, Kolb’s lab becomes the sixth to show that magnetic fields can disrupt genetic blueprints. Taken together, these studies make the epidemiology linking EMFs to childhood cancer more credible. (Now there are reports that this same link has been found in a Japanese study; see p.3).

The standard response from physicists is that this work cannot be right because power-frequency EMFs do not have the energy to break chemical bonds. Some even suggest that the experimenters must be incompetent or dishonest (see p.8).

Anyone who has taken high school chemistry will agree that bonds are not being broken, but that does not mean these experiments are flawed. The researchers may not yet understand the subtle changes that lead to genetic damage - the important thing is that magnetic fields have repeatedly been shown to cause such damage.

 http://www.starweave.com/ionizing/

--------

On line paper of mind-invasion
------------------------------
Dear Klaus,
Could you draw your readers' attention (in particular Imelda in Cork) to my paper published on the website of the Journal of Psycho-Social Studies On The Need For a New Diagnosis for Psychosis in the Light of Mind-Invasive Technology: at www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social

Carole Smith

and

EHS and mental illness
-----------------------
Hi Klaus

I have concerns about the work that you and Imelda are conducting regarding EHS, due to your focus on being covertly targeted by microwave weapons. As this is clearly not the case, it is not surprising that the EHS are being seen as mentally ill. It is difficult enough trying to get the authorities to take this condition seriously without making it worse with such paranoid and unproven claims. Its unnecessary.

It is too easy for non-EHS people to regard us as mentally ill, and although I am able to function normally I still have a problem with people thinking this, so why give them extra ammunition?

Please feel free to pass this on to Imelda - I don't have her email.

Regards

Sarah Benson

answer from Imelda:

Hi Klaus: Thanks for forwarding Sarah's email. I appreciate how difficult it is for many people who have not been targeted by energy weapons to believe in their very existence. Indeed it is just as hard to do so as it is for the general non-EHS public to embrace the reality of our EHS bioeffects and especially when we claim that they are triggered by exposure to external EMR sources. And Sarah has no problem believing in the physical reality of EHS because she has experienced these bioeffects. She can say so with full conviction "because they clearly exist for me."

Sarah is a wonderfully committed EHS activist who in my estimation is doing superb work on this front in Australia and I am very grateful for the generous amount of information on EHS she shared with me a few years ago. But perhaps it would have been better if she had written regards our inclusion in EHS discussions of the reality of deliberate MW targeting that "as this is not the case for me" rather than conveying her belief that microwave weapons do not exist and therefore no one anywhere can possibly be targeted has universal validity by omission of that all important "for me."

Best, Imelda, Cork, Ireland.

--------

French tackle mobile phone health dangers
------------------------------------------

SUMMARY:

1. But the user is not informed about the demanded “health security distance”. It seems that not yet the user is informed about the health hazard of Blood Brain Barrier alteration with just 2 minutes of mobile phone use. (Dr L. Salford)

One mobile phone can emit within the user’s brain density of powers of microwaves million times higher than the natural radiation of Sun microwaves, with the documented health hazard of Blood Brain Barrier alteration in the people who are 1.5 meters of distance and the Chromosomes alteration to 8-10 meters of distance can affect the children and pregnant women.

With this fundamental health hazard information and “security distance” it seems ridiculous to confuse to the population with the use of hands free kits, since it is demonstrated the same important alteration of drivers reactions time.

2. Dr Marc Seguinot of the European Commission has well documented: The density of power “authorized” can be based in the stupid heating of 1 degree of a “dead mass” of plastic, that was (calculated) divided by capricious number 50.

It seems incomprehensible that during decades this absolutely false supposition can be maintained to emit microwaves into alive organisms that are “considered” like not-different from dead mass or inanimate matter.

· To remember the brief summary of the report of Dr Mae Wan Ho.
Successive reports have confirmed that electromagnetic fields too weak to cause burns and heating are linked to cancers and other illnesses.

Most revealing in the entire episode was the way Schwan defended the indefensible orthodoxy. He denied all scientific evidence that went against his a priori calculation based on the ‘known laws of physics’ and the utterly false assumption that the living organism was to be regarded as no different from dead or inanimate matter.

3. Are you convinced that we won't have to adopt a more restrictive approach?



SILICON.COM

Tue 5 August 2003 01:03PM BST

French tackle mobile phone health dangers

Hands free kits, limit on masts and emissions among government measures…

Compulsory hands free kits and a restriction on masts are among a raft of new public health measures announced by the French government to combat the potential dangers posed by mobile phones.

French Industry minister Nicole Fontaine said in an interview with the Journal de dimanche: "In a few months time, mobile phones will not able to be sold without a hands free attachment."

The government initiative envisages the sale of mobiles phones only if they come with a hands free kit. Most mobile shops are already there and the operators, who distribute handsets en masse, are marketing mobiles with hands free kits thrown in as well.

Phones that come with hands frees have been the standard since September 2002 at French mobile operator SFR, and customers with older mobiles can get a free kit on demand. At fellow providers Orange and Bouygues, all mobile packs have come with a hands free kit since 2001.

The minister also announced a future regulation that will put a limit on the power of handsets.

But Marc Seguinot, head of the EC division in charge of protecting the health of consumers, said: "All mobile phones that come on to the market now already have to conform to European standards that limit radiation."

Fontaine also said that before the end of the year, the three main French operators will sign a 'good behaviour charter', whereby they will undertake, among other measures, to "inform the inhabitants before any mast is put up, use existing masts rather than building new ones".

She said: "I am convinced that we won't have to adopt a more restrictive approach."

This initiative, however, hasn't come from the government itself. The operation was developed on behalf of operators by the French association of mobile operators, AFOM, which works in concert with local authorities and various groups.

Nevertheless, the minister still maintains that taking precautions is the way forward, even if scientific studies listed by the World Health Organisation conclude that there isn't any danger from either mobiles or phone masts.

Elaine Spitery, a member of the Priartem association – which campaigns for regulation of phone masts – and a trainee doctor, said: "Finally, the government's conscience has kicked in over the potential danger of mobiles and phone masts."

Christophe Guillemin writes for ZDNet France  editorial@silicon.com

Informant: Dr Miguel Mutané

--------

Comments on Mystery illness hits US troops in Iraq
--------------------------------------------------
Hi Don,

This long, unnerving but fact-based article by Will Thomas (Omega: see under:  http://www.grn.es/electropolucio/omega260.rtf refers to DU exposure symptoms being experienced by American soldiers, who I predict, would seem doomed to a very short and painful imminent exit from this world as a result of the deliberate witholding of information about these and other contaminants to which they are so heavily and shamefully exposed. Meanwhile their benefits are slashed and the entire US economy seems headed for the greatest crash in history as detailed in the following piece.

With respect and thanks for your research and the crucial information you
bring forth.

Chris Anderson


Giving a man who wrecked every business he was ever handed personal control over two countries is probably not a good idea.

Informant: Don Maisch

--------

WWF ALERT: Birds threatened by South Korean coastal plan
---------------------------------------------------------
 http://news.panda.org/cgi-bin1/flo/y/hYXM0DZ3EE0E8z0CBP80A3

--------

O.T. themes:

While our backs were turned
 http://www.libertyforall.net/2003/archive/aug17/turned.html

But ... but .... we're the good guys
 http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe232-20030803-03.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

Intelligence shouldn't exist just to serve policy
 http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=940

Gulf War Soldier: "We Don't Feel Like Heroes Anymore"
 http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=945

Newly Retired Officer: Pentagon Suffers from "Isolation," "Cliques," and
"Groupthink"
 http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=946