E+E Leader: Sustainability Unveiled
Welcome to "Sustainability Unveiled," a podcast that delves into the essential domains of Sustainability, Environmental & Energy Management, Compliance, Global Supply Chains, and more. Prepare for insightful conversations that dig deeper than the superficial, enriched by our distinctive human approach that amplifies expert analysis.
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E+E Leader: Sustainability Unveiled
5G Wireless Radiation Exposed: The Hidden Health Dangers
In a candid discussion, Jessica Hunt interviews Kent Chamberlin, President of the Environmental Health Trust, diving deep into the critical topic of 5G wireless radiation. Kent, a recognized authority in bio-electromagnetics, sheds light on the often-overlooked health risks associated with 5G technology. Drawing from his extensive expertise and experience, Kent outlines the potential dangers of increased exposure to wireless radiation, emphasizing the urgent need for public awareness and regulatory reform.
This conversation explores concrete steps individuals can take to mitigate risks and challenges to industry standards. It underscores the importance of informed decision-making in safeguarding public health amidst the rapid evolution of telecommunications technology.
For additional information and to obtain a copy of the slide deck Kent references in the conversation, email sarah.washington@environmentenergyleader.com.
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Welcome back to another episode of Sustainability Unveiled. You may have noticed that we took a longer break than anticipated. This was due to some health issues that my son experienced, so thank you for your patience. I know everyone has been highly anticipating this conversation. We are going to be diving deep into the critical topic of 5G wireless radiation with Kent Chamberlain, president of the Environmental Health Trust. Sit back, take notes and enjoy the conversation, episode of Sustainability Unveiled.
Speaker 2:I am so pleased to have Kent Chamberlain on with us for an extremely interesting and important discussion on 5G wireless radiation exposure. Kent, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. It's good to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so excited to be sitting down with you to have this conversation. Before we really get into the meat of what we're going to be sitting down with you to have this conversation, before we really get into the meat of what we're going to be talking about today, I'd love for you to give our audience just some background on who you are as a person and why this has become your life's work.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's really important to find out something about whoever's presenting any information regarding 5G and wireless communication. So how I got into this was about five years ago. I was chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and my specialty area was electromagnetics. Bioelectromagnetics did things in biomedical engineering and radio frequency engineering and because of that background I was asked to serve on a state commission. Now the commission had been formed because legislators were being told by industry that they needed to roll out more facilities in the state. Yet these same legislators were being told by their constituents that they were being harmed by this wireless radiation and they had the science to back it up. Constituents that they were being harmed by this wireless radiation and they had the science to back it up. Now legislators have thousands of pieces of legislation bills to work on in any legislative session, so they didn't have time to delve into it themselves, nor actually did they have the background. So they decided to form a commission commission, you know, with experts, unbiased experts, that they could bring together to answer the question about wireless radiation harm once and for all. And, like I say, I was asked to serve on that commission and what is important to note is. At the time I was asked to serve, I really didn't think that wireless radiation was much of a concern. I knew that you probably shouldn't hold your phone right up to your head 24-7, but in terms of putting it in your pocket or having them on or having other cell phones operating around you, I did not think that was an issue at all. We can talk more about why. I thought that as we get into this discussion today. So, anyhow, the commission was formed, we had people with backgrounds in medicine two medical doctors, toxicology, epidemiology, biostatistics, physics my area in electromagnetics so we had the right expertise to answer the questions being posed to us. Questions like and these questions were built into the legislation that convened the commission. These questions were built into the legislation that convened the commission. But questions like if wireless radiation is harmless, why won't insurance companies insure against it, not even Lloyd's of London? So insurance companies won't touch this issue because they know there's a risk. And, to make a long story short, that was the finding of our commission and that is wireless radiation, including 5G, and we can talk more about the difference between different frequencies and different generations of cell phones, but basically they are all harmful and it didn't take all that much digging to find that out. So, after finding that out and after the commission ended, kind of made it my.
Speaker 3:After finding that out and after the commission ended, I kind of made it my what would you call it. Life's purpose is maybe too strong, but I felt a strong responsibility to go out and let people know what the commission found out. People aren't likely to hear this message from many other places. They're certainly not going to hear it from industry and they're not going to hear it from many news outlets. Because, after all, who are some of the major advertisers in those news outlets? Well, telecom. And who owns, in fact owns right out some of these news outlets. So that's how I ended up actually with you today, and that is I'm trying to spread the message. I feel like I'm credible, you know, based upon how I learned this information and what I've heard so many times from telecom people is they'll claim oh, there's absolutely no harm at all to exposure. People who are claiming that they you know it makes them sick, they're electromagnetically hypersensitive. Well, it's all in their heads. Well, that is not what the commission found out. It's a real phenomenon.
Speaker 2:You, know electromagnetic hypersensitivity and more people are likely to become or have to deal with it because of the ever rising levels of radiation exposure. So that's my spiel about how I got here. No, it's such an interesting topic and something that I don't think the average consumer, average person, really spends a lot of time thinking about, because we live in the world of right here, right now and convenience. So, after you know, the commission met and you presented these findings. What happened?
Speaker 3:Well, that's the million dollar question. So we as commissioners you know people who served on the commission we said, and we had made 15 recommendations in our final report, and one of those recommendations is, you know, a setback for new cell towers in the state. We had, you know, a lot of other meaningful ones, but we thought that one of the most important recommendations that we should try to codify into legislation was the setback towers. It's about 500 feet from where sorry, 500 meters, that's 1,640 feet from places where people live, go to school, hospitals and all that. So that just seemed like a very reasonable recommendation and so that was the first piece of legislation that we tried to enact. Again, thought it was pretty reasonable, and we had a number of people, a number of legislators, who were very supportive of this because, like I say, it simply makes sense that you would do that now that you know that the exposure is harmful. So we did a lot in terms of testifying in front of various committees to promote this legislation.
Speaker 3:Long story short, this legislation, Long story short, it didn't get enacted A lot of good support. But what we found out is that if a very powerful industry doesn't want a piece of legislation to pass. It won't. Legislators are too dependent upon the money that comes from industry and also industry. If they don't like the way you, as a legislator, are voting, they'll send money and a lot of money to your opponent, and so it is the kiss of death if you, for some people in politics, kiss of death politically to go against this major industry. And telecom is arguably the highest profit industry on this planet. They spend over $100 million a year in lobbying and campaign contributions. So you don't mess with these guys. So, even though a lot of legislators were supportive of our efforts to enact meaningful legislation, we were told no, this just isn't going to pass. And indeed it did not pass. We've tried since then and we're going to be trying again with legislation, and our next attempt will be to protect kids at school. And that's another ball of worms, as it were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was going to bring that up anyway because I know, in preparation for our conversation today, that's something that we talked about, Because I can tell you my kids or at least in the county I live in in Maryland all the kids have Chromebooks, all their testing is done on Chromebooks, and so the exposure obviously is much higher when there's so many devices being used in a very concentrated area. So what advice do you have for school systems who might not, even though they do, have the resources to change the way that kids are being exposed to radiation?
Speaker 3:Okay, this is almost an entire new conversation, but let's not let that stop us.
Speaker 2:No, no, let's not let that stop us, and you know what I mean. That's why I was going to wait to bring it up. But you know, when you mentioned the schools and kids, you know I'd love to just talk a little bit about that before we get into some more of the health effects and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, we absolutely can do the deep dives in the other areas. But before I answer your question about schools, I want to let you know that I am the chair of a school board, a local school board, so I'm not going to be saying all these ivory tower things about what should be done, but actually some things that can be done and should be done that would cost very little, because I know the budget realities of running a school, so I'm not going to say, oh well, you need to do this. The first thing is to look at the location of the wireless access points, the routers, the wireless routers. Sometimes they're in classrooms and right over kids' heads. The exposure at those points are very high, but if you were to move these same routers into the hallway and again, I know that's not necessarily a small task, but you can do it that's going to lower the radiation in the classroom and only give those higher exposures while kids are going between classes. That just doesn't make sense. That's something an engineer would come up with, and so that's one thing you could do. Also, there are low power wireless routers that you can get. Now, I know we're talking money now we're talking about swapping out routers, but they are available. There were the advertising. The early evidence suggests they do lower exposures by up to 90% or, I'm sorry, 90% or more.
Speaker 3:I got to put a pause in here, and that is say that when we engineers were told to design wireless equipment, we were never told to minimize radiation. We were told to maximize data rates and connectivity, things like that. So we were never told to minimize radiation. But if we are do have that as a goal, we can make these devices much, much, much quieter and radiate a lot less. So I've mentioned router, buying a new router.
Speaker 3:But there's something else, and that is when an IT person installs the pieces of equipment, originally the wireless routers in the classrooms, for example. Usually the power on those routers is turned up to the max, and what that usually ensures is that you get the coverage area that you want, but usually you get more than the coverage area you need. So what can be done and this is very low cost is have the person who sets up the routers simply turn the power down, have somebody accessing that router within the confines of the room that you want to provide coverage, and so you make it so that you're only covering what is needed that can substantially lower the exposure. There are other things I could go into, but there is a lot that can be done. And also I would encourage people to go to wired.
Speaker 3:A lot of schools, the older well, I won't even say that older those built in the 90s, for example, would have Ethernet already installed. I think that should be made as an option for students. Or perhaps you can have a classroom one classroom dedicated to wired-only connections, because what schools are finding is that there's an increasing number of students who are sensitive and do need to have some relief from exposure a lot to think about.
Speaker 2:Oh, there is.
Speaker 3:So that's why I was careful about going down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:There is. It's just so much to think about. I know in the opening too, you mentioned the differences between you know the 3G, 4g, 5g. You just touched on that a little bit. So you know, I'd really like to dive into that some more with you because as a consumer, I don't know the specifics of this information, which is one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on is so that you could not just educate. You know our audience, but me too. On. You know the risks associated with the different levels and you know how we can circumvent those risks and minimize them as much as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you mentioned people not being aware and I just need to come back to the fact that I was not aware and I should have been. You know, being in electromagnetics and I got asked the question by parent groups about holding you know what's with your cell phone, and I usually downplayed it. But to answer a very important question, I'm bringing up a slide right now and what that slide shows is what emits wireless radiation. And so, as you can see here on the slide, your wireless headphones that's a source. Your cell phone, your wireless smart TV, a lot of appliance. Now they come with built-in Wi-Fi and as soon as you plug it in, it's emitting wireless radiation. Nearby cell towers, anything any tech that is labeled as smart, it's going to be radiating. You know Wi-Fi routers, laptops and the things that we're familiar with.
Speaker 3:But what is interesting and what is important for people to know is that at this point we don't know enough. We know that it's all harmful, but we don't know the degree of harmfulness. So, in other words, if asked, is a cell phone you know have a greater negative impact than cell towers, or actually some of that? We can't answer. But oh, your cell phone, your wireless cordless phone. You know which is more dangerous? We really don't know that right now, but what we can say is that they are all harmful. And I guess there's something else I need to say when I make that statement, because you hear the word harmful and you think, oh my gosh, no, I got to throw these things out.
Speaker 3:They're like death rays and they are not what it is like when you're around wireless radiation. It's like smoking or perhaps secondhand smoke. So if you're using your own cell phone and have it close to you, your body, or you have it on your body just as you're carrying it around, that's like smoking. You know it gives oxidative stress and we can go into more details about the mechanisms of wireless radiation harm. So it is like smoking.
Speaker 3:But if you're in a room with a, you know you're far away from a router, that's kind of like breathing secondhand smoke and it takes a while before we you know you see any effect from that. Just like you and I could smoke a pack of cigarettes today and we would live, we would live. But that doesn't prove that smoking is safe. And if we have an opportunity to get into how the FCC limits for exposure were set, I think you'll see that what they did is they performed some measurements in an hour or less and, based upon those hour or less studies, they declared that certain levels of radiation are OK, are safe, to use their words.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to think. An hour of time which? Is not an hour of time, which is not what made. Do you know, and maybe you don't, but what made the FCC decide on a specific time like 60 minutes is enough to provide us data. That's going, that is going to affect pretty much everybody, the entire population.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, it's time to go into it. This is perhaps the most shocking part of my presentation, and I'm sharing a screen with you right now, and that screen shows how the FCC limits were derived. And so, as you see, a picture here of a monkey with the number five on it, meaning that these tests, the original tests done back in the 1980s, were based upon a study of five monkeys and eight rats, and so these were short-term studies that were used to set the limits that are in place today, and they were behavioral studies. So I'll tell you about how it came about. So here it goes.
Speaker 3:The assumption that was made in performing these studies is that the only impact, the only harm that would come about from radiation exposure is that it would warm you up and that that heat would be a problem. And I think you and your audience knows that radio waves can warm you up, like the microwave oven is the classic example, and that's high exposure and indeed that is dangerous. But what is not, and obviously could not have been taken into account in these studies, is the long-term effect. So they assumed it was only heating that caused a problem. So the way the test was carried out is the animals you know, the eight rats and five monkeys were food deprived at the beginning of their exposure the test to determine the exposure limits. So they were food deprived then. But these same animals had been taught to push a lever to get food and so they were food deprived. They were put in the cage where they could push a lever to get food and they started off doing that because they were hungry. But during that hour they kept increasing and increasing the level of radiation exposure until it got so high that the animals could no longer function and perform that very simple task. That's why it's a behavioral study. They didn't look at other aspects of the parameters regarding health. They just said well, when these animals can no longer perform that function, they're done. So that's how they determined it and they called that very upper level. By the way, the highest level that they expose these rats and monkeys to caused some of the monkeys to develop burns on their faces. So we're not talking low levels of radiation, we're talking about very high levels of radiation, which of course is going to cause harm.
Speaker 3:And so they took that very high threshold dose, the dose at which the animals could no longer perform their tasks, and they arbitrarily divided it by 50. And I mean, I know we don't want to dive into that rabbit hole, but usually when you come up with anything you're going to call a safety factor, you base that upon something like relative risk. In other words, if I apply a factor of 50, the relative risk will decrease to such and such. But they didn't. It was totally arbitrary. Divide it by 50. It's good for the general public and in fact that's what you and I are exposed to every day, 24-7. So these tests like this are kind of like saying, hey, we're going to get a group of people, have them smoke a pack of cigarettes each, and if they live, we're going to declare this as being safe. And of course it's not.
Speaker 3:I had something else I wanted to go to here, and that is I'd like to give you a sense of the time involved. So, as I mentioned a moment ago, it's not like a death ray, you know. You turn your phone on you keel over. Well, some people it is a little bit like that those who are electromagnetically sensitive, but for, at this point, the majority of people and the reason I say at this point is because, as the radiation levels increase, the number of people who are sensitive is increasing. But let's take a look on the slide right now and you can see on the very left is an antenna mast, and then, if you go away from it, you know 465 feet you see a tree.
Speaker 3:So what we have here is a tree that's being exposed to radiation, and this is in 2008. It's pretty healthy, and then, if you go seven years later, you can see that the tree is starting to not look so good Until, finally, you go another few years and the tree is well. It's one side. The side that's exposed to the radiation is pretty much dead. They had to saw the tree down. Now there are lots of examples of this. The people in Germany did a study of like 100 trees, and that same study is continuing to go on, and what it shows is, with prolonged exposure to wireless radiation, even something that we think about as being as hardy as a tree will die as a result of that, and so the same type of thing is true with humans, and that is, with long-term exposure. It eventually gets you, just like smoking. First week of smoking, no problem. The first hour of smoking, no problem. But after years of smoking, just like after years of exposure. Yeah, it's going to be harmful.
Speaker 2:It becomes a problem. I mean, I guess one of the most staggering parts of the slide and just to let viewers know, or people who are listening, if you're listening to this just on audio, you will have a chance to look at the slides and resources that Kent is providing. It's going to be on the podcast page, so don't feel like you're missing out on anything. You'll be able to see exactly what Kent was talking about on his slides. But going back to what I was starting to say is these guidelines were established in the 1980s.
Speaker 3:Yes, no, no, no, I'm sorry, the research to set the guidelines was set back in the 80s. It wasn't until 1996 that it was really written into law.
Speaker 2:Okay, from 1996 to 2024, how much has changed in the wireless industry? You just think about it, you know it. You know from the devices that you've used, from the number of telecom companies that there are now compared to what they were in 1996, how different the world is and that you know best practices. Research would tell us we need to update guidelines.
Speaker 2:So, and that's a whole other dive I know we could take. And you know, obviously there's got to be some type of middle ground for everybody. But if we're just focusing, you know, I really would like to talk about the health effects some more, because I think that's something that's going to resonate, I know, with me, but also the audience is knowing more about you know what potential, what this exposure could potentially do to our bodies, our kids' bodies, all of that.
Speaker 3:All right, I'd like to actually address something that you mentioned a moment ago. What's going on? Why do we have these ridiculous standards? Nobody's going to be surprised to hear that the answer is money. That to put in a site correctly I'm saying this as a radio frequency engineer to site cell towers in a way that would be more responsible, in my opinion, would cost a lot of money, and we can talk in detail about siting. I don't think we need to do that right now, but it's a thing of money. And also, if people realized, if there was general acknowledgement about the harm of wireless radiation, it would profoundly affect people's relationship with this.
Speaker 3:And I'm holding up my cell phone right now. I love my cell phone I imagine most of you do, who are listening and it can be made safer. But the bottom line is money and also I'm not sure if we want to get into this either, but in terms of future plans for the industry, we looked at that. What is their business model? Well, their business model involves causing a lot greater radiation than what we currently have. They will tell you the industry. I've heard industry say that 5G will actually cause your radiation levels to be lower, and that's just not what people are finding. In reality, people have made measurements signal strength measurements, wireless radiation signal measurements in locations in cities, before and after the installation of 5G. Well, what happens is that with 5G you do have greater, and sometimes substantially greater, radiation exposure and hence your your health issues would be greater. So having said that, in other words, the business plan, the way that telecom plans to make more money in the future, has to do with keeping the standards the same way they are right now, as ridiculous as they are.
Speaker 3:So let me also say a little bit about that, and I'm bringing up a slide now that is from not a conspiracy website, but from a Harvard University Center for Ethics report, and that report is entitled Captured Agency how the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries it Presumably Regulates. And on that slide that I'm showing shows a revolving door, and that's the revolving door between industry and the FCC regulators. So somebody is the president of CTIA Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association for a while. Then they go become head of the FCC. This is very well documented and it's documented in the report. It's easy reading and I have a link to it here. But if you want to get that and you're just listening. Simply Google Harvard FCC and captured, and it'll bring you right to this report, and I really highly recommend it because it does explain what's going on with you know why our standards haven't changed since 1996, even though everything else seems to have changed, the regulations governing exposures have not changed. So you wanted to talk more about health, and I'm certainly ready to do that.
Speaker 2:I did, yes, and I you know, as I was listening to you there, I was also thinking about that. We are really talking about the United States and we haven't really talked about overseas and what's being done overseas and how things are different based on, you know, country guidelines and stuff. That might be a conversation for another day where we talk about the differences, you know, from country to country.
Speaker 3:But I think, to answer your question quickly, in a single slide I'm bringing up a comparison of exposure limits from RF from various countries and I think this one slide is pretty indicative of what's going on. And it's pretty indicative of the fact that we're really we, the country, the legislators are bending towards the interests of industry. Because what you can see here is that a number of competent countries such as Japan and there are others, you know, we obviously can't list them all here just follow the United States. I mean, that makes sense. You know the well the United States they're leaders in wireless technology. Let's just follow their guidelines so we don't have to do it. It saves them a lot of money.
Speaker 3:But that you can see other countries like Switzerland, italy, brussels although that may be changing China, india. I mean they have far lower thresholds than we do for exposure thresholds than we do for exposure. So it's partly to deal with, to do with or explained by, the politics of the United States, where industry seems to hold sway over our legislators to a greater degree than in many other countries just for those who were not, who are not watching this, uh, the video version of this conversation.
Speaker 2:it's a pretty uh impactful slide that Kent just shared, so don't worry again, you'll have access to it. If you're just listening to this, uh, when you listen to your podcasts, thank you for sharing that, that that slide, with us. But let's yeah, let's talk a little bit more, or even a lot more, about the health effects and when. How do you know if you're you know, if what you're feeling is a result of, um, of of exposure to wireless radiation, and I know you're not a, uh, a medical doctor, so there's all there's you know, but you've done enough research in this area and you've talked to enough physicians in this area that deal with this, that have the expertise.
Speaker 2:So I'm a parent. I want to know for myself, I want to know for my kids what do I need to look for and what else can I do. You know, what health problems could my kids experience?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that we need to really cover a couple of points. One is that for most of us, for most of us, at this time you're not going to feel anything. Most of us won't. It's just over the long term. I'll explain a little bit more why that is. There are others of us, and it's maybe 5% of the population, that are going to notice things like headaches, nausea, insomnia, you name it that are going to be a factor of being exposed. In fact, I can give some examples of that in just a moment. But for all of us, if you are exposed, you are wearing down your body, you're creating oxidative stress in your body that, over the long term, can be impactful.
Speaker 3:You know, a lot of people hearing about this for the first time including me needed to hear and see really rock solid scientific evidence, and so I'll start off with some rock solid scientific evidence, and what I'm displaying now is a slide, and it's the wireless radiation effect on DNA, and this is from what's called, referred to, as a comet assay. It's kind of like electrophoresis, but with important variations, and what it does is it shows damage to DNA. And so if you take a piece of DNA and you expose it and that's what's showing on this slide right now and you expose it, or first of all, take one piece of DNA and don't expose it to anything harmful. You're going to get this nice circular shape when you look at the comet assay from it.
Speaker 3:However, if you expose it to ionizing radiation, like x-rays, which we know affect DNA, you'll see a smearing it's a technical term, right Smearing. See a smearing of that on the slide, which means that there's been DNA damage. But now you take also some DNA and expose it to 24 hours of mobile phone exposure and you're going to see similar damage. So what you hear from the people on the phone industry is that the radiation from cell phones can't hurt you because it's non-ionizing. Well, this slide really refutes that. And, by the way, I should point out that UVA and UVB from the sun are both non-ionizing radiation, yet they definitely will cause cancer over time.
Speaker 3:Not overnight, but over time you get exposure. You're going to be getting effects from that. So that's the one thing I wanted to show you, which is the science. I mean it's pretty clear it was done by multiple you know 12 scientific institutes in seven different countries. It's pretty reliable what you're looking at right here. But I never trust simply one data source or one report. Let's look at other things, and this answers your question about acute response to exposure to electromagnetic fields. So let's go to California now, and this is back in 2004, when somebody thought it would be a great idea to put cell towers on or near fire stations. Now, logistically it does make sense, and if wireless radiation were not harmful, it would make sense there. So what they did and what's shown in the picture, are cell towers, cell phone towers on or next to a fire station, and these towers were installed on fire stations.
Speaker 3:The question you want to know next is what happened when the antennas were turned on. Well, what happened is pretty extreme and I'll read this for your people who are listening to the podcast. Extreme and I'll read this for your people who are listening to the podcast. And that is when the towers were turned on. Within a week of that time, many firefighters developed unusual symptoms of headache, fatigue, insomnia, memory loss, confusion, nausea and weakness. After a time, firefighters in stations with adjacent cell towers were found to have forgotten CPR or became lost responding to a fire in a city they grew up in. That's pretty extreme, but in some of the fire stations, all of, or nearly all of, the firefighters came down with symptoms like this, which is an extreme case.
Speaker 3:It's worth pointing out that the maximum radiation recorded around any of these fire stations was about 5% of the FCC limits, so what they industry would claim would be a pretty low exposure turned out to have profound effects. As I mentioned, it didn't happen at all fire stations the same way, but it happened to some degree at all fire stations and sometime affecting all of the firefighters. The reason I felt this is important to present is that we think of firefighters as being physically robust and they usually are and also as being those who would be the last to complain. So to have this type of response from firefighters indicates the severity of exposure, and the severity of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, which I noted before, is something that's likely to be on the increase, or it has been shown to be on the increase everywhere in the industrialized world where radiation levels are increasing. So we want to find out more about this. So the firefighters there's a link here in the slides that I'm presenting.
Speaker 2:And also sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there.
Speaker 3:I was just one point to make there, and that is the firefighters, because of their union, got legislation enacted that you can no longer put cell towers on or near fire stations. You can no longer put cell towers on or near fire stations.
Speaker 2:And I shouldn't have interrupted you because that's exactly what I was going to ask you what happened, what happened next? And you know it's a good starting point for, for example, schools to use, you know, for less specific legislation to not place cell towers near school buildings.
Speaker 3:Well in particular. So you asked before about what parents can and should be doing. These are extreme effects and it happens to about 5% of the population, we guess. Although if you're exposed for long periods of time, like 24-7, like firefighters who will be in a fire station for many days in a row, that also contribute to these acute effects. But for a parent, you know, if your kid comes back from school reporting some of the symptoms here you know, the headache, fatigue, insomnia, particularly things that tend to happen more at school and not at home then you should pay attention as a parent and see about providing a radiation-free area for your kid and see if those symptoms go away. And if they do, then you can work with your school to see about getting lower radiation locations for your child, for example, not under a router, or perhaps even identify a room in the school where they have wired connections and don't have so much wireless going on, perhaps a room that has no operating cell phones, which schools are doing.
Speaker 3:Some schools are paying attention to this.
Speaker 2:It makes me want to go up to my kid's school and ask to see where all the locations of the routers are in the building.
Speaker 3:I recommend to everybody listening is that you might want to get access to a meter. They're somewhat pricey, but you know I'm like around $400 for a really nice one. But what we those of us who are involved in this issue are recommending is that libraries, public libraries, who are involved in this issue are recommending is that libraries, public libraries, include one of these meters that people can check out. It's very easy to use, and so if my kid were reporting any of the symptoms, or if I just I'm a concerned citizen, I would want to go into my kid's school with that meter, find out where your kid sits during the day, put the meter down, see what the exposure levels are, and so that is something that you can do I would highly recommend doing, and the reason I'm suggesting that you don't simply go in and look for things is sometimes these things, these like wireless routers and even cell towers, are hidden from the public.
Speaker 3:There's an example going on now. I believe it's in Florida. There is an example going on now I believe it's in Florida where parents were outraged to find out that a cell tower was built into the structure of the school. They had covering around it so you couldn't see the thing, but you were still getting the same exposures. Their kids would have gotten the exposures. But parents went ballistic, and rightfullyfully so, with this cell tower, cell tower antennas being mounted right into their kid's school.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm going to have to go look that up and find that find out some more information about it, because I want to read. I want to read about how it even came to be about.
Speaker 3:It was called the rock school. It's a private school, so let me see if I can get, I'll send something to you.
Speaker 2:That would be great. No, thank you for that, and I know we've talked about so many, so many different things and I'm looking forward to having more conversations with you on this topic, especially, as you know, you presenting new legislation and trying to get you know some of these policies changed. So, besides, you know, as a parent, being proactive in the school as well as you know, in the community, what can I do? What can a regular consumer, regular person, do at home to minimize the risks that we are exposing our families to?
Speaker 3:Well, there's actually a lot you can do. One thing I did at home, so you imagine I'm not a Luddite, I really love technology, and so when the wireless revolution came about in the early 2000s, I got wireless routers and I turned our house into wireless everything Before that we had used ethernet that I installed myself in our home. In the 1990s, you know, the Internet came out. That was the only way to access the Internet, and so I had Ethernet cables installed. I installed them and they worked fine for years. But then wireless came about and well, it's more convenient, let me just use that.
Speaker 3:Well, I did for a long time, and then I served on the commission and found out that, oh my gosh, no, this wireless radiation is harmful. I don't want to be exposed to it. So what I did is I went back to this 1990s technology, plugged in ethernet cables to my computer and to the wall outlet and, without having to do anything, it still worked perfectly. I plugged in the hub and the routers, and all that to the right places. And, by the way, by doing that I not only lowered radiation exposure a lot, but also the performance on the computer was amazing. I was astounded by how blindingly fast it was. Wireless is kind of slow compared to wired, and so that's one thing that I did, and I would recommend that people do that.
Speaker 3:So now, by having wired outlets and by the way, you can get connectors for your phone so you can plug it in. You can get connectors for your computer, even if your computer does not have an RJ45 connector plug. You plug it into the USB port and they're not expensive. But you can plug in your laptops, you can plug in all of your computing devices that way, and also you can go around your home with a meter. So get access to it. Ask your library if they will make one available Some places have done that already and then go in your home and find out where the exposure points are.
Speaker 3:It may be that you want to keep your Wi-Fi going in your home, but make sure that you locate it in a place that lessens exposure. In other words, don't put your Wi-Fi router right in your kid's bedroom and keep it out of the living area. I had mentioned a moment ago that a lot of appliances that you get nowadays have built-in Wi-Fi. Well, that means they're radiating. So what you can do and it takes some effort sometimes to go turn those off, turn off Wi-Fi in those appliances. So just, there are a lot of things you can do and the main thing that I recommend is simply doing it yourself and getting doing with a meter to find out what minimizes exposure.
Speaker 2:You know what? I didn't even think about appliances. And we have a wireless oven that I can. I could be on the other side of the world and turn it off and use the app on my phone and turn on that.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. That's just when my husband has been coming back from sports events with the kids and I'm not here and he's like, can you put preheat the oven for me, please, Because so it's ready to go when I get home? Just again, you talked about convenience. It's about it's convenience and I I'm thinking I know where our router is. It's in our utility room in the basement.
Speaker 2:So, it's not, you know, it's probably the best place in the house it could be in terms of reducing exposure to it. So, but these are these are one of the, I think, most interesting parts and most interesting takeaways from this conversation. That I personally am going to have is just to ask questions, ask more questions, do more research and really, you know, explore all of the ways that myself, as well as, like my family, is exposed to this wireless, the wireless radiation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what you can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. There's so much more I feel that we could talk about, so I'm letting the audience know now this is not the last time I'm going to have Kent on Sustainability Unveiled, because I do want to do even deeper dives into very specific topics in um, underneath the uh, wireless radiation and and really get into some more technical aspects of of the work that you're doing and what we can do as consumers to really become aware, and you know, knowledge is power.
Speaker 2:I know we see we've been hearing that forever, but it really is you know and and in this day and age, with our, with the access we've talked about this the access to information that we have, we'd be doing ourselves and our families a disservice by not doing the research to help better our families, to make sure that our families, you know, we eat healthy foods. We've done research along with healthy foods and exercising, and we know the importance of that. This also plays into it.
Speaker 3:It absolutely plays into it and I can go into more detail about that too the fact that you're dealing with something that creates oxidative stress. I mean, you mentioned eating healthy food and you probably eat to take vitamin C and eat blueberries right To lower your free radicals. Well, this oxidative stress that I mentioned, that has been clearly shown to be associated with exposure to wireless fields that creates oxidative stress, which leads to the development of free radicals. Free radicals lead to inflammation, chronic inflammation, which concludes a host of diseases that have been associated with exposure. So we haven't even touched on that yet, but it's a real thing and I guess in this introductory discussion between you and me, the key thing I think people need to hear is yes, wireless radiation harm is real. Yes, wireless radiation harm is real.
Speaker 3:I can see why people would want to deny that harm because of the monetary aspect of it. It would cost a lot to comply with more realistic and safer exposure limits. But why would so many people come out like me, I'm doing this for free, I'm not getting paid to do this, but why would we be doing that unless we thought there was something there? As I noted, I was completely unaware of it, and one reason I was unaware of it is that, as an electrical engineer, I'm a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer, ieee. It's our trade organization, it's organization, in fact. It's very highly respected. I was an associate editor for them and, frankly, I bought into their narrative. And their narrative is that wireless radiation is harmless and by making that assumption, you can go ahead and make all these new devices, because there's still a huge amount that can be done with wireless devices. And that's what they want to do, because that's how you make money. That is what they do.
Speaker 3:So I guess, going back to my point here and that is no, it is harmful. The industry would like to believe that it isn't. But I've studied this a lot, obviously with the commission and since the commission, and we've known about wireless radiation or just radio wave harm for a long time I mean decades, going back into the 40s and we've just chosen to ignore it because, man, there are so many neat things we can do if it's not harmful and that's what we've assumed. So I'm not saying that we just throw everything away, but by acknowledging that there is harm, there's a lot that can be done.
Speaker 3:I was co-author on a paper where we looked at what you can do to a cell phone. You can do a lot with a cell phone to limit its radiation and still function perfectly, and so, as an engineer, I know that we can do that. We were just never told to do it. And so now, if we acknowledge the problem, we can tell engineers to do that. Okay, take this wonderful, this beautiful design, this cell phone that functions perfectly and now lower the radiation. We know how to do it, just we have to be told.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think, and something that's happened, I know, within the environmental and energy fields over the past, especially, I think, over the past five years, is the push for transparency, and that push is coming from consumers but it's also, you know, coming from other industry stakeholders. It really is is you know, us advocating for transparency when it comes to the health implications that are a result of this wireless radiation? So it's going to be a collective effort and it's going to be I feel like it's going to be a little bit of a slow process, but hopefully the more information you know we can get out there and that you know, everyday people can be exposed to, then it will help to you know, bring advocacy, bring awareness to the real issues that you've talked about today.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's what we want to do, and that's why I'm here right now. I hope that a lot of people are hearing this. I don't. I hope that I'm not just preaching to the choir, I don't think you are.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I don't think you are, and we've talked a few times before our conversation today, and every time I talk to you I learn something new, which is always wonderful, because I would love to be able to spend so much time reading about this, and I'm going to spend more time reading, especially with the resources that you are providing for everybody listening. But having the conversations and being able to pick your brain and you be able to share your experience, your expertise, as well as the research that you're working on and that you're going to continue to work on, is not just beneficial, obviously, to me as a person, as a host of a podcast show, but to the audience and to everyone else who's watching or listening. So I do want to thank you for being on with us. I look forward to more discussions with you in the future.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you. Well, I'd like to leave you with something, and that is where I oftentimes hear from people they contact me is when they find out about a tower or a cell tower, antennas going up near or on their kid's school. So they call me in a panic and they want to know what they can do to protect themselves, and it turns out that there's a lot. Want to know what they can do to protect themselves, and it turns out that there's a lot. Now, maybe it was a little bit disparaging earlier on when I talked about legislation at the state and federal level. I've found that we just don't get much done there because that area, that arena, seems to be controlled by industry and not we, the people.
Speaker 2:Industry and just their own personal budget desk.
Speaker 3:Well, that exactly right. But what I find is that at the grassroots we have a lot of power and that's where we've seen change happen. I work with a wonderful team of people where, if somebody does call me, I turn them over or I work with them and the team to fight the tower, and one thing that entails is showing people how to present in front of their local administrators. So by organizing people and if they go en masse to talk to their legislators not local or not state legislators, but talk to administrators at the local level and present person after person after person, saying why cell towers are not a good idea, that has been effective and we're starting to see an increasing percentage of successes as we are dealing in this issue. So if that happens to you, please contact us.
Speaker 3:Also, I want to put in a pitch for the Environmental Health Trust. When I was on the commission, that is the go-to source I went to. They provided lots of information. They curate the information, present it in such a way that it can be meaningful and helpful. So go there first. Environmental Health Trust If some of these issues come up, feel free to contact me and also, it never hurts to make a contribution to the Environmental Health Trust so that they can do more of the good things that they're doing right now.
Speaker 2:No, definitely, and all of this information is going to be available on the podcast underneath the show's episode that's going to be premiering soon. So, again, thank you for being here. We look forward to be premiering soon, so you know. Again, thank you for being here. We look forward to more conversations with you and, yeah, thanks for spending your morning with me.
Speaker 3:You're most welcome.
Speaker 2:Ask yourself how can I contribute to a brighter, more sustainable future, not just personally but professionally? Let's embark on this journey together and shape the landscape of sustainable leadership for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Take the first step now and make a commitment to lead with sustainability in mind.
Speaker 2:That's all for this episode of Sustainability Unveiled. Join us next time as we continue exploring the forefront of sustainable business practices.
Speaker 1:Until then, stay informed, stay sustainable.
