Does it? Or Doesn't It? Sounds Ominous!

"Not everything is known yet about this subject [electromagnetic radiation], but what is clear is that the existing public safety standards limiting these radiation levels in nearly every country of the world look to be thousands of times too lenient."
"Changes are needed."
The BioInitiative Report

"This is a complex thing, [possible impact of electromagnetic energy fields on human health] but we studied a few enzymes and they are all affected. If you're a lone electron sitting in the middle of nowhere and there's a field nearby, you're going to respond to those fields at relatively low levels."
"For a system, you need a slightly stronger force to be able to cause a change in it. But we get changes in the functioning of cells with relatively small fields. That's been shown."
"When you go higher than the normal range you can get damage. In 1995, Henry Lai published a paper showing that if you took DNA and subjected it to radiation, 60-hertz stuff, you got fragments coming off. You were breaking off parts of the molecule. There was a lot of controversy about this, and forces against this finding."
"There's also a paper in Galley that hasn't been published yet. They found that these fields cause damage to DNA inside a cell. They used to only show this with test tube experiments, but now they show the damage inside the cell. There are little fragments coming off the DNA itself."
"There is no question that this causes damage that is not repairable When you break a piece of DNA you've broken the code. It's not like when you get a cut and the skin heals. If you damage the DNA that's called a mutation, you affect the function of a cell. So depending on where the damage has occurred, you can cause a lot of problems."
"When I learned about DNA in high school I was taught that this was hereditary stuff. But when I learned biology at the university level, they taught that DNA does everything all the time. It has the whole code in it. You need the DNA to keep the system going. It's telling the body which proteins to make and which systems to turn on. It's upgrading all the time, and if you cause damage in that thing you're causing a lot of problems in the cell."
"Often cells can't survive this DNA damage, but the body has a lot of resilience You can cause damage to DNA, and some other part will take over and get it to function. This is why our species survives."
Dr. Martin Blank, scientist, lecturer, professor retired, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

 

There is a lot of controversy, to put it mildly, over what humans and animals are being exposed to through proximity and prolonged exposure at certain levels, to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) -- alternately electromagnetic fields (EMF). Some scientists warn that their emanations in the atmosphere interfere with biological processes, having the potential to damage our DNA.

Dr. Blank was among a group of scientists who twice, in 2007 and later in 2012, issued a research paper titled the BioInitiative Report. urging that the topic be re-engaged with; they concluded that energy fields hold a distinct and disturbing relationship in the wired world of today, threatening the microbiology of living things, with an especial emphasis on human exposure to EMF, and more specific yet, children, who are more physically vulnerable.

The biological comparison of adult and child reasons that the child's cranium is thinner than the adult's, brain nerves not yet fully myelinated, so greater penetration occurs from exposure to energy fields and consequently potentially greater exposure damage. Since the child is fully immersed in the maturation stages of growth, damage ensuing from energy fields exposure will continue to expand, impacting far more heavily on a child than on an adult.

These conclusions reached by the BioInitiative Report are not universally accepted. Other scientists believe that energy fields do no harm to humans. Industries worldwide have criticized the report on the basis of the contention that only science supporting its singular position was investigated, making no mention whatever that other research exists positing that EMFs are safe.

In 2011, the World Health Organization which has investigated research representing both the harmless and the harmful contentious theories through its International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC) placed EMF radiation above the radio frequency range (RF-EMF) in a Class 2B Carcinogen category: it may cause cancer, though additional research is required.

Evidence appears to exist that there is a proven linkage between brain cancer and long-term wireless exposure. Some IARC panelists were moved to take a stronger position on the issue resulting from recent research: "RF-EMF should be regarded as a human carcinogen requiring urgent revision of current exposure guidelines" asserted IARC scientist, Swedish oncologist Dr. Lennart Hardell in the Journal of Environment Research and Public Health, in 2014.

In the United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia, France, Israel, India and elsewhere around the world, regulators take EMF exposure and in particular wireless technology quite seriously, ensuring that the public is adequately warned and discouraging young children from using this technology; both cellphones and exposure to wifi fields.

In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States circulated a public statement that caution be used with cellphone use. A few weeks later that caution was retracted. The simple fact of the matter is, that modern society is deeply immersed in electromagnetic technology, from the energy of power lines penetrating our homes, to cellular technology, high frequency WiMAX and other sources now so common we never give them second thought.

Dr. Blank cautions, however, that for radiation to become a potential threat, the electric and the magnetic fields must act in tandem. The electric field causes electrons to move, generating a magnetic field. It is their intertwined status that presents the possible problem. Only when this occurs at a fast-up radio frequency range does the electromagnetic radiation threat raise its ugly head.