13 Apr 21 Japan to release Fukushima’s wastewater into the ocean

 Japan announced today it will release 1.25 million tons of treated wastewater contaminated by the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. The government said it is the best way to deal with tritium and trace amounts of other radionuclides in the water.

By Dennis NormileApr. 13, 2021 , 10:25 AM

Contaminated wastewater fills more than 1000 tanks at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

 

THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN VIA AP IMAGES

“Releasing the treated water into the sea is a realistic solution,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a Cabinet meeting endorsing the plan. “We will do our utmost to keep the water far above safety standards.” A Japanese government official later clarified that details of the release need to be worked out and approved. Gradual, trial releases could start in 2 years and might take 40 years to complete.

Industry groups and nuclear scientists say other nuclear plants have disposed of wastewater this way with minimal impacts. But environmental groups, fisheries organizations, and neighboring countries immediately condemned the decision, citing the vast amounts involved. Marine scientists expressed concerns about the possible impact of the discharge on marine life and on fisheries.

The announcement was long anticipated. Three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant suffered meltdowns in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. Molten fuel debris burned through steel containment vessels and into the concrete bases of the reactor buildings. Ever since, workers have pumped water through the ruins to prevent the debris from overheating and causing further damage. They have also collected all the contaminated water: It now fills more than 1000 steel tanks crammed onto the Fukushima campus.

The only practical options for disposing of the water “are discharge into the sea and vapor release, both of which have preceding practices,” concluded a governmental advisory committee made up of academics and citizen group representatives in February 2020. Nuclear power plants the world over regularly release water containing trace amounts of tritium into the environment under monitored and controlled conditions. And vaporization ultimately took care of about 9000 tons of contaminated water resulting from the accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in March 1979. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “considers the disposal options as technically feasible and in line with international practice,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said during a February 2020 visit to Fukushima.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) runs the water through a complex chain of filters it calls the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS). The treatment captures 62 kinds of radionuclides, but not tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a 12.3-year half-life that occurs naturally in trace amounts in seawater and the atmosphere. It is extremely difficult to remove as it replaces hydrogen atoms in water molecules. Because tritium emits only low-energy beta particles, it poses a modest health risk. And the plan is to dilute the water until the tritium concentration is one-fortieth of what Japan allows in drinking water.

Although “the optics are terrible,” releasing the water into the Pacific Ocean is the right thing to do, says Nigel Marks, a nuclear materials scientist at Curtin University, in a statement released by the Australian Science Media Centre. By diluting, the “radioactivity can be reduced to safe levels” comparable to exposures from medical imaging and airline travel, he says.

But in addition to tritium, more dangerous isotopes with longer radioactive lifetimes, such as ruthenium, cobalt, strontium, and plutonium, sometimes slip through the ALPS process, something TEPCO only acknowledged in 2018. The company now says these additional nuclides are present in 71% of the tanks. “These radioactive isotopes behave differently than tritium in the ocean and are more readily incorporated into marine biota or seafloor sediments,” says Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The government official says the Fukushima water will be “repurified” to meet regulatory standards for these nuclides. Buesseler notes that those limits were put in place for operational nuclear power plants, not for the deliberate release of contaminated water from a nuclear disaster. “Would this open the door for any country to release radioactive waste to the ocean that is not part of normal operations?” he asks.

Shigeyoshi Otosaka, a marine geochemist at the University of Tokyo, worries about the accumulation of the isotopes in seafloor sediments, where they can get picked up by marine biota. The possibility is limited, “but it’s important to evaluate it appropriately,” he says. For one thing, the TEPCO “repurification” has only been tested on a small volume of water. The company needs to verify “whether the processing performance can be maintained for a long period of time,” he says.

Although TEPCO claims it will run out of room to store additional water by the middle of 2022, environmental organizations say there is space for additional tanks on land adjacent to the Fukushima campus. That storage would allow the radioactive isotopes to naturally decay while buying time to develop new treatment techniques.

Any additional release of radiation will come on top of the estimated 538.1 petabecquerels of radioactivity emitted into the atmosphere by the explosions that blew apart the three reactor buildings in the days after the earthquake. That amount was about one-tenth of the estimated radiation released by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. The Fukushima radiation had a minimal impact on humans, though the precautionary evacuations did cause unexpected social and health problems.

Much of the radioactive material fell into the Pacific Ocean because of prevailing winds. Concerns over contaminated fish devastated the regional fishing industry. Demand for seafood from the region has gradually recovered, but fisheries officials fear releasing contaminated water will rekindle public fears about seafood from the region.

Posted in: 

• Asia/Pacific
• Environment

doi:10.1126/science.abi9880

Related

• 

  Why cleaning up Fukushima’s damaged reactors will take another 30 years

• 

  Ten years later, here’s what Fukushima’s damaged reactors look like today

• 

  This physician has studied the Fukushima disaster for a decade—and found a surprising health threat

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/japan-plans-release-fukushima-s-contaminated-water-ocean

Is it safe to microwave food?

There’s nothing risky about microwave radiation – but there is about heating up plastic.

By Jessica Brown15th July 2020

D

Despite being a kitchen workhorse for decades, few household items have been more divisive than the microwave. It’s hailed as a lifesaver for those who can’t, or won’t, cook, and portrayed by some chefs as singlehandedly dragging the art of cooking into the gutter.

But another debate lies beyond the culinary disputes – when is microwave cooking bad for you?

When used correctly, there’s nothing to worry about in terms of a microwave’s radiation, according to the World Health Organization. But other concerns are less clear – including whether microwaving food causes nutrient loss, or whether heating food in plastic can trigger hormone disruption.

Losing nutrients

Some research has shown that vegetables lose some of their nutritional value in the microwave.

For example, microwaving has been found to remove 97% of the flavonoids – plant compounds with anti-inflammatory benefits – in broccoli. That’s a third more damage than done by boiling. 

You might also like:

• The secret tricks in our microwave meals
• Is it safe to reheat takeaways?
• The hidden risks of cooking your food

However, one 2019 study looking at the nutrient loss of broccoli in the microwave pointed out that previous studies varied the cooking time, temperature, and whether or not the broccoli was in water. It found that shorter cooking times (they microwaved the broccoli for one minute) didn’t compromise nutritional content. Steaming and microwaving could even increase content of most flavonoids, which are compounds linked to reduced risk of heart disease. “Under the cooking conditions used in this study, microwaving appeared to be a better way to preserve flavonoids than steaming,” the researchers wrote.

Yet they also found that microwaving with too much water (such as the amount you’d use to boil) caused a drop in flavonoids.

Some foods, such as peas, lose nutrients when microwaved or steamed, but others, like green beans, do not (Credit: Getty Images)

Lead researcher Xianli Wu, a scientist at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center at the US Department of Agriculture, says there isn’t one agreed mechanism to explain why microwaving could increase flavonoid content. It could be that microwaving makes flavonoids easier to measure – perhaps by softening the plant tissue, making them easier to extract – rather than increasing their amount

But there’s no straightforward answer as to whether microwaving vegetables will retain more nutrients that any other method. That’s because each food is different in terms of the texture and nutrients they contain, according to Wu.

“Though in general microwaving is a preferred method, the optimum time will be different for different vegetables,” Wu says. “When considering commonly used domestic cooking methods, microwaving is a preferred cooking method, at least for many plant foods, but probably not for every plant food.”

In another study, researchers compared the content of phenolics (compounds associated with various health benefits) of various vegetables after being boiled, steamed and microwaved. Microwaving and steaming caused a loss in phenolic content in squash, peas and leeks, but not in spinach, peppers, broccoli or green beans. The researchers also tested for antioxidant activity.

For both measures, vegetables fared better in the microwave compared to being boiled.

“Moderate heat treatment might have been a useful tool in improving health properties of some vegetables,” the researchers write.

Heating plastic

We often microwave foods in plastic containers and wrapping, but some scientists warn of the risk of ingesting phthalates. When exposed to heat, these plastic additives can break down and leach into food.

When exposed to heat, plastic additives like phthalates can break down and leach into food (Credit: Getty Images)

“Some plastic isn’t designed for microwaves because it has polymers inside to make it soft and flexible, which melt at a lower temperature and may leach out during the microwave process if it goes beyond 100C (212F),” says Juming Tang, professor of food engineering at Washington State University.

In a 2011 study, researchers purchased more than 400 plastic containers designed to contain food, and found that the majority leaked chemical that disrupt hormones.

Phthalates are one of the most commonly used plasticisers, added to make plastic more flexible and often found in takeaway containers, plastic wrap and water bottles. They have been found to disrupt hormones and our metabolic system.  In children, phthalates can increase blood pressure and insulin resistance, which can increase the risk of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and hypertension. Exposure also has been linked to fertility issues, asthma and ADHD.

Phthalates are also potential disrupters of thyroid hormones, says Leonardo Trasande, professor of environmental medicine and population health at NYU School of Medicine in New York. Among other things, these hormones are crucial for babies’ brain development during pregnancy.  

Bisphenol (BPA) is also commonly used in plastic products, and studies have suggested it may also disrupts hormones. But research is limited, compared to the amount of studies looking at phthalates.

Phthalates are everywhere – even in toys and body lotions – and it’s still unclear just how much damage they do. But most experts agree that heating plastic with phthalates can increase exposure.

Phthalates have been found to disrupt hormones and our metabolic system (Credit: Getty Images)

“Microwaving mobilises contaminants,” says Rolf Halden, professor and director of the Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering at Arizona State University. “This process is used in laboratories to extract pollutants from samples, prior to chemical analysis.”

And the potential risks don’t necessarily increase with how often an individual microwaves food in plastic containers, Trasande argues – as the relationship is non-linear between the amount of chemical exposure and risk of hormone disruption. 

“The old pedagogy was that the dose mediated poison. Now we understand from multiple studies that low level exposures are where the greatest component of effects happens, so there’s no safe level of exposure,” Trasande says.

It’s important to remember that, when heating food in a plastic container, exposure also can happen with plastic that doesn’t touch the food, such as a lid.

“Water rises as steam from the food, and then condenses on the underside of the lid, and the extracted chemicals from the lid then fall down into your food, contained in the condensation droplets,” Halden says.

To minimise risk, microwave food in a material that isn’t plastic, such as ceramic (Credit: Getty Images)

The best ways to minimise risk are to use other microwave-safe materials than plastic, such as ceramic. If you do use plastic containers, avoid any that are losing their shape, since old and damaged containers are more likely to leach chemicals. You can also check your container’s universal recycling symbol, often on the bottom of a product – those with a number 3 and the letters “V” or “PVC” include phthalates.

Heat risks

Even if you avoid plastics, there are other potential risks of heating food in the microwave – including uneven heating, and the high temperatures used.

First, consider using microwaves to reheat, rather than cook, food, as it may cook unevenly. “Depending on the portion of food that’s heated, there will be some parts that are hotter than others,” says Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, professor of food safety at the University of Georgia.

“Temperatures will be different in a cross-section of the food. It’s hard to achieve a completely uniform temperature, especially when talking about raw foods.”

But it’s important to note that reheating food comes with risks, too. Food must be heated until it is 82C (176F) throughout to kill any harmful bacteria – and because bacteria can still grow each time food cools back down, you shouldn’t reheat a meal more than once. (Read more about whether it’s safe to reheat food).

Microwaves should be used to reheat food, not cook it, but it’s better not to reheat the same meal more than once – especially rice (Credit: Getty Images)

The high temperatures of the microwave may also pose some risk. Generally speaking, higher temperatures aren’t a problem, but there is some research suggesting a risk linked to cooking some starchy foods in the microwave, including cereals and root vegetables.

When Betty Schwartz, professor of nutritional sciences  at theHebrew University of Jerusalem, saw her students heating jacket potatoes in the microwave on their lunchbreaks, she noticed small crystals inside their potatoes.

When she analysed them, she found they were high in the chemical acrylamide, which can be a natural by-product of cooking. Schwartz asked her students to boil their potatoes instead, and found that this didn’t create acrylamide, which she says forms in higher temperatures in the microwave.

This is a concern because animal studies have shown that acrylamide acts as a carcinogen because it interferes with cell’s DNA, but evidence in humans is limited. There is some research to suggest that microwaves are more favourable to the growth of acrylamide than other methods of cooking.

“At 100C (212F), there’s enough energy to alter the automatic joints between molecules to produce a molecule with much higher energy, which can react with DNA, which induces mutations," says Schwartz. "When you have many mutations it can produce cancer.” Animals studies have shown this to be the case with acrylamides.

One way around this is to soak the potatoes in water before putting them in the microwave.

Radiation safety

As for the radiation in microwaves, it is completely harmless. Microwaves use low frequency electromagnetic radiation – the same kind used in lightbulbs and radios. When you put food inside a microwave, it absorbs these microwaves, which makes water molecules in the food vibrate, causing friction that heats up the food.

The radiation in microwaves is completely harmless (Credit: Getty Images)

Humans absorb electromagnetic waves, too. But microwave ovens produce relatively low frequency waves and they are contained inside the microwave. Even if that weren’t the case, the waves are harmless, says Tang. (Of course, the heat in a microwave isn't harmless — so you should never put, say, a living creature inside of a microwave).

“Microwaves are part of the electromagnetic waves we’re exposed to daily. When you bake bread, you’re exposed to electromagnetic waves and infrared energy from the heating elements of the oven. Even people exchange radioactive waves between each other,” Tang says.

“If you’re eating crops grown from sunlight, you shouldn’t be concerned about food from a microwave.”

Unlike X-rays, microwaves don’t use ionising radiation, which means they don’t carry enough energy to detach electrons from atoms.

Microwaves don’t use ionising radiation, so there’s nothing unsafe about using them to heat food (Credit: Getty Images)

“You have to break chemical bonds to damage DNA. This is the chief way radiation kills – it mutates cells and causes cancer,” says Timothy Jorgensen, associate professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University’s medical centre.

Concerns about microwave radiation were largely settled in the years after the microwave oven was first invented, Jorgenson says.

In particular, a lot of research was carried out by scientists at the Army Natick Research and Development Laboratories in Massachusetts, US, around the safety of microwaves, which went a long way to allaying concerns.

When it comes to cooking food in the microwave, there’s a lot to consider. Microwaves have long been deemed a safe kitchen appliance – but that comes with caveats, according to research. And in particular, experts are still raising concerns about how the plastic packaging we use in the microwave can disrupt our hormones, and, subsequently, affect our health.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200714-is-it-safe-to-microwave-food

“We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe” – Scientific American Blog Post

Wireless radiation has biological effects. Period. This is no longer a subject for debate when you look at PubMed and the peer-review literature

 collective-evolution.com

Published

 2 days ago 

on

 October 29, 2019

By

 Arjun Walia 

IN BRIEF

• The Facts:
  A recent blog post in Scientific American explains why 5G wireless technology may not be safe for human health. There are a number of publications that show clear cause for concern, and the industry has not even conducted any safety testing.
• Reflect On:
  How are technologies like this, which have clear biological effects, allowed to rollout without any appropriate safety testing?

We’ve published a lot of information and articles about 5G technology, it’s important to keep this type of information flowing and to share it regularly because mainstream media as well as the communications technology industry continue to completely ignore it. Paul Bischoff, a tech journalist and privacy advocate, recently compiled data regarding telecom’s political contributions to influence policies that benefit their industry, it’s quite revealing. But they (the mainstream) cannot ignore the health concerns for much longer, as topics like 5G wireless radiation are going viral across the world. Its implications are already creating protests, doctors are already treating patients for symptoms (here is an example from Switzerland and here is an example from Canada) and a portion of the mainstream is finally catching on.

Wireless radiation has biological effects. Period. This is no longer a subject for debate when you look at PubMed and the peer-review literature. These effects are seen in all life forms; plants, animals, insects, microbes. In humans, we have clear evidence of cancer now: there is no question We have evidence of DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, which is the precursor of congestive heart failure, neuropsychiatric effects…5G is an untested application of a technology that we know is harmful; we know it from the science. In academics, this is called human subjects research. – Dr. Sharon Goldberg,  internal medicine physician & professor. (source)

Thousands of people showed up on the Swiss house of Parliament in Bern to protest the recent rollout there, a Belgian government minister has announced that Brussels is halting its 5G plans due to health effects. Many countries already have severe restrictions and bans on 3 and 4g wireless technology.  Take France for example, they passed a law in 2015 banning WiFi from all nursery schools. In addition to that, the law states that Wi-Fi must be turned off in all elementary schools when it’s not in use. A wired connection, if possible, is preferred.

One recent example of mainstream awareness is an article published in the blog section of Scientific American titled “We Have No Reason to Believe 5G is Safe” written by Joel M. Moskowitz.

It’s great to see such a publication at least mention the health concerns of this type of technology, it shows how awareness continues to be created, after all, the frequencies utilized in crowd control weapons, ones that physically impact our biology, form the basis of the new 5G network that’s been rolling out. U.S., Russian, and Chinese defense agencies have been active in developing weapons that rely on the capability of this electromagnetic technology to create burning sensations on the skin, for crowd control. The waves are Millimetre waves, also used by the U.S. Army in crowd dispersal guns called Active Denial Systems, these are the same waves employed by 5g technology. Here you can find a lecture from Dr. Ben-Ishai of the Department of Physics at Hebrew University. He goes through how human sweat ducts act like a number of helical antennas when exposed to these wavelengths that are put out by the devices that employ 5G technology.

But it’s not just 5g, wireless and electromagnetic radiation in general has serious biological effects. Moskowitz points out: 

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced through a press release that the commission will soon reaffirm the radio frequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits that the FCC adopted in the late 1990s. These limits are based upon a behavioral change in rats exposed to microwave radiation and were designed to protect us from short-term heating risks due to RFR exposure. Yet, since the FCC adopted these limits based largely on research from the 1980s, the preponderance of peer-reviewed research, more than 500 studies, have found harmful biologic or health effects from exposure to RFR at intensities too low to cause significant heating.

Citing this large body of research, more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for stronger exposure limits. The appeal makes the following assertions:

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”

The scientists who signed this appeal arguably constitute the majority of experts on the effects of nonionizing radiation. They have published more than 2,000 papers and letters on EMF in professional journals.

Others are getting in on the activism. Frank Clegg for example, is the former President Of Microsoft Canada. He recently released an insider’s view educational video regarding the health and safety concerns of 5G and wireless technologies. You can watch that video here.  He also recently joined the board of the Environmental Health Trust, where this video comes from. There, you will find some of the latest science on 5G wireless technology and its health impacts, among other technologies as well. So if you want to see more science, that’s a great place to start.

I also like to point to people towards a fairly recent publication write up by Dr. Martin L. Pall, PhD and Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, says the following in his report “5G: Great risk for EU, U.S. and International Health! Compelling Evidence for Eight Distinct Types of Great Harm Caused by Electromagnetic Field(EMF) Exposures and the Mechanism that Causes Them”:

“Putting in tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has got to be about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world.”

No Safety Testing

It’s no secret that our federal health regulatory agencies are completely corrupt. There are many examples of this one can pull from, be it from the FDA, FCC or CDC. One of the best would be the SPIDER papers. A group called the CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research, or CDC SPIDER, put a list of complaints in a letter to the CDC Chief of Staff and provided a copy of the letter to the public watchdog organization U.S. Right to Know (USRTK). It’s quite revealing.

This is why it’s no surprise when Moskowitz points out that the fact that no safety studies have been conducted by the FDA.

Without conducting a formal risk assessment or a systematic review of the research on RFR health effects, the FDA recently reaffirmed the FCC’s 1996 exposure limits in a letter to the FCC, stating that the agency had “concluded that no changes to the current standards are warranted at this time,” and that “NTP’s experimental findings should not be applied to human cell phone usage.” The letter stated that “the available scientific evidence to date does not support adverse health effects in humans due to exposures at or under the current limits.”

The latest cellular technology, 5G, will employ millimeter waves for the first time in addition to microwaves that have been in use for older cellular technologies, 2G through 4G. Given limited reach, 5G will require cell antennas every 100 to 200 meters, exposing many people to millimeter wave radiation.

5G will not replace 4G; it will accompany 4G for the near future and possibly over the long term. If there are synergistic effects from simultaneous exposures to multiple types of RFR, our overall risk of harm from RFR may increase substantially. Cancer is not the only risk as there is considerable evidence that RFR causes neurological disorders and reproductive harm, likely due to oxidative stress.

As a society, should we invest hundreds of billions of dollars deploying 5G, a cellular technology that requires the installation of 800,000 or more new cell antenna sites in the U.S. close to where we live, work and play?

Instead, we should support the recommendations of the 250 scientists and medical doctors who signed the 5G Appeal that calls for an immediate moratorium on the deployment of 5G and demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety.

Despite this article, there is still backlash and mainstream articles that are encouraging us to not really be concerned.  One example also comes from a blog post by Scientific American, titled “Don’t Fall Prey To Scaremongering About 5G.”

There is clear cause for concern, so articles like this are confusing, but there is no doubt the industry will use its influence over mainstream media to sway the perception of people when it comes to 5G, just like it did when cigarettes were first introduced.

Why not just put the answers to rest by conducting more safety testing?

What Can You Do?

 You could purchase some EMF protective clothing and bedding, or you could even paint your home with EMF protective paint. You can unplug your computer when not in use, turn off your cell phone, and unplug all your electronic devices before you go to sleep. You could have a wired internet connection, which is actually much faster than any wireless connection. You can live a healthy lifestyle, and you can use mind-body healing techniques to help you. Utilizing mind-body techniques, the power of consciousness and nutrition is probably the best way to stay harm free from radiation exposure. We’ve been exposed to it for a long time and it’s looking like it could be one of multiple factors contributing to several disease rates that seem to be on the rise exponentially. Do not move forward in fear, simply move forward in awareness. The world is waking up, and that’s an encouraging thought.

Years ago many actions taken by governments and corporations went unnoticed. We are no doubt making things difficult for them so let’s keep moving forward.

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/10/29/we-have-no-reason-to-believe-5g-is-safe-scientific-american-blog-post/

A Slow Death by 5G Wireless Technology

During the past year, Senate hearings leading up to the roll out of 5G wireless technology have made it quite clear that the race to capture first prize in the Internet of Things has little do to with popular consumer demands for improved internet access. 

Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD
Progressive Radio Network, July 9, 2019

Being called the fourth industrial revolution, the hype is that 5G will provide internet speeds up to one hundred times faster than 4G. Yet aside from the idealized and perhaps hyperbolic benefits of faster internet connections and downloads, 5G is best understood within the context of the US’ competitive race against China to establish global wireless dominance.  The Obama administration’s FCC, under the influence of the telecommunication industry’s insider Tom Wheeler, who served as the chair of the agency, launched the Spectrum Frontiers rules to mandate the 5G rollout as a “national priority.” Therefore, rather than the fundamental incentive to improve the lives of citizens, more important is 5G’s role to reinforce American global economic expansionism and military hegemony. For past presidents, and Trump in particular, economic figures hold all-consuming importance. One estimate claims 5G will bring over $12 trillion into the global economy, about $3.5 trillion in the US while providing 22 million new jobs. While 5G surely holds the promise of a huge windfall for the economy, these benefits will be eventually be neutralized by medical and environmental catastrophes.  

For the Defense Department, 5G will further harness global military dominance and strengthen the US’ lead as the planet’s policeman. For the Department of Homeland Security, other federal intelligence agencies, and local law enforcement 5G assures more far-reaching surveillance and policing on the American public. International spying and interference in other nations’ internal affairs will also advance exponentially. All the while the telecommunications industry wets its lips over the certain forecasts of rising stock prices and enormous executive compensations. 

For the Trump administration, the 5G roll out is imperative. Last December the White House released an announcement that “[I]t is imperative that America be first in fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies — wireless technologies capable of meeting the high-capacity, low-latency, and high-speed requirements that can unleash innovation broadly across diverse sectors of the economy and the public sector.”  What we are really looking at is a competitive war the US is waging with China, which has already installed 1.9 million wireless sites.  As the US continues to lag behind, it is equally imperative that 5G opponents keep careful watch of the predictable rise in disease and mental health disorders in China. 

5G smart cities will provide the government with total surveillance of society. This was announced by T-Mobile’s Chief Technology director Neville Ray at the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Sprint Vice President Ron Marquardt remarked that city government officials will have the capacity to monitor “security issues.” The new generation technology, therefore, will offer a boon for the private security industry. 

Writing for The New Yorker, investigative journalist Sue Halpern describes how the new era of electromagnetic connectivity will increase the risks and severity of cyber attacks. “Ransomware, malware, crypto-jacking, identity theft, and data breaches have become so common that more Americans are afraid of cybercrime than they are of becoming a victim of violent crime.” writes Halpern.  “Adding more devices to the online universe is destined to create more opportunities for disruption.” 5G will not simply connect your alarm clock and television to your mobile unit. It is estimated that millions of new 5G base stations will be installed, 20,000 new satellites orbiting in space, and 200 billion objects with wireless antennas will be transmitting EMF waves by 2020. A few years later it is expected to expand to one trillion electronic objects.  5G technology will be fully integrated into airplanes, automobiles, trains and subway systems. Imagine being in a commercial flight 6 miles above the earth and a major 5G disturbance occurs. 

5G servers are already being utilized for spy operations. Halpern reports on the discovery of Huawei wireless servers installed in the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa “sending sensitive data back to China every evening.”  Israel, Russia and the US have already been accused on many occasions for conducting industrial and defense cyber espionage. On all accounts, the threats of cyber warfare will worsen after 5G is functioning fully on a global scale. 

In the meantime, Washington and our mainstream media proclaim 5G is perfectly safe and the next great stride for America’s utopian progress. Yet it may very well be the trojan horse that brings the US into an electronic dark age. 

The overarching question being ignored by Congress concerns 5G’s public safety and environmental implications. During a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing last February, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) challenged representatives from the telecommunication industry about the technology’s health risks. When queried on the industry’s commitment to comply with the FDA’s insistence to fund “independent research” on EMF’s biological effects, Brad Gillen, an executive VP for CTIA – the leading trade association representing the wireless communications industry — denied there were any industry-funded studies and no research on 5G’s health risks were active. Nor was Steven Berry, President of Competitive Carriers Association, aware of any ongoing research. Blumenthal also sent a formal request to Trump’s FCC Secretary requesting information about the scientific evaluation of 5G’s risks. The FCC failed to acknowledge his request. 

Besides the unbelievable arrogance displayed by the industry’s spokespersons, from our perspective it is perhaps worse that Senator Blumenthal, a ranking committee member and highly respected in Congress, failed to present any of the scientific literature confirming 5G’s health risks. He could have also subpoenaed the FCC for ignoring his request. He has unlimited resources through the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutes of Health medical database, the EPA, and FDA yet didn’t cite a single study nor invite an independent medical expert to testify what we already know about 5G’s and earlier generation’s EFM adverse effects on the human body. Dr. Henry Lai, a DNA researcher at the University of Washington could have been called to testify. Prof Lai was quoted in the British Medical Journal for stating “I can name 600 studies showing bioeffects of microwaves off the top of my head.” Earlier this year, a petition signed by 26,000 scientists, medical doctors and environmental experts warned the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the EU and Council of Europe and the governments of all nations that “the deployment of 5G constitutes an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law.”  

The Senate hearing was another typical dog and pony show that we have become accustomed to over the decades, with pro-industry shills declaring ignorance of facts, and pleading for a green light while repeating false promises to conduct further research. In the meantime, Congress concedes to industry demands because revenues are being lost and shareholders are becoming impatient. We have heard this all before with the approval of asbestos, Monsanto’s glyphosate and genetically modified crops, tobacco and countless pharmaceutical drugs with questionable safety and efficacy records.  

May’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on 5G was even more of a charade. Senators Lindsay Graham and Barbara Feinstein completely avoided the evidence supporting 5G’s detrimental effects on human, animal, insect and environmental health. The 5G rollout was a certainty in the mind of every Committee member. Questioning of industry representatives focused solely on national security and cyber threats to the Internet of Things. Nor were the larger public consequences of safety from having all electronic systems controlled by artificial intelligence suddenly being disabled discussed. Clearly national security, protecting the country’s military, intelligence and the elite trumps health issues.  Since no modern military can realistically win a conventional war, then how likely will the next war between superpowers be waged in the cyber world? This possibility seemed foremost in the minds of our Senators.

The FCC is a fully industry-captured agency. In 1996, President Clinton willingly handed over to the telecommunications industry carte blanche power over state and local governments to install 5G technologies. Clinton’s Telecommunications Act (TCA) is a corrupt piece of legislation. It decrees that no health or environmental concern can interfere with telecom installations. In addition, the TCA gives full power to the FCC to regulate telecom EMF’s health effects. This ruling was a dangerous joke because the FCC is not a health agency, nor does it employ biomedical experts. The Act also overrides the authority of towns, cities, and county councils to rule against 5G stations and cell tower installments. 

Under President Obama, FCC chair Tom Wheeler in no uncertain terms called for the private industry’s technology to drive national policy rather than vice versa. In other words, the telecommunications industrial complex has been handed precedence over elected legislators, including Congressional leaders, such as Senator Blumenthal, who voice deep concerns about 5G’s human and environmental risks. Wheeler, a principal architect behind the 5G strategy, has never acknowledged that there is an enormous body of medical research concluding EMF threats. He is a product of the same private industrial mindset that has churned out climate change deniers in the fossil fuel corporations and the GMO-risk deniers in Big Agriculture. 

Obama’s FCC also established a criterion whereby  the technology antecedes the warnings voiced by medical, health and environmental institutions and agencies. And under Trump and the chairmanship of Ajit Pai, the FCC’s corruption has entered steroidal hyper-drive to destroy net neutrality laws and “dismantle existing consumer protections.” Pai, a former Verizon attorney, was originally appointed by Obama and has been accused by the New York Times for running the department in secrecy and failing to make the agency’s internal policy decisions public. 

It therefore seems certain that Washington, in full collaboration with the telecommunications industry, has been scheming full spectrum dominance of the global wireless connectivity for two and half decades. During this time, the tactic has been to demolish public protections. In return for America’s efforts to achieve telecommunication hegemony in order to expand the police state and the nation’s imperium, average citizens are handed the leftover crumbs of faster internet speeds.  The real victims in the US’ cyber chess match with China is the world’s population.  No animal, bird, insect, plant or human will be able to avoid exposure. 5G will expose us to levels of radiation that are tens to hundreds of times greater than what we face today. And this exposure will be uninterrupted throughout the day, throughout the year and well into the future. It is now just a matter of a short period of time before we will all be saturated with microwave pulses. 

Unfortunately, the telecom industry and its contracted scientists remain in complete denial.  A plethora of medical and environmental research has accumulated about the health and ecological risks of electromagnetic frequency radiation (EMF) and microwaves. Four hundred new studies on electromagnetic radiation risks have been compiled by public health Professor Joel Moskowitz at the University of California at Berkeley. These studies cover earlier generation technologies, whereas 5G will be far more evasive and less safe. Compared to 4G technology in use today, every 5G base station will contain hundreds of thousands of antennas each aiming laser like microwave beams to all devices. 

In a study published in the August 2018 issue of Journal of Medical Imaging and Health Informatics, after an extensive review and analysis of the medical literature researchers concluded that “incidence of cancer cases was remarkably higher among people who resided in 400 meters from mobile antennas, in comparison to those who lived further away. Inhabitants living close to cellular antennas are also at increased risk for developing neuropsychiatric complaints.” Under the 5G regime every American in a suburb or city will be living 100 meters or less from an antenna. In 2016, the Europa EM-EMF guideline found “strong evidence that long-term exposure to certain EMFs is a risk factor for diseases such as certain cancers, Alzheimer’s disease, and male infertility…Common EHS (electromagnetic hypersensitivity) symptoms include headaches, concentration difficulties, sleep problems, depression, lack of energy, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms.”

In our opinion, the 5G rollout is an irresponsible experiment with potential holocaust-like consequences in the long term. Neither the US nor China have ever felt obliged to follow UNESCO’s Precautionary Principle to avoid “morally unacceptable harm” when the science is plausible but still uncertain. In the case of 5G, the harm to human life is conclusive, and in the view of Dr. Lennart Hardel, an oncology professor at University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, it may be in violation of the Nuremberg Code.

Among the many research papers on the adverse effects of electromagnetic radiation, some are especially worrisome:

Nearly 100% of studies employing real mobile phone exposures reveal adverse effects, which include associations to brain tumors, declines in animal populations, and symptoms of un-wellness. (published in BioMed Research International).

Children are at greater risk than adults and absorb more microwave radiation than adults. (Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure)

The geometry of a child’s head significantly increases mobile phone EMF absorption in the brain, eye, cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. Children have especially high bone marrow conductivity, greatly increasing EMF absorption.(published in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology)

Simultaneous exposure to lead and RF from mobile phone use was associated with increased ADHD symptom risk.(Published in PLOS One)

Chronic multi-system illness” correlates electromagnetic hypersensitivity to 3 MHz-300 GHz, with headaches, concentration difficulties, sleep problems, depression, lack of energy, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms. (published in Reviews of Environmental Health).

Oxidative stress due to 900 MHz and 1.8 GHz microwave exposure associated with cognitive impairment and inflammation in rat brain (Published in the Indian Journal of Experimental Biology)

Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation (published in the journal Fertility and Sterility)

Radiofrequency waves emitted from conventional Wi-Fi devices poses potential effect on both fertility and the integrity of sperm cells. (Published in the Journal of Pediatric Urology)

Population living within 350 meters of an 850 MHz, 1500 watt cell phone tower in Netanya, Israel experienced a 4 fold cancer increase (i.e., carcinoma of the breast, ovary, lung, kidney, bone, and Hodgkin’s disease). (published in the International Journal of Cancer Prevention).

In addition there is something largely missing from the 5G debate in the US, whereas some European nations are paying attention to it; that is, existing safety standards for wireless technology are obsolete. This conclusion was arrrived at independently by Vienna Medical University in Austria and Carl Blackman at the University of North Carolina, published in the journal Pathophysiology. The problem herein lies in the failures of federal regulatory agencies to be truthful to the scientific evidence rather than show favoritism to the wireless industry’s own junk science and commercial interests. Again, private interests profit, and the public is harmed. 

Finally, we may consider 5G’s vulnerability and dangers to society in the event of a solar storm, such as a massive coronal plasma emission (CPE). Such a threat is very real, as University of Michigan professor of space sciences Justin Kasper told members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security last February. Kasper specializes in how solar activity effects society. His fears are that a solar flare similar to the one that engulfed the earth in a “magnetic tsunami” in 1859 could potentially wipe out the country’s electrical power grid. Power transformers are massive utilities costing tens of millions of dollars each and generally there are no backups. Therefore, imagine if such a solar storm were to assault a fully installed global 5G wireless network whereupon everything modern culture depends upon is interconnected. Satellite communications will be an essential component of the 5G infrastructure and are defenseless against massive radiation emissions from the sun. Without operative electrical and water utilities, septic systems, gas pumps, air conditioning in summer or heating in winter, for weeks, months and perhaps a year in the event of a massive coronal plasma emission, society as we know it would come to a standstill. Nuclear power plants would likely spiral downward into meltdown. Transportation as we know it would come to a halt. And in the event of a super “magnetic tsunami” chaos could follow.  

Therefore, 5G poses far more problems than even its sharpest critics voice. It is not simply a threat to human health and the environment from constant exposure, but the security of the entire international community of nations is in peril. Our Congressional leaders are a national disgrace for failing to side with the public rather than the telecommunications industry. Obviously contaminating all life on the planet is too insignificant of a concern. In fact, 5G holds the possibility in being another tipping point in the sixth extinction.

http://prn.fm/slow-death-5g-wireless-technology/