Electromagnetic Field Advocates Seek Action at Municipal Level
SAN FRANCISCO -- Advocates for stricter rules about the electromagnetic fields (EMF) created by wireless and electronic devices should seek rule changes at the municipal rather than federal level, said Lloyd Morgan, a senior science fellow at the Environmental Health Trust. San Francisco’s cellphone-specific absorption rate labeling ordinance could be a model for other cities, he said late Thursday. He was one of several EMF advocates who spoke to a standing-room only crowd about the public health and environmental risks associated with prolonged exposure to such electromagnetic radiation at an event co-organized by Electromagnetichealth.org. “Every city needs to start enacting legislation like San Francisco,” Morgan said. The wireless industry’s response -- a lawsuit and a decision to pull its conference from the city’s convention center -- could scare other cities off, he said.
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Government agencies such as the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the FCC have all looked at the issue of EMF and set guidelines, which the wireless industry follows, a CTIA spokesman said. “For anybody to suggest that the federal standards are not appropriate and the conclusions therefore of groups like the WHO are invalid, we think everyone would be better served if they took whatever evidence they had to the contrary to those organizations,” he said. “We're not scientists in this area and we defer and always have to the independent science community."
The public health risks of electromagnetic field exposure are real, but shouldn’t cause individuals to panic, said Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California at Berkeley. The high-quality, independently-funded research studies into the health effects of such exposure have found increased risks of certain brain cancers, he said. Industry-funded studies have yielded different results, he said. Because the baseline personal risk for such cancers is so low, even a 100 percent increase in the risk still yields a low overall risk, he said. “But from a public health perspective, it translates in to 18,000 additional glioma” brain tumors a yearin the U.S., he said. The industry should fund more independent research with a $1 annual tax on cellphone service, Moskowitz said.
The “precautionary principle” that new technologies should be proved harmless before they're widely adopted should be invoked and applied to wireless devices, said Martin Blank, associate professor of physiology and cellular biology at Columbia University Medical Center. Exposure to electromagnetic fields can cause changes at the molecular level, the results of which sometimes aren’t seen for years, he said. “There is evidence, judged by scientists … that the EMF of a variety of frequencies can have important biological effects, including danger to biological molecules,” he said: “The standards we have today” for allowable exposure “are totally inadequate."
Though health risks are inherent to many aspects of modern life, better precautionary standards should be developed and new devices should be better tested, Blank said: “Just because we allow microwaves, doesn’t mean we should allow Wi-Fi on the same frequencies in every classroom.” EMF limitation advocates are also seeking to block cell towers near schools and are encouraging Bay area residents to opt out of smart meter technology from the local power company.
Sam Milham, a retired physician and author of the book Dirty Electricity said he hopes to do for EMF awareness what Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring did for pesticides. Even though the science behind the correlation between EMF exposure and cancer risk isn’t completely understood, it’s not too soon for governments to act, said Moskowitz and Blank.