As I am sitting here writing this, the sky is hazy and I can barely see the sun. I remember days like this when I was going to Chiropractic school down in LA in the late ’70s. The telephone pole across the street from our place was unclear due to the level of smog in the air. Fortunately, action was taken to reduce the levels of visible auto pollution so the air looks cleaner now, but now we have all these fires all around us recreating those same levels of bad air. The Air Quality Index is reading 195 right now for my neighborhood. Strangely the air quality is worse here in Sacramento than it is in Tahoe where the fires are. But I digress. The subject of this newsletter is another kind of smog, electromagnetic smog, and it has been getting worse every year.
A side benefit to staying home during covid times has been the approval of online education for my yearly 24 hours of license renewal training. Instead of having to drive down to the bay area to take weekend classes, I can do zoom meeting classes from the comfort of my desk chair at home. This year for my 6 hours of elective education I choose to learn more about EMF impacts on health. EMFs are the radio waves and magnetic fields that we are bombarded with all the time from cell phone towers, wifi, power lines, and so on. The earth has its own natural EMFs from the magnetic field around the planet that protects us from dangerous rays from the sun. Our bodies are designed to cope with that natural background radiation, but the modern use of electricity has increased the level of radiation we are exposed to daily by a billion times. The health of every one of us is affected by this. Some people are more sensitive to this than others. Among my patients, I would estimate about 10% of them have significant symptoms due to these EMF radiation exposures. For the rest, the symptoms have not gotten significant enough yet to drive them to seek relief.
There are four main types of man-made EMFs:
- Radiofrequency: cell phones, Wifi, microwave ovens, smart meters, cordless phones, baby monitors, and Bluetooth.
- Magnetic Fields: power lines, chargers, transformers, circuit breakers, electric motors
- Electric fields: household wiring, lamps, cords, power strips, ungrounded electronics
- Dirty electricity: fluorescent lights, dimmer switches, smart TVs, electronic everything
When we talk about EMFs, we look at two main forms: ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. We are well aware of the health dangers of ionizing radiation from high energy sources like x-rays, ultraviolet, and nuclear radiation. The current health issues are coming from what was previously considered harmless – the non-ionizing radiations. The ionizing radiation produces immediate burning and breaking of chemical bonds. These damages are obvious and immediate. But the big change in thinking has been the discovery that these non-ionizing radiations also have a host of dangerous biological effects that are slower acting. Massive amounts of research have been done over the last 25 years demonstrating these dangerous effects. The public health crisis has arisen because the government body responsible for protecting us, the FCC, has not changed its standards since 1996. In fact just recently (August 16th) a long-running court battle was won by the Children’s Health Defense headed by the lead attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr in the US appeals court, which has resulted in the FCC being ordered to reconsider the evidence that these non-ionizing radiations may not be safe. Twenty-five years of evidence has been ignored because it would hinder Telecom’s big business profits.
Did you know that buried deep in the fine print in the instructions that came with your cell phone it directly says that you should not put the cell phone to your ear nor carry the cell phone on your body? They know this radiation is dangerous, and by giving you instructions not to put the phone to your head or near your body, they have absolved themselves from any damages you may incur. Never mind that no one ever reads that far down into the fine print to see the warning. A few cities like Berkeley CA actually require cell phone retailers to post warnings or hand out specific warnings about the possible health damages.
Why is this subject being kept in the dark? Virtually everything we do in this society involves the use of electricity. No one wants to hear that the electricity may be killing us. The problem is that the effects take years to manifest. It is the same story we had a few years back with tobacco. Will taking a drag off a cigarette give you lung cancer tomorrow? Of course not. How about breathing second-hand smoke for several months? Still no cancer. But some people who are sensitive to smoke will have problems right away. These are the same type of people that we find reacting to EMFs today. The effects of smoking take 20 to 40 years to show up. The emphysema is inevitable and the cancer is only probable, even after 20 years. This is the same time frame as the effects of EMFs. We know they can cause serious damage, and we know they do damage some people fairly quickly. What we don’t know is if everybody will have damage that is noticeable. Right now 440,000 people die each year from tobacco usage – more than from auto accidents, alcohol, illegal drugs, AIDS, suicide, and homicide combined. Tobacco use makes Covid 19 look like a walk in the park. Is EMF exposure the new tobacco? We just don’t know yet.
One of the big concerns is cell phone towers and antennas. This problem becomes amplified manyfold with the rollout of 5G. When I did a search of the towers and antennas around my house, I found that within a 3-mile radius I have 136 towers and 242 antennas. If you are curious about what is around you, check out antennasearch.com and put in your address. But these are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Do you have a router in your house for Wifi? How about a cordless phone? Any of you trying to be energy conscious and using compact fluorescent light bulbs? How about chargers for your electronic devices? We are surrounded by this stuff.
What are the top symptoms of a reaction to EMFs? I 
hear these every day…
Fatigue/ weakness/ trouble sleeping
Headaches/ migraines
Difficulty concentrating/ memory loss
Depression/ irritability
Movement problems/ joint pain
Visual disruptions / light sensitivity
Dizziness/ nausea/ flu feeling
Heart problems/ high blood pressure
Skin conditions/ rash – facial redness
Stomach or lung issues
Numbness
These are just the common complaints. The problem is that these complaints are common with a lot of conditions. But if you have been down the road with some of these complaints and not getting any resolution then EMFs might be something to look at as a possible cause.
How would you know? There are no lab tests for EMF damage. The answer may be simple – get away from EMFs for a while and see how you feel. Go camping away from everything and see if you feel better. A simpler shorter test is to shut off the circuit breaker to your bedroom, turn off your router to your Wifi, turn off your cell phone/ baby monitor/ cordless phone at night for several nights and see if you feel better.
The physiology behind how these EMFs work to disrupt cellular systems and the body at large is rather involved and probably not really all that interesting to normal people. But the symptoms on that list apply to a lot of you. Get away from these waves for a bit and see if you do better. If so, then there are resources to help you tackle and improve your situation.
Take care,
David