Two petitions have been set up on Change.org by members of the public concerned by the ABC’s unfair treatment of Dr Maryanne Demasi and the excellent Catalyst program ‘Wi-Fried?’.
If you value freedom of reporting on important issues, especially those relating to public health, please consider signing these petitions.
On 16 February 2016, the ABC science program Catalyst aired ‘Wi-Fried?’, a program about the safety of wireless devices such as mobile phones.
The ABC’s independent Audience & Consumer Affairs (A&CA) unit investigated complaints about the program and found that it breached the ABC’s impartiality standards by unduly favouring a so called “unorthodox” perspective that wireless devices and Wi-Fi pose significant health risks.
The full Audience and Consumer Affairs Investigation report can be found here http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FINAL-REPORT-Catalyst-WiFried-Investigation.pdf
Following the outcome of this report, the ABC has retracted the program and removed it from its website. Dr Maryanne Demasi, the presenter, has been suspended.
Is this yet further evidence of industry muscle swaying scientific debate? Why is the independence of the ABC seemingly in the thrall of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA)?
To read more about this spurious censorship, or to submit a comment, please go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4494933.htm
If you missed out on seeing ‘Wi-Fried?’, and want to make up your own mind about its content, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNnxIj0uAOs
But be quick …before the ABC thought police close the site down!
The following video shows a Gigahertz HF35C RF Analyser being used to compare microwave emissions from a mobile phone mast with smart meters. The HF35C is capable of detecting microwave emissions between the 800Mhz and 2.7Ghz range – which is right where both smart meters and mobile phone tower antennae beat their bio-destructive path to your cells and DNA.
The results of the comparison speak for themselves.
If you live in an apartment where banks of these harmful smart meters are going to be located, you might want to consider knocking on your neighbours’ doors and giving them the kind of info on smart meters that they won’t hear on Question Time or the 6 o’clock News.
Are you prepared to risk living with a mobile phone tower/smart meter? Are governments and energy companies giving customers the full story?
In the forthcoming federal election, one party in the Senate stands out in its opposition to smart meters – John Madigan’s Manufacturing and Farming Party (MFP).
Senator John Madigan has been the only federal politician who has taken a consistent stand against the forced installation of smart meters, and who has assisted people with their rights to refuse smart meters or try to have them removed. His office has also provided assistance with research on this issue.
As a strong and passionate advocate for the ‘little’ person, John Madigan deserves to be re-elected to the Senate.
The newly formed Health Australia Party (HAP) is also worthy of your support with its policies on EMR pollution. The HAP supports the following initiatives which are needed due to the changing electromagnetic environment in which we live.
1. (a) The establishment of a national Agency dedicated to researching the situation about electro-smog, particularly EMR emissions from electrical and wireless devices that are potentially damaging or harmful to humans. That national agency, whilst based in Canberra, should have State branches in each of the major cities in Australia. The Canberra office would act as a clearing house or headquarters, but the real work to be done at the city or state level in the State branches.
2. (b) The Agency would employ and communicate with scientists from different disciplines (physics, electromagnetics, medicine etc.), but also permit input from interested lay persons to ensure its purpose could not be “hijacked” by scientists who wished to maintain the status quo. The agency would ensure relevant information about EMR was made available to the public to encourage public awareness and discussion of the problem.
3. (c) One task of the Agency would be to investigate and discuss claims made by the estimated 3 – 5% of the population who say they are electromagnetic hypersensitive (EHS), or react negatively to EMR emissions from such wireless device sources as mobile phones, smart meters, Wi-fi, mobile phone towers, NBN towers, etc.
(d) The Agency would investigate a “labelling scheme” to be used on each electrical device – particularly wireless devices – that are manufactured in or imported into Australia. The EMR output of each device would be measured and labelled to permit those who consider themselves EHS to determine what their EMR exposure might be if they use the device.
Stop Smart Meters Australia (SSMA) is aware of two House of Representatives (Lower House) candidates* who have spoken against the forced installation of smart meters. Daniel Huppert, Independent candidate for the Victorian electorate of Aston and Rob Danieli, Australian Country Party candidate for the Victorian electorate of Murray.
A transition to an intelligent electricity grid in Europe can take place without smart meters, industry players have said, in comments that will embarrass the European Commission, which pushed a Europe-wide plan to roll out smart meters years ago.
There are other more efficient ways than smart meters to help develop intelligent power grids, said industry delegates at the annual convention of Europe’s electricity association Eurelectric, held in Vilnius last week.
These include quicker integration of renewables, the development of energy storage and energy demand response solutions, said the industry representatives.
The actual benefits of smart meters were also questioned at the conference, as several member states have done previously. Germany, for instance, has decided not to have a national roll-out plan at all, running counter to requirements laid out in EU legislation.
EU member states are required to implement smart meters under the 2009 Third Energy Package wherever it is cost-effective to do so, with the goal to replace 80% of electricity meters with smart meters by 2020.
The 80% target applies to both households and commercial buildings, a Commission spokesperson confirmed. The EU executive will publish in the next one to two years a report on smart meters “in the context of our regular monitoring exercise of the progress of members states,” the spokesperson said.
But progress has been sluggish, with few countries having completed their roll-outs and a number of nations – most notably Germany – having so far decided against a nation-wide deployment of smart meters.
And the countries that do have a commitment to smart meters, such as the UK, have run into hurdles in completing its roll-out because some meters would cease to work if a consumer decided to change energy supplier.
Markus Merkel, a senior advisor to the management board of German distribution system operator (DSO) EWE, told the Eurelectric conference that “there isn’t a positive business case” for smart meters in Germany.
EWE’s move towards an intelligent grid has focused to a large extent on upgrading the system to integrate the vast amount of new renewable energy at a quicker pace.
He said smart meters would be more useful for DSOs in their work to upgrade the grid if they provided real time data on energy consumption rather than the circa 15-minute intervals that current products provide.
“We need something different, and maybe smart metering 2.0 – the next generation of smart meters – will deliver something more that we as DSOs can also use,” he said.
Laurence Carpanini, director smarter energy solutions at IBM, echoed the real time data point, adding: “I don’t look at smart meters now as being the drivers of change – you don’t need smart meters really.”
Instead, industry players should “think about flexibility solutions as a whole” and focus on a mix of demand response technologies, frequency response and energy storage, she said.
Storage was also highlighted by Ari Koponen, CEO of Finnish DSO and utility Caruna. He said that while smart meters have been “essential” for collecting energy consumption data, the aspiration should be to access this data in real time and bring in more storage solutions.
“This would [bring] the smartness of the grid to a whole different level,” Koponen said.
The industry’s comments are an embarrassment for the European Commission’s own plan to deploy smart meters across Europe by 2020.
The Commission spokesperson declined to comment on the views about whether or not smart meters are necessary for the transition to an intelligent grid.
Member states are expected to conduct their own cost-benefit analyses for their national smart meters roll-out plans, the official said.
Elza Holmstedt Pell, via EurActiv.com
Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D. has created a Fact Sheet on the recent NTP study that summarizes some “Spin” that is being presented in the media on this important study and its findings. These biased statements are being used to sow seeds of doubt in relation to data quality and the implications this research brings to the table. A separate column presents the “Facts” that has in some cases been sourced from decades of peer reviewed research.
Dr Moskowitz is a Director, Center for Family & Community Health, School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
The fact sheet and a more detailed discussion of the NTP study findings can be found here http://www.saferemr.com/2016/05/national-toxicology-progam-finds-cell.html
The graphs below helps tell the story from the perspective of real Human brain tumor incidence data. The first graph is based on brain tumor data from The Netherlands.
“The black segment of each column tracks the incidence of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive and deadly type of brain tumors. While the total incidence of all types of brain tumors in The Netherlands rose at the rate of only about 0.7% per year, the increase in GBM was about 3.1% per year —that is, the incidence more than doubled over the period 1989-2010. (Follow the thin red line we superimposed on the histogram to track the trend.) This is a statistically significant increase. At the same time, the rate of all the other types of brain tumors went down; these changes are also significant. The higher incidence of GBMs is being masked by the lower rates of the other types of brain cancer.
EAPC stands for estimated annual percentage change
adapted from Ho et al, European Journal of Cancer, 2014, p.231″
Source: Microwave News
Below are Brain Tumour rates for the ACT and N.S.W.
Source:Surgical Neurology International 2011, 2:176
A recently published study by Prof. Simon Chapman et al. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27156022 looked at brain tumour statistics maintained by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) along with mobile phone subscription data and came to the following conclusion:
“The observed stability of brain cancer incidence in Australia between 1982 and 2012 in all age groups except in those over 70 years compared to increasing modelled expected estimates, suggests that the observed increases in brain cancer incidence in the older age group are unlikely to be related to mobile phone use.”
This half-baked study resulted in a flurry of spurious and sensational claims of mobile phone safety in newspapers around the world.
“It’s safe: Mobile Phones DON’T cause cancer, new study say” in the UK press http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/668018/mobile-phones-no-cancer-university-study-says
Chapman’s findings were also the topic of discussion at the recent Electromagnetic Energy Reference Group (EMERG) meeting hosted by ARPANSA on the 24th of May. The Panel of Experts were suggesting that we are not seeing a rise in cases that would be expected if Mobile Phone radiation caused brain tumours. Of course, this view appears to be short-sighted as the latency period for brain tumour formation as a result of Mobile Phone radiation exposure is unknown and Mobile Phone usage (not subscription) has only really taken off in the last 10 – 15 years. Mr Weller, who is Stop Smart Meters public representative on EMERG, submitted his own review of Chapman’s paper to the committee which highlighted many serious deficiencies: Brain Cancer Research Review – EMERG
A day after the EMERG meeting a serious development occurred with the leaking of results of an important animal study being performed by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP). The study found Mobile Phones cause the same tumours that we find in humans to occur in exposed rats. This story was published by the known-to-be-well-informed Microwave News
Armed with this knowledge it is extremely saddening to read tragic stories like this one Business-executive-claimed-spending-six-hours-day-mobile-gave-cancer-dies-aged-44 because they could have possibly been avoided if there had been honesty in the advice given to the public.
In an ideal World this advice would include:
New Farm, Queensland resident, Louise Brosnan, is leading a community protest against the planned installation of a mobile phone tower in New Farm. Louise suffers from microwave sickness or electro-hypersensitivity and claims that telcos, via their installation of a mobile phone tower emission, have threatened to assault her with unseen electrical energy. In a legal case that could benefit others being affected by microwave radiation emitting devices such as smart meters and mobile phone towers, Louise is initiating legal action against the telcos.
Join Ronnie Burns in his recognition of Louise’s plight and support the New Farm community action by making a pledge
Horizon Power in Western Australia has eventually been ‘persuaded’ to adjust the exaggerated bill of a customer after being provided with irrefutable evidence of errors in the amount of electricity consumption reported. The dispute comes amid a flurry of increased electricity bills in parts of WA where smart meters (advanced meters) are currently being installed.
The customer, Broome Vacation Village caravan park strata manager, Marianne Williamson, provided total electricity consumption figures from the sub-meters at the caravan park which divvy up Horizon’s power bill among the residents. After months of Horizon finding no fault with the original bill provided, and charging the customer to investigate the meter, suddenly the bill was adjusted in line with figures provided by the customer. But Horizon Power was strangely silent with the customer on why the bill had been adjusted and reissued.
In another case, a Broome resident saw his electricity bill skyrocket by 400%
A 30 minute documentary on ElectroMagnetic Hypersensitivity and the dangers of wi-fi, particularly in schools, has achieved the highest rating for the day that it aired on Israeli TV. And it has led to wi-fi being banned from schools in Haifa, the third largest city in Israel. The documentary is titled “How We are Killing Ourselves—Wireless Radiation”. Click on the ‘CC’ button to view English subtitles.
Online article about the documentary.
Stop Smart Meters Australia 