California’s Public Utilities Commission knew radio frequencies from smart meters affected people’s health

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

People who have become intolerant to electromagnetic fields (EMF) should be allowed to keep their electromechanical (analog) meter rather than be imposed a “smart” electronic (digital) meter emitting radiofrequencies (RFs), the former President of the the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) admitted in a 2010 email recently seized by authorities thanks to a search warrant. Michael Peevey’s email was sent to none other than Brian Cherry, Vice President of the big energy supplier Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), based in San Francisco. In January 2015, investigators from the Office of the California Attorney General seized their computers as part of a criminal investigation on possible collusion and corruption in the appointment of a judge favorable to a rate increase request generating PG&E $1.3 billion in extra revenues.

Since the beginning of their deployment in 2006 around the world, governments and water, gas and electric utilities have always claimed that smart meters posed no danger to public health. This despite thousands of complaints from users and doctors who reported a host of symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) which appeared or were aggravated after installation of these emitters of pulsed microwaves (read here testimonials submitted by Quebecers to the Régie de l’énergie). However, on 6 September 2010, Peevey wrote to Cherry : “There really are people who feel pain, etc., related to EMF, etc., and rather than have them becoming hysterical, etc., I would quietly leave them alone.”

At the beginning of his message, Peevey confided: “If it were my decision I would let anyone who wants to keep their old analog meter keep it, if they claim they suffer from EMF and/or related electronic-related illnesses and they can produce a doctor’s letter saying so (or expressing concern about the likelihood of suffering same). I would institute such a policy quitely and solely on an individual basis.”

Told about this confession, the President of the Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique (Quebec Association Against Air Pollution or AQLPA), André Bélisle, “insistently demands once again that an independent public health inquiry be launched based on these new facts and revelations”.

But at the office of the Quebec Minister responsible for Public Health, Lucie Charlebois, nothing has changed. “Our position on smart meters remains the same,” said spokesperson Alexandra Bernier. She said the opt-out program offered by Hydro-Québec (featuring a non-communicating digital meter) is enough. Yet it does not help people living in apartment buildings close to several smart meters because they have to convince their neighbors to pay removal fees.

WHO partnership with electric utilities

Peevey’s admission about electrohypersensitivity was probably based on a well-informed source: an email dated September 15 2010 shows that the CPUC was advised by epidemiologist Leeka Kheifets, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health in Los Angeles who serves on several international and national committees that advise governments on environmental policy, including the Scientific Expert Group of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)”, according to her UCLA Web page. Dr Kheifets is most familiar with research on effects of EMFs on human health. “Prior to her professorship at UCLA, she was Head of the Radiation Studies Program at the World Health Organization and was a Technical Executive at the Electric Power Research Institute, where she directed a multi-disciplinary electric and magnetic fields (EMF) research program”, her UCLA profile adds. Her public opinions, which minimize the health risks of EMFs, are responsible for most national public health advisories on EMFs, which parrot the arguments of electric utilities and wireless industries. “Of all the people I know, Leeka Kheifets has done more to subvert EMF research than anyone,” says American epidemiologist Samuel Milham, the first scientist to discover an increased risk of leukemia among electrical workers overexposed to EMFs. “In my book Dirty Electricity, on page 80 I describe how she prevented me from filtering a Palm Springs elementary school, and on p 91 how she prevented me from filtering the library building at University of California at San Diego. Both places had female breast cancer clusters. Lou Slesin has covered activity in great detail.” Dr. Kheifets did not respond to our emails and phone messages, nor did CPUC and PG&E officials.

While Dr Kheifets worked at WHO, her boss Mike Repacholi worked hand in hand with power companies, according to the editor of the highly regarded newsletter Microwave News, as was revealed in October 2005. Repacholi invited six of their representatives to assist Kheifets in drafting and editing WHO’s Monograph No. 238 Environmental Health Criteria on residential (60-Hertz) EMFs, published in 2007. Among the six international ‘observers’ invited was a Canadian, Dr. Michel Plante of Hydro-Québec. Since 1983, this family doctor is responsible for protecting public health as well as that of the electric utility’s employees. In recent years, he has also become a consultant for cellphone companies, for whom he has organized public talks on the safety of cell towers and also on the safety of smart meters and smart grids, in collaboration with Quebec’s Public Health authorities.

 Via: http://www.activistpost.com/2015/10/california-knew-smart-meters-were-dangerous.html?Via

 

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Seeking customer input on changes to network tariffs in NSW

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy – the electricity distributor companies  that supply electricity to homes, businesses and community organisations in NSW (“the poles and wires”) – are asking people across the state about their views on what type of electricity tariffs electricity distributors will charge between 2017 – 2019.

Network tariffs charged by distributors make up about 40 per cent of the cost of electricity bills.

NSW electricity distributors must propose their 2017 – 2019 tariff structure statements to the Australian Energy Regulator in November this year.

The distributors have released an Issues Paper about their proposed tariffs.  See: Electricity tariff reform in NSW An invitation to comment

From the Issues Paper, it is obvious that customers want to keep their “inexpensive accumulation meters” and don’t want Time of Use (TOU) pricing (which require interval or smart meters).  For example, only 20 of Endeavour Energy’s 865,000 customers have opted so far for voluntary time of use tariffs!!

It’s in answers to the questions on TOU on Page 23 of the Issues Paper where people should raise their concerns about smart meters.

Written submissions close 9:00 am, Friday 30 October.

Information on how to submit your feedback can be found at the NSW Government website: Have your say

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Mobile Phone Ordinance puts Berkeley at Forefront of Radiation Debate

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Mobile/cell phone sellers (vendors) in Berkely, California, will soon be required to provide a health warning with mobile phones. The warning could come in the form of either a handout with the phone, or a notice in the store. The notice will state:

“To assure safety, the Federal Government requires that cell phones meet radio frequency (RF) exposure guidelines. If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for information about how to use your phone safely.”

In a controversial move, the judge hearing the case has required that the sentence, “Children are more exposed to cell phone radio-frequency radiation than adults” be deleted from the warning because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not acknowledged that children’s cell phone radiation exposure is greater than adults’ exposure.

While such a move fails to alert parents to the extra dangers of allowing children to use mobile phones and other similar wireless devices, it does at least warn all mobile phone users that their health is in danger from mobile phones.

Read more

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French court awards woman disability grant for electrohypersensitivity (EHS)

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

A French court has awarded a disability grant to a woman claiming to suffer from a debilitating allergy to electromagnetic radiation from everyday gadgets such as mobile phones.

The 39-year-old applicant, Marine Richard, hailed the ruling a ‘breakthrough’ for people afflicted by Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS).

The condition is not recognised as a medical disorder in most countries, including France, but sufferers insist that exposure to mobile phones, wifi routers, televisions and other gadgets cause them anything from mild discomfort to life-ruining disability.

Scientific studies have found no evidence linking electromagnetic exposure to the symptoms – tingling, headaches, fatigue, nausea, or palpitations.

Richard, a former radio producer, lives a reclusive life in the mountains of southwest France, in a renovated barn without electricity, and drinking water from the well.

In a ruling last month, a court in the southern city of Toulouse decided she can claim a disability allowance – about 800 euros ($A1280) per month – for a period of three years.

The ruling accepted that Richard’s symptoms prevent her from working, but stopped short of recognising EHS as an illness.

Her lawyer Alice Terrasse said the decision could set a legal precedent for ‘thousands of people’ concerned.

‘It’s a breakthrough,’ Richard added.

The World Health Organisation lists EHS as a condition, but says there is ‘no scientific basis’ for linking the symptoms to electromagnetic exposure.

Sweden and Germany have classified it as an occupational disease.

Via: Sky News

 

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Electrohypersensitivity Forum – 11 October, Oakleigh

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

EHS Forum

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Smart meters: You paid billions for electricity companies to benefit – Victoria’s Auditor-General report

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Households forced to pay for the multibillion-dollar rollout of smart meters may never see their promised benefits, according to a scathing report by Victoria’s Auditor-General.

The report lashes the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport & Resources for failing to track properly the multibillion-dollar costs associated with the program, preferring instead to crow about its benefits out of context.

It says the largest benefit in the estimated life of the program — $1.4 billion out of $3.2 billion — could be attributed to avoiding costs such as installing and manually checking older meters. These are savings that flow primarily to electricity distributors, rather than consumers, who have instead seen bills climb higher and higher.

“When the rollout was announced, the benefits were promoted widely. However, when the government reviewed the program in 2011 it was clear there would be no overall benefit to consumers, but instead a likely cost of $319 million,” the Auditor-General’s report said.

The report says costs are likely to go beyond that figure, and that, even in ideal conditions, consumers will only receive about 80 per cent of the benefits that have been identified.

“The reality of the smart meter rollout is that the state approved a program, many of the costs of which it could not directly control, nor drive many of the benefits ascribed to it,” the report says.

“Nevertheless, the rollout is now complete and Victoria has infrastructure in place that might lead to future innovation and benefits to consumers. Government’s role must now be to help consumers to get the most out of what they have paid for,” it said.

Anti-smart meter campaigner Sonja Rutherford, of Broadmeadows, is one of thousands around the state who has refused the smart meter upgrade. She says her meter has been running for 45 years without incident.

“The so-called benefits the government keep repeating — none of that has come to fruition that I know of,” Ms Rutherford said.

She said smart meters, coupled with internet-connected appliances, would allow companies to cut off power to particular appliances at their whim. Up to 75,000 people kept “locked box” meters, refusing the upgrade, she said. A meter reader still comes to her house.

“I don’t know what the advantage is except that they can rake in money for the cost of the rollout,” she said.

Marc Moncrief, via: The Age

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Reform Policy

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Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gets his science facts so terribly wrong

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Source: Dr Don Maisch, EMFacts

This morning (Sunday) on the ABC breakfast TV program, Australia’s well known science presenter and resident expert on all things, Dr Karl Kruszeinicki was interviewed on reports of dangers from Wi Fi and mobile phones. No transcript is available yet but to briefly summarize Dr. Karl’s viewpoint he saw no dangers other than heating (the old thermal paradigm) and actually said that the WHO had examined the issue and “found nothing”. For a scientist to get his facts so wrong on a nationwide ABC broadcast is inexcusable. Nothing was said about the WHO’s agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) classification of radiofrequency as a possible human carcinogen. Nothing about Hardell’s findings, just a highly public all clear for the telco industry and the government’s pro-telco policy.

Dr Maisch’s full response can be found here: Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gets his science facts so terribly wrong

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Stop Smart Meters Australia is having an impact!

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

In a recent post on Stop Smart Meters Tasmania, Tasmania’s Don Maisch writes about a presentation he attended at the University of Tasmania about smart grids and how grid implementation varies from place to place.  The speaker, who was apparently pro-smart meters, admitted that Stop Smart Meters Australia has had an impact on the rollout of smart meters across other Australian states.  Surprisingly, she even showed a webpage of Stop Smart Meters Australia in her presentation!

This is not an exact word for word quote of the speaker, Associate Professor Heather Lovell, but the sentiments she expressed:

Victoria was selected as the test case for a planned mandatory roll-out of the smart grid, with the rest of the nation to follow suit later. However the activist group Stop Smart Meters Australia (SSMA) was very effective in raising public concern about various problems with the implementation of the smart grid in Victoria. As a consequence,  plans for a further mandatory roll-out in other states were shelved.

SSMA was not criticised but was presented as how a committed public interest activist group can influence policy.

SSMA site screen captureDon also writes that Tasmanians (and others) have had an impact on the Tasmanian rollout of smart meters through their submissions to the Tasmanian government’s proposed energy policy.

Congratulations and thanks to all the groups and individuals who are helping to curb the poorly considered rollout and installation of dangerous wireless technologies.

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Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity in the News

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity has been featuring in the news  recently.

TripleJ HackSSMA’s Vice President, Mr Steve Weller, was interviewed recently on the TripleJ program “Hack” on the topic of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS).

The recording can be accessed via the following link: TripleJ Hack Podcast

Once again, Australian psychologist researchers from Wollongong University are weighing in on this contentious topic by suggesting that EHS is likely to be a “Nocebo” effect. They often cite studies performed by other industry paid psychologists such as Dr James Rubin to support their case and continue to ignore evidence to the contrary which links EHS to electromagnetic radiation exposure. Researchers in this country appear to be either unwilling or not competent to judge current scientific evidence that wireless radiation is likely to be harmful to our long term health.

It is indeed a sad state of affairs to see that Australian science (compared to other more socially responsible countries) is always the last to recognize syndromes for what they really are because of vested interests interfering and controlling the message.

Also in the mainstream news, an EHS article entitled “Brain on Fire” written by journalist Mark White appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine.

Excerpt:

Bruce Evans with his smartphone-sized digital meter.“Hellish headaches are just the start for people with electromagnetic hypersensitivity – and in our wi-fi world, there’s almost nowhere to hide.

After an hour of measuring radio-frequency levels around Benalla, the north-eastern Victorian city of 9300 deep in Ned Kelly country, Australia, Bruce Evans puts down his smartphone-sized digital meter.

He says he wants to demonstrate how badly cordless phones leak radiation, and there’s one in the Benalla bookshop he can test. He strides off with intent on a sunny Sunday morning, a burly man with a shaved head, like a friendly bouncer you nonetheless wouldn’t want to mess with.

Evans, a 50-year-old web designer and former Australian Army commando, is showing me where he can go without falling ill. He says he has a controversial condition known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), triggered by electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by power lines, devices such as smartphones and laptops, by wireless routers and towers pumping out telco and NBN signals – the building blocks of the modern economy; indeed, of modern living as we know it.

Symptoms range from a mild headache through to tingles, tinnitus and heart palpitations to incapacitating migraines, fatigue and nausea. Being EHS puts a huge mental strain on sufferers, both from their symptoms and from not being believed.”

The full story can be found here Brain on Fire

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Electomagnetic hypersenstivity to mobile and wifi is ‘serious handicap’, French court rules

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

The U.K. Telegraph reports a French court rules that a woman is unable to work due to the debilitating effect of mobile and wi-fi waves and should receive €800 per month in adult handicap welfare, in legal first that could lead to many more claims.

A French court has ruled that electromagnetic hypersensitivity to mobile and wi-fi waves is a “serious handicap”, setting a legal precedent that lawyers say could lead to “thousands” of claims.

Although the condition is not officially recognised in France, a Toulouse court in charge of disability related disputes ruled that Marine Richard, 39, a former script writer and radio documentary director, displayed “irrefutable clinical signs” of suffering from a syndrome linked to electromagnetic waves.

Ms Richard, , has “85 per cent functional impairment” due to her condition meaning she cannot work, making her able to an adult handicap allowance of around €800 (£588) per month for three years, which could be renewed, the court decided.

The July ruling went unnoticed at the time but was unearthed on Wednesday by AFP.

“This judicial recognition is a major first in France,” said Etienne Cendrier, spokesman for Robin des Toits (Robin Roofs), an association that raises awareness over health issues linked to wireless technologies.
Ms Richard, who has been living as a recluse in the mountains of Ariège, southwestern France, to escape the waves she says have made her life hell, described the ruling as “a breakthrough”.

She currently lives in a restored barn with no electricity or running water and no road leading to the property.

Sweden is the only country in the world to recognise electromagnetic hypersensitivity, or EHS, as a functional impairment. Sufferers complain of terrible headaches and dizziness making it hard to think or speak clearly. They say their symptoms are brought on when they come into contact with mobile, wireless phone, or wireless internet waves.

Alice Terrasse, Ms Richard’s lawyer, said the ruling was an historic first in France and could lead to legal action from the “thousands of people concerned by this but who have not gone to the courts until today”.

“They are very isolated, have very little contact (with the outside world), and for them the procedures (to seek financial or legal aid) are extremely complicated,” she said.

Mr Cendrier from Robin des Toits said that the court ruling showed that “justice, as is often the case, is ahead of politicians”, which he accused of “protecting industrial players”.

Ms Richard said she hoped the ruling would lead to the maximum legal limits of such electromagnetic waves being reduced. “We know how to make much less polluting technologies. That said, it’s a political choice,” she said.

A French law passed in January merely called for a report early next year on the issue.

Henry Samuel, via The Telegraph.

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