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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ex-WHO director expresses mobile phone concerns

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

In a somewhat measured response to questioning on the safety of mobile phones, retired World Health Organisation (WHO) General Director and Prime Minister of Norway, Dr. Gro Harlem Bruntland gives her opinion on how mobile phones are affecting people’s health.

She is somewhat philosophical about society’s dependence on mobile phone technology, recognising the difficulties of eliminating this source of radiation any time soon.

Gro states that for 25 years she has reacted to mobile phone radiation and cannot hold a mobile phone to her head, preferring to hold it at waist level and texting instead. She also warns people against carrying a mobile phone in their pocket and tells the story of a man who developed a skin rash in the area adjoining his mobile phone pocket.

Longer video clip and written article (but not in English)

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SSMA’s submission to the Review of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Stop Smart Meters Australia’s August 2015 submission to the Department of Communications advocated for the regulatory functions of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to be separated from its role of raising revenue, to include within its remit responsibility for protecting the environment from emissions from telecommunication transmitters and the creation of an Australia-wide database listing smart meter access point locations.

A copy of the submission can be found here.

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The two sides of science

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Before we lead into the article that appeared in the Herald Sun about wireless armour underwear, the question we need to all ask ourselves is which side of science do we trust.

On one hand we are assured by industry and government departments that there are no dangers associated with exposure to wireless radiation from devices such as mobile phones, smart meters, tablets, laptops and other devices, some of which we carry close to our bodies everyday.

On the other hand we are cautioned about the dangers of wireless devices, with many scientists now linking the effects of microwave radiation to blood cell mutation when exposed to radio frequency emitting devices, as shown here and here.

So which side has a vested interest and is fully funded by industry?  You decide.

As you will read in the Herald Sun article reprinted below, there is now a strong link between fertility, low sperm count and RF exposure:

Underpants blocks radiation from devices

DESCRIBED by Richard Branson as “underpants for superheroes”, the Wireless Armour underwear contains a mesh of pure silver woven into the fabric that shields against 99.9 per cent of electromagnetic radiation, which is emitted from devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, and has been linked to fertility problems by scientists.

Inventor Joseph Perkins said that the growing popularity of smart, but radiation-emitting devices prompted him to take action.

“Like so many people, my smartphone and laptop use has increased dramatically in recent years, which made me realise that I was exposing myself to large amounts of electromagnetic radiation, mostly centred on my groin,” he said.

“With my physics background I knew there must be a way to shield from electromagnetic radiation using a simple solution.”

“Wireless Armour has been tested by an industry leader in wireless shielding and the results show that our fabric shields against 99.9 per cent of the radiation emitted between 100MHz to 2.6GHz.

“Put simply, this covers the entire range of radiation emitted by wireless devices, from voice and text through to 4G and Wi-Fi, almost everything is blocked.”

The silver in the Wireless Armour smart underpants disrupts the flow of electromagnetic radiation as silver is a conductor of electricity, and distributes it evenly around the mesh.

It is estimated that 70 million couples are affected by infertility worldwide, and according to a 2014 study by the University of Exeter there is a strong link between exposure to electromagnetic radiation and a lower sperm count.

Via Herald Sun

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Please vote for question to be answered by Australian Human Rights Commissioner

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Stop Smart Meters Australia

Please vote for the question about electromagnetic radiation and its health effects to be answered by Tim Wilson, Australian Human Rights Commissioner.

Voting concludes Friday 14 August, 5:00 pm.
Go to: http://oursay.org/community/freedom

The question to look for is:

“Will the Freedom Commissioner look into claims of people being impacted by man made electromagnetic radiation from digital communications and will he support the establishment of white zones (no Radiofrequency transmitters) for people who find themselves disabled and unable to tolerate emissions from cell towers, NBN WiMax towers, WiFi etc? In today’s technological driven and wireless addicted society we find there are people who are really suffering from these ubiquitous emissions from wireless emitters sited near our homes, near and in schools, on our hospitals and in public places. Those who are impacted are being ignored by the Government, labelled and ridiculed, effectively having their freedoms and rights being trampled. Sufferers lack accessibility to a safe environment which can lead to discriminatory behaviour. To date there has been a lack of real objective health based research to look at what the potential implications are to chronic long term exposure to these wireless signals that have been classified by the World Health Organisation as potentially carcinogenic. We require scientists with biological and medical science credentials to investigate, not psychologists or physicists as is happening today. Technical studies looking at emission levels against an RF standard are of little value when it comes to trying to understand whether there are health impacts to RF exposure.”

At the moment this question is number 4, and needs to be in the top 3 to be answered by the Australian Human Rights Commissioner. You can apply all 7 votes to the same question.

Vote now!

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