Stop Smart Meters Australia

Taking a stand Part 6 – Taking the Chief Health Officer of Victoria to task

While I was in correspondence with ARPANSA over Australia’s questionable RF standards, I decided I would send a please explain letter to the Victorian Chief Health Officer and the Victorian Radiation Advisory Committee. To give my letter more weight, I performed a search of the Stop Smart Meters website for keywords such as headache and insomnia to extract a list of health impairment stories that have been directly attributed to the smart meter deployment. I crafted a letter using this information along with my own personal experiences with the hope that I would be able to get an informed opinion from those who are supposedly qualified in this field of why we are suffering these health issues and what would be done about it.

The letter can be found here

I received an automated reply saying that the health department would respond in 2 business days. A week later, not hearing anything further, I decided to call the Victorian Radiation Advisory Committee directly. I was transferred to an amiable chap, Associate Professor Brad Cassels. We had a good long discussion about the state of science and my one way interaction with the ACMA. Professor Cassels indicated he was assigned to my case and that he was working on a response that I could expect in the near future.  I would like to point out to the readers of this blog that Professor Cassels is an expert in ionizing radiation and is not an appropriate person to be assigned to a non-ionising case.  I never did get a response from the Victorian Radiation Advisory Committee. Instead, 4 months later Dr Rosemary Lester who is the Victorian Chief Health Officer responded.

Dr Rosemary Lester’s Response can be found here -> Health Department Response

It should be noted that this letter appears to be a boiler plate response as it is almost identical to what others have received (word for word). I would not be surprised if Dr Lester did not even read my original letter because many of the points I raised were not even addressed.

As you can imagine I was quite disappointed with Dr Lester’s response and as a health professional she has failed to uphold the Hippocratic oath and duty of care expected of a person in her position by:

1. Completely ignored the fact that I was not alone claiming to be suffering symptoms
2. Tried to trivialize the smart meter emissions by incorrectly stating that 75% of an individual’s exposure to RF is from Radio and TV broadcasts, and by doing so, demonstrates her ignorance of EHS, different RF wavelengths, modulation patterns and the potential impact smart meter RF has on the body.
3. Recommends I should go to a GP for consultation. The main problem being of course is that most GP’s do not have the tools or the methodology to diagnose and treat people who are EHS. Others who have gone to GP’s that are more aware of EMR and potential health effects have been clearly advised to avoid being exposed to smart meters’ radio frequencies, yet Dr Lester won’t listen, she and other government officials are ignoring medical advice and medical certificates. This is in sharp contrast to the QLD Chief Health Officer, who is being very proactive in protecting Mt Isa kids from lead exposure (like Radio Frequencies, lead is a group 2B carcinogen).
4. Referred me to the only study performed on smart meters in Victoria by EMC Technologies which is not peer reviewed nor did it have a detailed health focus. The study only investigated RF emissions as a % against ARPANSA’s RF standards and provided some limited comments in Appendix B that essentially trivalised the IARC classification and made reference to studies (Interphone) that were seriously flawed.
5. Incorrectly indicated that Professor Andrew Wood independently reviewed the EMC report. Professor Wood was in fact a contributing author to the said report and had previously worked with Telstra.
6. Indicated “There would appear to be no requirement for any program to deal with alleged conditions of hypersensitivity”. So what happens to all the people who are suffering and left traumatised, some of them have lost their jobs and now have no real career prospects?
7. Tried to handball the health issue to the ACMA by stating that Radio Frequency matters (health) are considered outside the scope of the Victorian Health and Wellbeing Act. Any investigation into health issues involving radio frequency radiation should be conducted by the ACMA.

I was left with no option but to respond in order to correct her gross misunderstandings and under appreciation of our concerns.

My response letter can be found here -> Letter to Dr Rosemary Lester

I suspect that I will now have to wait another 4 months before I get a reply, if I get one at all. I think we will only see action on this issue if everyone who is suffering from smart meter emissions writes a letter to Dr Rosemary Lester so that she can truly understand the significance and enormity of this problem.

To put this health department debacle into perspective, I have been in conversation with a fellow EHS sufferer who had been in contact with Noel Cleaves from Rosemary Lester’s office. Noel Cleaves is a manager for energy, health and radiation compliance.

Mr Cleaves indicated that the department of health has appointed a group of medical doctors from their office to produce a ‘factual statement’, similar to the one on wind farms, on the ‘safety’ of Radio Frequencies, as per ARPANSA standards. I expect these medical doctors will actually be making a farcical statement rather than a factual one because not one of these Doctors is interested in interviewing or investigating any of the complaints being raised to them by genuine EHS sufferers. This is equivalent to making a medical diagnosis without actually talking to, or seeing the patient.

In my next blog I will provide clear evidence of reciprocal buck passing and how no one wants to handle this hot potato. I believe it is time to name and shame the worst offenders.