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3% of population electrohypersensitive, 50% sensitive André Fauteux, Editor La Maison du 21e siecle magazine www.21esiecle.qc.ca Brad Blumbergs couldn't stand up. "I couldn't walk without a cane; my parents had to install railings along the hallways in our home because I kept losing my balance," says the 29 year-old Ontario native who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis five years ago. Last year, to his great surprise, he put his cane away and even re-learned how to walk backwards and run a little. All of this thanks to a capacitor that filters the radio waves that infect domestic electrical wiring. "I was skeptical," says the Whitby resident. "But three days after installing 16 Graham-Stetzer filters in as many electrical outlets, my shaking disappeared. I'm really, very happy because the effect wasn't just temporary. These filters are not effective for everyone, but I strongly recommend people to try them." Dr. Olle Johansson, from the department of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, explains that since the beginning of the 1990's there has been a dramatic rise in the amount of people affected by electro-hypersensitivity (EHS). This coincides with the mass production and distribution of electronic devices, such as computers and cordless telephones, which use and generate radio waves. In Sweden, which pioneered computer and cellular technology, EHS is recognised as a physical handicap (not a sickness), entitling to all services enabling hypersensitive people to live a normal life. Sweden has a population of 9 million. According to polls, up to 290 000 Swedes, or more than 3% of the population, have reported suffering symptoms of EHS when exposed to electromagnetic waves. Symptoms include: joint stiffness, chronic fatigue, headaches, tinnitus; respiratory, gastric, skin, sleep and memory problems and depressive tendencies. If 3% of 7 million Quebeckers were afflicted with electro-hypersensitivity that would mean 210 000 people are handicapped by electromagnetic waves.

From cancer to hyperactivity Since 1979, at least ten epidemiological studies published have shown that the risk of leukemia doubles when a child is overexposed to a magnetic field measuring at least 3 or 4 milligauss. This led in 2001 the International Research Agency on Cancer (IRAC) to classify 60-Hertz magnetic fields emitted by wires and electric devices as "possibly carcinogenic." Electromagnetic pollution is also tied to a wide range of other illnesses, brain cancer and Lou Gherig's disease among them, but the evidence is less consistent. Not that there isn't any proof, but rather a chronic and suspicious lack of funding for good quality, independent studies. Increasingly common in developed countries, deteriorating power quality causes several public health problems, according to the inventors of the famous Graham-Stetzer filters, David Stetzer from Winsconsin and Dr. Martin Graham, professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Berkeley University in California. Mr. Stetzer emphasises that the number of American children diagnosed with Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) rose from 950,000 in 1990 to 2.4 million in 1996. He is convinced that one of the causes is the rise in pulsed (or transient) high frequency surges that not only pollute high tension lines, but also from domestic and workplace cabling. "Poor power quality, also known as dirty electricity, refers to a combination of harmonics and transients generated primarly by electronic devices and non linear loads", explained Stetzer and Trent University professor Magda Havas in a paper presented at the World Health Organization Workshop on Electrical Hypersensitivity, on October 25-26 in Prague (Czech Republic). Transformer-less appliances use variable levels of electricity that generate high frequencies and transients that rid on top of a normal 50/60 Hertz sine wave. Much like repeatedly and quickly turning a water tap on and off causes a water hammer, transients can cause malfunctions in computers and other electronic equipement not plugged into surge-suppressing power bars. Dirty electricity contains transients generally measured in thousands or Hetz (Kilohertz or KHz). Sometimes it even contains radio waves measured in millions of Hertz (Megahertz or MHz) and even billions of Hertz (Gigahertz or GHz). It adds to the electrosmog generated by 60 Hertz electric and magnetic fields as well as radio frequencies from radars, broadcasting antennae, cellular telephones and wireless Internet connections. Domestic 60-Hz power changes direction 60 times per second. As for wireless Internet connections that pervade our lives without concern for public health, its fields cycle up to 2.45 billion times per second. The human body, whose cells, nerves and organs function with electrical impulse, have difficulty adapting to 60-Hertz cycles, let alone transient high frequencies that last milliseconds, explains Dr Olle Johansson. "We are dealing with amplitude-modulated or pulsed microwaves in the 2.45 Ghz range (or nearby), in a form that has only been around to any extend for the last 10-15 years. Compared to the natural background fields, in which living cells have developed during the last 3.8 billion years, these electromagnetic fields are actually very, very strong. It is thus wrong to believe that evolution has furnished us with a safety protection shielding layer against such WLAN (wireless local area network) signals. It has not. " Engineer Martin Graham invented a meter that plugs into electrical wall outlets and measures dirty electricity riding on 60-Hz carrier current. He recommends installing filters when the reading is more than 50 G-S (for Graham Stetzer) units. His filters cost $40 each and especially neutralise high frequencies between 4 and 100 kHz and associated electro-magnetic fields. According to Mr. Stetzer, Kazakhstan is the first country to legally limit new building constructions to 50 G-S units or less. He bluntly advises electrically hypersensitive people to do away with compact florescent lamps, computers, dimmer switches and other devices that generate dirty electricity.

Canadian Pioneer Environmental science professor Magda Havas teaches the country's only university-level course on electromagnetic pollution. She says Graham-Stetzer filters can help alleviate EHS symptoms and even relieve diabetics: "We can take a person who is diabetic and put them in an [electrically] dirty environment, and their blood sugar levels rise, she stated in the March issue of Toronto's Now magazine. We then put them into a clean environment, and within half an hour their blood sugar levels are lower. It becomes a barometer." In 2003, Dr. Havas headed a six-week study in a Toronto area private school: Three weeks with filters plugged into the school's walls and three without. Teachers and students were unaware of both EHS phenomenon and the study's focus. Not less than 55 per cent of teachers reported feeling greater satisfaction, less fatigue and less irritability, and suffering fewer headaches and other pain while the filters were in place. Surprisingly, 60 per cent even reported improved student behaviour, particularly elementary students who were more concentrated and less disruptive. These findings prompt Dr. Havas to estimate that 50% of the population is more or less electrically hypersensitive, compared to other studies that indicate a few cases per million. In another school study in Wisconsin, a nurse confirms that after Graham-Stetzer filters were installed, the staff and the students greatly reduced their consumption of asthma and allergy medication. "These results are dramatic and warrant further investigation", Havas and Stetzer wrote in their paper. Last December, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published fact-sheet number 296 on EHS. It confirmed that EHS symptoms are real and even severe in 10% of the people who claim to be afflicted: "EHS resembles multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), another disorder associated with low-level environmental exposures to chemicals. Both EHS and MCS are characterized by a range of non-specific symptoms that lack apparent toxicological or physiological basis or independent verification." WHO refers to EHS as "reputed sensitivity" and affirms that, rather than an exposure to electric and magnetic fields in themselves, other factors could play a role in the onset of symptoms: flickering florescent lamps, reflection and other visual problems associated with viewing screens, poor ergonomic organisation at computerised work stations, poor air quality, environmental work or domestic stress, fear of electric and magnetic fields or even psychological problems. "The majority of studies indicate that EHS individuals cannot detect EMF exposure any more accurately than non-EHS individuals. Well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure."

Response But for Magda Havas, these studies have not proven a thing. "Different people are inconvenienced by different electromagnetic frequencies without necessarily being able to detect them. We can not see all ultraviolet rays but they can burn us. Not everyone who claims to be electronically hypersensitive actually is, but many people who know nothing of the syndrome can definitely be sensitive to this form of pollution. This is why it is necessary to determine the best manner in which to study it; a domain in which we certainly have a long way to go." According to a highly respected publication based in New York, Microwave News, WHO is in a conflict of interests because its activities are often partnered with cellular phone manufacturers and electric utilities. In addition, Olle Johansson says WHO's opinion ignored a high quality study conducted for the Dutch government in 2003: Researchers from the TNO Physics and Electronic Laboratory created a completely controlled electromagnetic environment assuring that measurements were not influenced by outside sources. The study concluded their original hypothesis was wrong: the researchers believed they would not observe a causal link between exposure to radiofrequencies and cognitive functions and feelings of well-being, but in fact they did. This was also a double-blind study, where researchers and subjects alike ignored who would be exposed and when. People suffering from psychological and coronary problems were excluded and the statistically significant results were reviewed by two independent experts. In any event, thousands of scientific articles have already shown cancer clusters often arise in close proximity to cellular telephone antennae, stresses Dr. Johansson. In the 1980s, this Swedish dermatologist confirmed that certain people suffering from EHS develop dermatitis simply from using their computers. Recently, his team discovered that people using cellular telephones for ten years or more increase their risk of developing benign tumor of the acoustic nerve. Finally, these researchers discovered rates of lung cancer and of malignant melanoma, the most fatal form of skin cancer, increase with a population's exposure to radio frequencies. This was the case in Sweden when FM radio antennae (100 megahertz) were introduced in the 1950's. Here in Quebec, in 1994, researchers at McGill University found a threefold lung cancer incidence among 84 French, Quebec and Ontario electrical workers most cumulatively exposed to transient or pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs). The odds ratio was 6.67 times the norm among 32 Hydro-Quebec workers. "The dose-response was clear; this doesn't happen often in epidemiology," confirms biologist Denis Gauvin of Quebec's National Institute of Public Health. This major study however had a few weaknesses (the source of the PEMFs were unknown and electrical workers overall don't have a higher lung cancer incidence than the general population) and was never replicated. Unhappy about the publication of these results, Hydro-Quebec subsequently prohibited McGill researchers access to the worker's exposure data they collected over a period of five years. Denis Gauvin is preparing for next fall an EMF "prudent avoidance" policy proposal for Health Minister Philippe Couillard. Unable to offer any details in advance, the biologist however confirmed that with the proliferation of wireless appliances, "we will hear more and more about high frequencies." Certainly, many researchers suspect that the presence or absence of these microwaves could finally explain why the electromagnetic fields that pollute our homes are sometimes noxious, sometimes benign. You can count Brad Blumbergs among the believers.

Resources: WHO fact sheet: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs296/en/ Microwave news : www.microwavenews.com Canadian information groups: http://members.aol.com/gotemf/ McGill study: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/140/9/805 CBC French-TV reports on cell- phone risks to children and electrohypersensitivity: http://radio-canada.ca/actualite/v2/decouverts/niveau2_5587 Graham Stetzer filters: www.getpurepower.ca Publications by Dr. Magda Havas: www.stop-emf.ca

I have noticed that if I am on my cell phone or even my cordless phone at home long enough for the phone to heat up, it starts giving me a headache at the back of my head, somewhere inside.

Does anyone know whether studies have shown what type of waves they emit? and their health effects?