Page 8 - the NOISE January 2015

VOTEGUIDE: ThE prOps
acc hEars smarT mETErs & Turns a blind EyE
by bob reynolds
On the first day of Christmas, in a hearing room along the Capitol Triangle in sunny down- town Phoenix, the Arizona Corporation Commission granted its favorite electric com- pany, Arizona Public service, upwards of $1.2 million in additional revenue each year, for an indefinite period of time. While stockholders of Pinnacle West (APS’ parent conglomerate) stuffed their stockings as market value spiked to a 5-year high ($66.66 a share) within a week of the muted news ignored by prime time television and the state’s daily newspapers, over 20,000 ratepayers grumbled at being forced to pay an extra $5 a month to not have a wireless
“Smart Meter” installed on their homes & businesses, either for health or privacy reasons.
The Commission itself, the elected regulatory body that oversees rate increases and propos-
als from the state’s utility companies, has had its reputation sullied over the past few years by accusations of fraternity with and financial contributions from APS and its executives, with headlines just this past November election cycle pointing to the “outwardly legal” but “inher- ently culpable” campaign financing of two new commissioners who are to be sworn in this month. APS for its part, refused to comment on evidence it had paid for television ads for the campaigns of commissioners-elect doug little & Tom Forese.
At the 8-hour Smart Meter hearing on December 12th, Chairman bob stump presided, with (continuing-termed) bob burns & susan bitter smith and (outgoing) brenda burns & Gary Pierce all present and seemingly attentive to the testimony of over 30 Arizona citizens who gave reasons as to why wireless computerized meters should be a choice for the electric cus- tomer, not an edict passed down by a public utility looking to boost profits by eliminating 570 meter readers from its payrolls.
For a majority of those who spoke, comments subsumed direct objection to the recently released Arizona department of Health services report concluding Smart Meters are “not likely to harm the health of the public.” [See related article.] Conjuring contrary scientific study, the actions of other government bodies both domestic & foreign, and personal anecdotes of illness when exposed to the electro Magnetic Fields of multiple wireless devices (specifi- cally the frequencies pulsed by Smart Meters to transmit information about electricity usage), citizens plead to “not be punished” with APS’ initial proposal of charging $30 per month to manually read analog meters, plus an additional $75 “opt-out” fee.
The hearing began with a briefing from ADHS program manager Jennifer botsford on her department’s report, and though she admitted her study did not look at the cumulative effects of multiple EMFs in an individual environment and that field studies detected higher emissions from Smart Meters than existing power line carriers — especially among banks of meters installed at apartment complexes — she maintained those emissions are within fed- eral guidelines for exposure.
To counter, elizabeth Kelley of Arizonans for safer Wireless Infrastructure called into question the validity of the ADHS report, asserting it “deeply flawed” for not acknowledging published scientific evidence demonstrating biological changes & adverse health effects from wireless radiation at intensity levels below current Federal Communication Commis- sion safety thresholds. She further faulted the ADHS report for not taking into account the hundreds of formal complaints filed with the state, that while anecdotal, when taken as an aggregate, constitute regional data not referred to or investigated by the health department. Citing a propensity for negligence, Ms. Kelley disputed the commission’s protocol in setting criterion for ADHS’ study.
Next to the podium was visiting professor from Columbia University, dr. Martin blank, who specializes in the effects of electromagnetic radiation. His team studied the interaction of low frequency electromagnetic fields at both the cellular and molecular levels, deducing that power frequencies of 60 hertz (60 cycles per second) induce stress response proteins in cells (the protective biological mechanism that kicks in when the body is introduced to harmful en-
vironmental stimuli) by interacting with electrons within DNA. From his research, he concludes: “The ubiquity of EMR reactions with DNA and the low observed thresholds indicate the need for
greater caution and control over the spread of EMR in the environment.”
“How do you measure whether something is going to cause cancer?” he asked. “The advice
has been it is not anything different about the radiation, it’s just how much of it, it’s the mea- sure of the energy ... If it’s high, it’s bad for you. Generally speaking, that’s not a bad rule of thumb ... The big problem in assessing EMF and their biological effects, especially in connec- tion with exposure to smart meters, is the biological cause is the electromagnetic signal as well.”
Dr. Blank was questioned by Ms. Bitter Smith, who wished him to distinguish between RF and EMF. Dr. Blank schooled her, replying that these frequencies are in the same spectrum of energy, just arbitrarily coded by technicians in order to separate different types of broadcast (FM radio runs on one range cycle, while UHF runs on another, and radar runs on another — radio waves, tv waves and microwaves like those found within a microwave oven, or broadcast by a Smart Meter — are all EMFs).
Dr. Blank continued, giving detail of his discoveries. “The biological materials that are react- ing are acting like antennas. The DNA we have in each of our cells is made up of these two chains — the double helix — that twists around and is connected ...
“Now the way antennas work — do you remember the old antennas that came with the old tv sets? They had a big wire, and a big rod, and then a smaller rod. And the reason they had different size rods is they were matched to the wavelength of the signal being telecast, so you could pick up low wavelengths and higher, longer wavelengths. Similarly, the DNA has differ- ent lengths in it ... these are like effective antennas, and basically the DNA can react to all of these kinds of signals ... the DNA is like a fractal antenna.”
Dr. Blank then took direct aim at the ADHS findings: “In March of this year, the US Depart- ment of Interior, which you would think would not have much to say about this problem, issued a press release, and basically what they said, and I’m quoting now, ‘Standards used by the FCC continue to be based on thermal heating, a criterion now thirty years out of date and inap- plicable today.’
“In other words, people say it depends on how much energy is being pumped in, and the Department of Interior realizes the data doesn’t show that. And this is what we’re dealing with — a selective use of data.” Mr. Blank’s data, correlated with dr. rita Goodman, also of Columbia, asserts that EMF activates a cell’s biological stress signal long before a temperature change in
that cell can be registered.
“When our body gets in trouble, we start breathing faster, our heart starts pumping faster —
these are unconscious signals our body has developed for self protection. Cells have a similar set, they have what’s known as a cellular stress response,” explained Dr. Blank, contending that when cells are exposed to EMF, they generate stress proteins indicative of damage. “This is the informa- tion not included in assessing a standard for safety. In fact, this information has been missing.”
Dr. Blank found the standards issued by the FCC neglected the known biological effects first reported by dr. Henry lai of the University of Washington, whose research was systematically shut down by Motorola when he discovered damage in the brain cells of rats exposed to levels of radiation found in mobile phones and deemed safe by FCC standards. Warnings found in the fine print of contracts stating the distance mobile phones should be when in use came fol- lowing Dr. Lai’s published findings in 1995. Scientifically, explained Dr. Blank, he “showed that if you expose DNA to electromagnetic signals — radio frequency and extremely low frequency
— you get the DNA fragmenting bits of nucleus off, so you really break apart the nucleus, you do definite damage there.”
Dr. Blank further attested: “The current RF standard is based on the energy, which is erroneous, and leads to incorrect ideas. That’s not my opinion only, it’s the Department of the Interior who were worried about the safety of birds. I mean, we should be worried about the safety of humans!”
8 • january 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
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