Formal Complaint to the EU concerning EMFs, by Diana Kordas
Editor's note:
Below, you'll find an introductory email from Diana Kordas, and following this, her complaint to the European Union about the health issues posed by wireless technologies within Europe. There's a link to a downloadable version of this at the bottom of this post, for anybody who would like to make a similar complaint under their own name to the EU, or to any other organisation or individual.
My grateful thanks to Diana for allowing me to post her complaint here.
Hi,
My husband and I have just sent this letter to the EU to complain that wireless technologies are destroying nature and violate our basic rights. We sent it both as an email and as a registered letter. A copy was sent also to the Council of Europe, asking them to take this up on behalf of EU citizens. It may not do any good, but it will be interesting to see if the EU responds and what it says.
Obviously the EU does not want to hear from its citizens. I called the freephone number to check the address of the Commission, and the robotic young man on the other end of the line declined to tell me. He insisted that I had to use email. This is funny, because on previous occasions when I rang up to ask for specific email addresses (for Nicola Notaro, Xavier Prats-Monne) they wouldn't give those to me either. When I told the young man I insisted on writing a letter, he wanted to know what it was about before he would tell me the address. "A complaint," I said. "We have a complaint form," he said. "It's on email," I said. "A letter is a legal document." Then he told me he wouldn't tell me the address if I wouldn't tell him what my letter was about. At that point I reminded him that my taxes pay the salaries of the bureaucrats I wished to write to--and his own as well. He conceded with poor grace and gave me an address, which I wrote down. It was the wrong address. The right street, but the wrong number, and the wrong post code. Obviously he hoped that my letter would go astray. It won't. I found it on the internet. This is democracy, EU-style.
Speaking of democracy in the EU, I don't think there will be any report from the Eklipse web conference. It was promised for 10 days to 2 weeks from the end of the conference, but it hasn't appeared, and they will not answer my emails asking when it will be out. I think too many people asked for cell towers to be kept out of nature parks, the precautionary principle to be applied, and a moratorium on 5G. That wasn't the result they wanted, so either there will be no report, or it will come out at some future date when it is no longer newsworthy.
Democracy in the EU being dead in all but name, I doubt that writing to the EU Commission is going to change much. I hope I'm wrong about that.
Best wishes,
Diana
Formal Complaint to the European Union
To
the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Vytenis Andriukaitis
(Vytenis.Andriukaitis@ec.europa.eu)
To
the Director-General for the Directorate of Health and Food Safety,
Mr. Xavier Prats Monne (Xavier.Prats-Monne@ec.europa.eu)
To
the Director-General for the Directorate of the Environment, Mr.
Nicola Notaro (Nicola.Notaro@ec.europa.eu)
European
Commission, Rue de la Loi 130, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
Executive
Summary
Non-ionizing radiation from cell towers, antennas and other wireless infrastructure has been classified as a Group 2B potential carcinogen to humans by the WHO/IARC, ELF-EMF in 2002, and RF-EMF in 2011. In addition to its potential as a carcinogen, non-ionizing radiation has been shown to have numerous harmful effects on all carbon-based life forms. It harms both man and nature.
EU legislation promotes wireless technologies which harm both man and the environment. In doing so, it compels both human beings and nature to be subjected to a Group 2B carcinogen. This is a violation of the EU’s guarantees to personal liberty and a safe and healthy environment, as well as a violation of the Nuremberg Code. No other agent classified as Group 2B has ever been forced upon whole populations once it has been so classified by the WHO/IARC.
Wireless technologies must be stopped. Safe wired technologies that do not pose a danger to health and biodiversity must be promoted in their place. No one should be compelled to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen against his will.
Part I. Introduction
I am writing to formally complain that Articles 3, 6, 24, 35, 37 and 38 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000), as well as the Nuremberg Code (1947), are being violated by the European Union’s policies to promote wireless technologies within its member states, to the detriment of the environment and the health, well-being and freedom of European Union (EU) citizens.
The European Union’s promotion of wireless technologies contradicts its responsibilities to protect human health and the environment, as set out above. The policy areas of the Digital Single Market include common wireless broadband targets, plans to foster 5G wireless, and the WiFi4EU initiative. The Digital Agenda 2020 expands and elaborates on these policies. Wireless communications do not protect or preserve the quality of the environment, and they do not protect human health. Instead, they degrade and damage both.
The EU’s policies of allowing and promoting wireless technologies compel citizens to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen everywhere they go, in direct violation of their human rights to a safe environment. At the same time, all of nature is compelled to suffer the adverse effects of man-made non-ionizing radiation, leading to immense loss of biodiversity with consequent risks for all the benefits of a healthy environment, including food security.
Part II. Wireless Technology Harms the Environment
In theory, the EU provides very strong environmental protections with a strong precautionary approach, well recognized by the courts and elucidated in Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle.
(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52000DC0001).
In practice, the EU is failing to protect the environment from the effects of non-ionizing radiation. Scientific evidence shows both that great harm is already being done to the environment by radiation from wireless technology, and that permanent environmental damage will occur without immediate precautionary action, as required by Article 174 of EC Treaty.
The now invalid opinion of the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks/SCENIHR (validity is statutorily limited to one year of issuance by Directive 2001/95/EC, Article 13(2)) is widely cited by public health officers to justify inaction. However, the SCENIHR committees have never taken into account the damage that radiation from wireless technology does to the environment.
It is very clear that, despite Natura 2000, EU LIFE+ and other programs, the environment in the EU is suffering badly. Birdlife International is alarmed because one in eight bird species worldwide (including birds that were once common or numerous) is now threatened with extinction. The case is much worse in the EU, where 18% (nearly one in five) of bird species are now threatened, according to the latest International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, and published on the EU’s own website.
The IUCN report on Europe makes grim reading: freshwater species, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates are all in trouble. The report states, “Rates of biodiversity loss in the EU are worrying.”
“The State of Nature in the EU” report (2015), also published on the EU website is similarly grim. The conservation status of species other than birds is poor, with only 23% favorable, 17% unknown, and a whopping 60% unfavorable, of which 42% are unfavorable-inadequate and 18% are unfavorable-bad. Conservation status trends are not good either: only 4% favorable but improving, 20% stable, 14% unknown and 22% deteriorating. The effects of EMR are not taken into account in the report, but they should be, because radiofrequency radiation (RFR-EMF) from cell tower base stations, radio and TV antennae is also a form of pollution. Since the EU does not even keep cell towers and wireless infrastructure out of nature areas, it is hardly surprising that freshwater species, insects, amphibians and birds are faring badly—insects in particular have declined 65-70% over recent decades. This decline mirrors in reverse the rise of wireless technologies. The insect decline has become so obvious that stories like this are appearing in tabloid journals such as The Sun and The Daily Mail: “Where HAVE all the insects gone? Experts warn windscreens free of dead flies, gnats, moths and wasps signal an alarming decline in bugs”.
(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4827190/windscreens-free-insects-signal-alarming-decline-bugs.html)
The recent topic on Electromagnetic Radiation: Effects on Invertebrates, Vertebrates and Plants at the EU’s own EKLIPSE Mechanism, requested by the UK charity Buglife, reviewed 97 recent studies on the effects of EMR on wildlife, firmly establishing the principle that EMR has detrimental effects on plant, animal and insect life. The committee’s assessment was extremely conservative, ignored the results of many peer-reviewed, well-conducted and well-regarded studies, and covered only a small part of the large body of scientific literature available on the subject, but there can now be no question that EMR affects the environment. The findings of the EKLIPSE committee, limited as they are, provide ample evidence to trigger the precautionary principle with regard to the environment. It does not matter that knowledge gaps exist, or that we do not fully understand the mechanisms by which EMR damages living things. It is enough that dangerous effects from electromagnetic radiation have in fact been formally identified. The precautionary principle must be enacted at once to protect the natural world, or we will lose the biodiversity that makes this continent unique. In destroying the web of life around us, we destroy ourselves.
The need for precautionary action to protect the environment, as discussed in Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle and required by Article 191 of the Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2016:202:FULL&from=EN), states: “2. Union policy on the environment shall aim at a high level of protection taking into account the diversity of situations in the various regions of the Union. It shall be based on the precautionary principle and on the principles that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay.” If the alarming decline in biodiversity in the EU is not enough to trigger the precautionary principle with regard to wireless communications, one can only conclude that the EU is not truly committed to protecting the environment within its borders.
RF radiation as an environmental pollutant is finally beginning to get the recognition deserves. Not only was the topic requested by Buglife, UK, from the EU EKLIPSE Mechanism, but it has also been recognized as one of the global conservation challenges for 2018 (Sutherland, WJ et. al, “A 2018 Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biodiversity”) in a report prepared by scientists from many major nature NGOs.
The EU’s 2020 Biodiversity Strategy is to reverse the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems services in the EU by 2020. Specifically: 1) “By 2020, 50% more species assessed (i.e., 78% of bird species) under the Birds Directive show secure or improved status” and 2) “100% more habitats assessments and 50% more species assessments under the Habitats Directive show a favorable or improved conservation status.” It will be impossible to achieve these targets while simultaneously promoting the Digital Agenda 2020 and the WiFi4EU Initiative. Scientists have been warning that RF radiation harms nature for many years. It is, in fact, a pollutant, and it should be recognized as such. The EU should have taken action long before now.
In recognizing the harmful effects of RF radiation, the EU should also recognize that there may be no biologically safe limits with respect to the natural world. The United States and Europe employ ICNIRP-based standards, but other countries, such as Russia and India, employ much lower standards. Biodiversity loss does not appear to be significantly less in countries with lower radiation levels because the frequencies employed in wireless communications, and not the power levels, are the agents for biological effects in living organisms. Put simply, it is the frequencies themselves which are the poison. This is why it is urgent to, at the very least, remove all cell towers and wireless communications infrastructure from nature reserves and Natura 2000 areas.
The EU has made halting climate change a high priority, as noted in Article 191 of the Consolidated TEU/TEFU: “promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change”. Wireless technology is a very energy intensive technology, using over 10 times the energy of efficient wired networks (http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/rtucker/publications/files/energy-wired-wireless.pdf). It takes far more energy to send a communication signal through the air than it does to send it on a wire or through a fiber optic cable. Fiber optic is the most energy efficient and fastest communication technology. While data centers needed for cloud computing are certainly energy consumptive, a recent study showed 90% of the energy use was actually related to accessing those centers using wireless technology (http://www.ceet.unimelb.edu.au/publications/ceet-white-paper-wireless-cloud.pdf). The EU should halt all promotion of wireless technologies because they worsen climate change and damage the environment. The EU should only promote wired technologies because they are energy-efficient and do not harm wildlife.
Promoting a wireless digital agenda does not make economic sense, either. In the “State of Nature in the EU” report of 2016, the benefits from the Natura 2000 network alone are estimated at 200-300 billion euros per year. The alleged economic benefits of 5G, as stated in the EU document “5G for Europe: An Action Plan” are: “Worldwide 5G revenues should reach the equivalent of 225 billion euros in 2025. Another source indicates that the benefits of 5G introduction across four key industrial sectors may reach 114 billion euros per year.” In other words, the economic benefits of 5G are worth approximately one-half to one-third of the economic benefits of the Natura 2000 network, which may be sacrificed if wireless technologies continue to devastate nature. In any case, the value of nature to the EU cannot be summed up in purely monetary terms. To attempt to put a price tag on it is to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
To sum up, wireless technologies result in a serious loss of biodiversity, harm the environment, threaten food production, increase climate change and bring less than one half of the added value to the EU economy of the Natura 2000 networks alone. Yet the EU persists in an agenda that undermines its own biodiversity targets and threatens human health and well-bring.
Part III. Electromagnetic radiation from wireless infrastructure and devices compels exposure to a Group 2B carcinogen
The WHO/IARC has classified extremely low electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) and radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) as Group 2B, possibly carcinogenic to humans, the former in 2002 and the latter in 2011. Additional evidence of carcinogenicity is now available, including The United States National Toxicology Program reports finding that radiofrequency radiation at non-thermal levels breaks DNA and causes certain types of cancer. A new study from the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, which is due to be published this month, confirms the findings of the NTP study concerning the carcinogenicity of RF-EMF (see http://microwavenews.com/news-center/more-coincidence). Dr. Anthony Miller, a senior epidemiologist with IARC during the 2011 classification recently said in a conference presentation that radiofrequency radiation should be re-classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgGJeOVEdQs and https://smartgridawareness.org/2013/12/04/rf-fields-possibly-probably-or-definitely-carcinogenic/).
As Dr. Magda Havas explains in “When theory and observation collide: Can non-ionizing radiation cause cancer?” one of the main reasons why ELF-EMF and RF-EMF were initially classified as 2B and not 2A was that, at the time, scientists could not identify a biologically plausible mechanism to explain how these RF waves caused cancer. However, Havas says, “We now have a plausible mechanism to support a carcinogenic effect of NIR [Non-Ionizing Radiation]. This mechanism involves production of free radicals…"
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311002388_When_theory_and_observation_collide_Can_non-ionizing_radiation_cause_cancer).
Many leading scientists now say that the science clearly supports reclassification of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans) and possibly even reclassification as Group 1 (carcinogenic to humans). The EU must therefore take action to prevent or minimize environmental exposure to ELF-EMF and RF-EMF.
The SCENIHR assessment, adopted in January 2015 is over 3 years old and thus is invalid, as stated in Directive 2001/95/EC Article 13(2). Furthermore, there are serious questions about the objectivity of SCENIHR’s analysis.
ICNIRP and SCENIHR cannot be regarded as qualified unbiased expert bodies (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/bem.21949/full). Both entities have membership with substantial industry ties. Asking them about the safety of exposure to wireless radiation is akin to asking tobacco industry experts about the safety of exposure to cigarette smoke. To this day, tobacco companies still have not admitted it is a public health hazard. It took far too long, and many people died as a result of the delay, but we finally stopped listening to them. It is now time to stop listening to the wireless industry and industry-affiliated experts about the safety of wireless.
More importantly, governments have known that RF-EMF is hazardous to human health for decades. The US government recently declassified a document by the Naval Research Medical Institute which documents the biological effects on human health from 2,300 studies completed prior to 1971. (https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Naval-Madical-Research-Institute-2300-Studies-on-EMF-Health-Effects.pdf) Similar research had been conducted by the UK government as well as by other governments around the world. In 1996, the German government commissioned a report based on 878 Russian health studies on EMF. The results so horrified them that they buried the report
(https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/German-Report-on-878-Russian-EMF-Health-Studies.pdf). A number of early government reports on the harmful effects of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF are available at http://www.orsaa.org/research-papers.html and include reports to the US Defense Intelligence Agency and to NASA.
The fact is that governments have known that ELF-EMF and RF-EMF are harmful to biological systems for a long time. They knew this long before the first cell phone was ever placed on the market, so it is a mystery why this technology was ever licensed in the first place. RF-EMF has also been used in the development of weapons, notably crowd-control weapons used by the US and Israeli governments such as the Active Denial System, which was developed by the US Air Forces Research Laboratory and Raytheon. It employs the same millimeter-wave spectrum as 5G to heat the water in the skin and cause penetrating pain. The possibility that wireless infrastructure currently used for mobile communications could become a weapon to be used against EU populations at a future date is a terrifying prospect.
The 2015 SCENIHR opinion does admit that RF radiation has two effects on human beings. It finds that there is some evidence of DNA spindle disturbances and mitotic spindle disruption, and it finds evidence that RF exposure “may affect brain activities during wake and sleep.” Both are serious effects. Sleep deprivation is a common form of torture, and lack of sleep inhibits the production of melatonin, a natural anti-oxidant vital to protecting the body against disease. The WHO/IARC classifies shiftwork that involves circadian disruption as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. In finding that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields disrupt sleep, the SCENIHR committee elevates the risk of exposure to RF-EMF to Group 2A.
The SCENIHR committee’s now-outdated conclusion that ELF-EMF and RF-EMF between 0 Hz and 300 GHz is “safe” is nonsense. However much the SCENIHR committee denies that there are health effects from non-ionizing radiation, neither they, nor the EU itself, can deny the WHO/IARC classifications of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2B carcinogens.
It may be argued that a classification of Group 2B is not sufficiently serious to worry about. This is emphatically not so, The Group 2B classification includes such agents as gasoline engine exhaust, heavy residual oil fuels, lead, the potent insecticide parathion, and occupational exposures to dry-cleaning chemicals, bitumen, chemicals used in printing processes and the combustion of various poisonous substances encountered by firefighters. No one would consider imposing these agents on entire populations, nor is there any historical precedent for this. Would the EU mandate that we should all inhale gasoline engine exhaust twenty-four hours a day, or that we should all drink water from lead pipes, or compel everyone to eat vegetables sprayed with parathion? No. The Group 2B classification is a warning to avoid exposure where possible, and to limit exposure when avoidance is not possible. It is not an invitation to compel exposure to an agent designated as Group 2B, and there is not one single instance of any substance so designated being forced upon the population at large. Uniquely among the IARC’s list of Group 2B carcinogens, radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are not controlled, not discouraged, not limited, but ubiquitously promoted within the EU, at the expense of the EU taxpayer from whom all EU funds ultimately derive.
The EU’s policy of allowing and promoting wireless technologies across its member states, with programs like WiFi4EU, the Digital Agenda 2020 and the push for 5G, compels everyone, and all of nature, to be exposed to a 2B carcinogen everywhere they go, without the means or possibility of avoiding exposure even if they choose not to use wireless devices.
Part IV. 5G will make the situation much worse
The current situation is this: the countryside is full of cell towers, so a simple walk in the country results in exposure to radiofrequency radiation. Cell towers are often placed very close to people’s homes, yet those people have no right to object provided it is not on their own land or building. Towns and cities are irradiated not only by the cell towers, but also by Wi-Fi in parks, public squares, playgrounds, public buildings, libraries, offices, restaurants, cafes and shops.
There is Wi-Fi in most state and private schools. There is Wi-Fi on public buses, including school buses, Wi-Fi on ferries, Wi-Fi in airports, and, increasingly, Wi-Fi on airplanes. Most businesses and many homes have Wi-Fi. The WiFi4EU Initiative and Digital Agenda 2020 will ensure that even more dangerous radiofrequency radiation is unleashed on an unsuspecting and vulnerable public. Everywhere, one is surrounded by people using mobile devices and emitting harmful radiation. Thus, no one can choose not to be irradiated. There is no place to hide, either for people or the natural world.
5G will make this situation much worse. Small cells will be placed on lamp-posts all over towns and cities, very near to people’s houses, exposing the people in those houses to RF-EMF whether they want it or not. Since it has been found that the microwaves 5G employs go farther and penetrate further than expected (they can easily go through trees and windows) there will be no way to keep these microwaves out of one’s personal environment. In addition, the introduction of 5G does not mean that 2G, 3G and 4G systems will be abandoned. 2G, 3G and 4G systems will continue to operate, so people and nature will be irradiated by two or more frequencies of RF-EMF at the same time.
5G is the true Orwellian nightmare. At the moment, people can at least avoid using wireless devices and Wi-Fi in their homes. The invention of “smart” devices that connect with basic services such as water and electricity has only one endpoint: to compel the public to buy and use “smart” devices in their homes; these devices will communicate with “smart” meters, and service will be denied to those who refuse to comply. Thus not even one’s home will be free of RF-EMF, as one will have no choice in the matter. Everyone will be compelled to live with a 2B carcinogen all day, every day.
What will be true for a person’s home will also be true for his vehicle. New cars are all fitted with V2V communications, and the Wi-Fi is always on. It cannot be turned off or disabled. If it becomes compulsory to retro-fit older cars with V2V equipment to keep them on the roads, no one will be able to escape RF-EMF in his vehicle, either.
At the moment, no one is compelled to own or use a wireless device, but the imposition of “smart” meters and V2V equipment compels further exposure to a Group 2B carcinogen. If, in future (and this is already starting to happen in many places) it becomes compulsory to own a wireless device such as a smart phone in order to do such simple things as buy a ticket for public transport, buy time on a parking meter, access one’s bank account or pay for goods and services, then one will be compelled to carry a device that emits RF-EMF on or near the body in order to accomplish everyday tasks of life. Even Orwell couldn’t have imagined a technology so invasive or pervasive—and it is not even safe. 5G legislation will compel everyone to constant exposure to a 2B carcinogen at levels the WHO/IARC could not possibly have foreseen or imagined when it made its original assessment of RF-EMF as a Group 2B carcinogen.
Part V. Violation of fundamental rights and the Nuremberg Code
In its promotion of wireless technologies, the EU is violating fundamental rights. It is also violating the Nuremberg Code (https://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/nuremberg.pdf). The Nuremberg Code states that the voluntary consent of the human subject is “absolutely essential” and that he or she must be able to make “an understanding and enlightened decision”. The subject must be protected against “even the remote possibilities of injury, disability or death”. Also, “During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end, if he has reached the physical or mental state, where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible”.
Why does the EU’s promotion of wireless technologies violate the fundamental rights guaranteed under the EU Charter and the Nuremberg Code?
1. People can (at least for now) choose not to use a mobile device, but nobody, and no living creature, can choose not to be irradiated by cell towers, antennas and public Wi-Fi.
2. Wireless infrastructure and devices were never tested for biological effects, on man or nature before wireless systems were implemented and wireless devices were sold. From the moment the first cell tower was erected, man and nature have been subjected to a massive experiment to which they were not asked to consent, and from the effects of which there is no protection.
3. The placement of cell towers and wireless infrastructure on public lands and buildings compels everyone and every living creature to be exposed to RF-EMF. 5G will compel everyone to have RF-EMF in their homes and cars as well.
4. This experiment in human and environmental health has continued through four generations of wireless technology, 5G is already being implemented in some places, and there are plans for another technology called Li-Fi. Each succeeding generation of wireless technology, while using non-ionizing radiation, moves closer to the ionizing end of the spectrum. None of these frequencies have been tested for biological effects even though governments have known for decades that non-ionizing radiation is dangerous.
The EU is criminally negligent for ignoring all the evidence and expert testimony showing environmental and public health damage and for not implementing the precautionary principle as required under EU law. The EU is criminally liable for compelling EU citizens and nature to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen through its continued promotion of wireless technologies. The EU will be liable for mass crimes against humanity and nature if it continues to promote wireless technologies to the detriment of human health and the environment.
Furthermore, a reduction in radiation levels to “safer” standards is unacceptable for two reasons. The frequencies themselves, and not the power levels, are the agents for biological harm. Even at lower thresholds, people will still be subjected to non-ionizing radiation against their will and without their consent. Second, there may be no biologically safe standard for nature.
Let us review the articles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights that are being violated.
1. If I cannot avoid, and cannot go where I wish or need to go without fear of harm or effects from RF radiation, I am neither free nor secure. (Article 6)
2. If a pregnant woman cannot leave her home without exposing herself or her unborn child to RF radiation, and if a child cannot ride the school bus or go to school or the playground without being subjected to Wi-Fi, nor be in any public place without being exposed to RF radiation, the child’s right to care and protection are not being ensured. Nor are the child’s rights ensured when he or she is allowed to own and use wireless devices or is subjected to Wi-Fi at school or in the home. (Article 24)
3. If RF radiation from cell towers, Wi-Fi and mobile devices makes me sick, if I develop cancer or any other health problem as a result of constant and unavoidable exposure to RF radiation, where is the “high level of human health protection” that the EU promises me? (Article 35)
4. If the environment is full of man-made RF radiation, how is this an “improvement of the quality of the environment”, especially when all of nature is affected? How is the quality of anyone’s environment improved when birds, butterflies and bees disappear, when trees and plants die off, and aquatic life goes extinct? Food supplies will diminish, as will the number of edible crops, if pollinators such as bees, wasps and butterflies are driven extinct by man-made RF radiation, or if RF radiation affects crop yields. (Article 37)
5. When the EU actively promotes wireless technology, when it allows dangerous RF-emitting devices to be sold on the open market and then fails to make the manufacturers of such devices display clear warning labels on their products, how is the consumer being protected? When the EU and its member states enable telecoms providers to erect cell towers all over the countryside, on public land, including near people’s homes, or throughout cities where people live in close proximity to the base stations, booster and Wi-Fi masts, whose rights are being protected? Is it the right of the consumer or the right of the telecoms provider? Surely it is the latter, especially when the citizens have no right to demand that these health hazards be removed. If the right of telecoms companies to erect infrastructure which powers the devices they sell exceeds the right of citizens to refuse them, the consumer is not being protected. It is not enough to say that I have the right not to buy or use a wireless device if I do not also have the right to refuse the infrastructure that is integral to the operation of the device. The EU’s policies on wireless technologies, including the provisions of the Digital Single Market, the WiFi4EU Initiative, and the Digital Agenda 2020, place the interests of telecoms providers over the rights and health of EU citizens who will be paying for this infrastructure with their tax money. (Article 38)
Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of the European Union is essentially a restatement of the Nuremberg Code. Article 3 states that, in the case of a medical or biological experiment, the person(s) involved must give free and informed consent. Who was ever informed? Who was ever asked to consent? I was never publicly and officially informed, by the EU or by any country in which I have lived, of the potential dangers of wireless communications. There was never, at any point, a government-sponsored public debate on the advisability of allowing wireless communications. There was never a referendum, nor any opportunity to vote on this. No one was ever asked to sign a consent form. Had I been asked, I would not have given consent. But I was not asked, nor was anyone else.
Ownership and use of mobile phones and other mobile devices does not imply informed consent. The majority of the population remains ignorant of the deleterious effects of the radiation from base stations and Wi-Fi, about which neither any government body, nor the telecommunications industry, nor the mainstream media, informs them. The information is available only to those who make the effort to look it up; it is not, for all practical purposes, in the public arena. Furthermore, mobile devices are deliberately designed to be addictive through the use of a technique called “persuasive design”. The addicted consumer is hardly likely to seek information that his device may be harming him. (See “Ex-Google and Facebook employees launch a campaign to warn about the addictive dangers of the technologies they helped build” at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5352867/Campaign-launched-warn-dangers-technology.html)
Wireless technology is, in effect, a massive biological experiment. And it is an experiment. Something which has not been tried before, which is tried for the first time, is by definition an experiment. This is the first time that these frequencies have been used, outside of a laboratory, on a massive scale, without the effects on the human body or nature being pre-determined. By the time of 3G—around 2010—background radiation levels had reached one quintillion times (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times) the natural radiation levels of the earth. Now they are even higher. RF radiation from wireless technology affects all life. Wherever man-made radiofrequency radiation is present in the environment, it passes through and affects every carbon-based life form, including the human body.
Unlike a pharmaceutical drug, wireless communications were never tested for health or environmental effects before being released on the market—despite a plethora of early research showing harmful biological effects. If they were a medicine, they would never have been licensed, or they would have long ago been withdrawn. In pharmaceutical research and development, laboratory animals developing cancer is enough to stop development of a medicine, regardless of the millions of euros already invested. Any pharmaceutical company continuing the development and marketing of such a substance would face dire legal consequences. With wireless technologies, laboratory experiments such as the National Toxicology Program’s study have clearly shown that RF radiation causes cancer in animal models. However, rather than halt wireless deployment and further development, governments and technology companies try to argue that these laboratory results do not necessarily imply harm to human beings.
Where is the precautionary behavior here that governments insist on from the manufacturers of medicines? Actually, it can be argued that the issue of safety for wireless radiation is even more worrying than for a pharmaceutical; a pharmaceutical will be consumed by a small proportion of the public--those who are ill—while wireless radiation is consumed (or absorbed) 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by everyone!
Instead telecoms companies—service providers and manufacturers of wireless devices—have been allowed to conduct a decades-long series of experiments, using a series of ascending frequencies, without ever being asked to supply any evidence that their products do not harm human beings or the environment. They have been, and continue to be, allowed to continue this massive biological experiment in the face of ever-mounting evidence of harm. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Part VI. I do not consent
Let me make my position on this matter clear: I have never given consent for the biological experiment which is mobile technology to proceed. I do not consent, now, to the frequencies used for 2G, 3G, and 4G, 4G+ or 4.5G mobile communications. I do not consent to Wi-Fi, and I certainly do not consent to the WiFi4EU Initiative, the policies of the Digital Single Market, or the Digital Agenda 2020. I will not give my consent for the frequencies to be used for 5G mobile communications. I will not give my consent for Li-Fi, another type of wireless technology, which may be implemented in the future. I have never wished, and I do not wish now, to participate in these experiments.
Article 3 prohibits making “the human body and its parts a source of financial gain” as part of a medical or biological experiment. My body and its parts are being used as a source of financial gain for the entire mobile communications industry. I am irradiated; they profit. The telecoms industry is the fastest-growing and most profitable sector of the stock market, and their profits derive from a massive biological experiment using human bodies and the environment throughout Europe and all over the world as laboratory subjects. I do not consent to this either.
Nor do I consent to governments profiting from the irradiation of my body, which is what happens every time a government licenses bandwidths to mobile communications operators or leases public land for the erection of cell phone base stations and public buildings for Wi-Fi masts. Governments make billions of euros every year from leasing public land for these purposes, and even more from licensing bandwidths. Governments also are using my body to make money.
Under the Nuremberg Code, I have the right to bring this experiment to an end. In this document, I am exercising that right. I do not feel that it is possible for me to continue because the risk of harm to myself, to those I care about, and to nature is too great.
The European Union has been warned repeatedly about the dangers of radiofrequency radiation, particularly with reference to the telecommunications industry. There have been the Vienna Resolution (1999), the Salzburg Resolution (2000), the Freiburger Appeal (2002), the Bamburger Appeal (2002), the Catania Resolution (2002), the Lichtenfelser Appeal (2005), the Benevento Resolution (2006), the London Resolution (2007), the Venice Resolution (2008), the Porto Alegre Resolution (2009) , Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe (2011), the International EMF Scientists’ Appeal (2015) , the Madrid International Scientific Declaration (2017) , the Nicosia Declaration (2017) and the Reykjavik Appeal (2017). There has been an appeal from scientists calling for a moratorium on 5G in Europe (2017). There have been discussions in the European Parliament, and the EU parliament itself has said that radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation standards are obsolete and do not protect the public. Euro MPs have read the Bioinitiative Report. The WHO/IARC has classified ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2B. Now leading scientists are calling for the WHO/IARC classification of RF-EMF to be upgraded to Group 1, carcinogenic to humans. Yet still wireless technologies are expanding throughout Europe and are being actively promoted by the EU, while wireless infrastructures are paid for with taxpayers’ money. This must stop.
RF radiation from wireless communications—both the infrastructure and the devices—is not safe. Articles 3, 6, 24, 35, 37 and 38 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as well as the Nuremberg Code, are being violated. Since RF radiation was classified a Group 2B carcinogen in 2011, millions of new base stations have been erected and 4G, 4G+ and 4.5G have been introduced across the EU. Wi-Fi hotspots have multiplied exponentially. Now the EU, through its plans for the Digital Single Market, the WiFi4EU Initiative, and the Digital Agenda 2020 proposes to make RF radiation both ubiquitous and compulsory throughout the EU, using public money.
I demand that this massive biological experiment cease. I demand that all cell towers and public Wi-Fi infrastructure be taken down. I demand that wireless communications be discontinued in favor of safe wired communications. Modern fiber optics provide excellent, fast, affordable means of communication without endangering the health of EU citizens or our environment. I have a right to be protected. Everyone has that right. I demand that protection, for myself and for the millions of EU citizens, adults and children, whose informed consent was never sought or given. I demand that right for nature also, which was never given a voice in this matter.
Furthermore, I hereby notify and warn the EU that if it does not recognize its statutory obligation to protect the health of EU citizens and their environment, and if it continues to compel its citizens and their environment to be exposed to man-made RF radiation, it will be legally liable when mass casualties, mass extinctions and mass degradation of the environment occur as a result of its promotion of wireless technologies. To that end I intend to publish both this letter and the EU’s response to this letter.
Your answer to this letter should be sent to the email addresses listed below:
Signed,
EU Wireless Complaint (Word format)
https://app.box.com/s/bcz6hbucnxinlj3jjegugz2l7qze8jiu
EU legislation promotes wireless technologies which harm both man and the environment. In doing so, it compels both human beings and nature to be subjected to a Group 2B carcinogen. This is a violation of the EU’s guarantees to personal liberty and a safe and healthy environment, as well as a violation of the Nuremberg Code. No other agent classified as Group 2B has ever been forced upon whole populations once it has been so classified by the WHO/IARC.
Wireless technologies must be stopped. Safe wired technologies that do not pose a danger to health and biodiversity must be promoted in their place. No one should be compelled to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen against his will.
Part I. Introduction
I am writing to formally complain that Articles 3, 6, 24, 35, 37 and 38 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000), as well as the Nuremberg Code (1947), are being violated by the European Union’s policies to promote wireless technologies within its member states, to the detriment of the environment and the health, well-being and freedom of European Union (EU) citizens.
The European Union’s promotion of wireless technologies contradicts its responsibilities to protect human health and the environment, as set out above. The policy areas of the Digital Single Market include common wireless broadband targets, plans to foster 5G wireless, and the WiFi4EU initiative. The Digital Agenda 2020 expands and elaborates on these policies. Wireless communications do not protect or preserve the quality of the environment, and they do not protect human health. Instead, they degrade and damage both.
The EU’s policies of allowing and promoting wireless technologies compel citizens to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen everywhere they go, in direct violation of their human rights to a safe environment. At the same time, all of nature is compelled to suffer the adverse effects of man-made non-ionizing radiation, leading to immense loss of biodiversity with consequent risks for all the benefits of a healthy environment, including food security.
Part II. Wireless Technology Harms the Environment
In theory, the EU provides very strong environmental protections with a strong precautionary approach, well recognized by the courts and elucidated in Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle.
(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52000DC0001).
In practice, the EU is failing to protect the environment from the effects of non-ionizing radiation. Scientific evidence shows both that great harm is already being done to the environment by radiation from wireless technology, and that permanent environmental damage will occur without immediate precautionary action, as required by Article 174 of EC Treaty.
The now invalid opinion of the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks/SCENIHR (validity is statutorily limited to one year of issuance by Directive 2001/95/EC, Article 13(2)) is widely cited by public health officers to justify inaction. However, the SCENIHR committees have never taken into account the damage that radiation from wireless technology does to the environment.
It is very clear that, despite Natura 2000, EU LIFE+ and other programs, the environment in the EU is suffering badly. Birdlife International is alarmed because one in eight bird species worldwide (including birds that were once common or numerous) is now threatened with extinction. The case is much worse in the EU, where 18% (nearly one in five) of bird species are now threatened, according to the latest International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, and published on the EU’s own website.
The IUCN report on Europe makes grim reading: freshwater species, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates are all in trouble. The report states, “Rates of biodiversity loss in the EU are worrying.”
“The State of Nature in the EU” report (2015), also published on the EU website is similarly grim. The conservation status of species other than birds is poor, with only 23% favorable, 17% unknown, and a whopping 60% unfavorable, of which 42% are unfavorable-inadequate and 18% are unfavorable-bad. Conservation status trends are not good either: only 4% favorable but improving, 20% stable, 14% unknown and 22% deteriorating. The effects of EMR are not taken into account in the report, but they should be, because radiofrequency radiation (RFR-EMF) from cell tower base stations, radio and TV antennae is also a form of pollution. Since the EU does not even keep cell towers and wireless infrastructure out of nature areas, it is hardly surprising that freshwater species, insects, amphibians and birds are faring badly—insects in particular have declined 65-70% over recent decades. This decline mirrors in reverse the rise of wireless technologies. The insect decline has become so obvious that stories like this are appearing in tabloid journals such as The Sun and The Daily Mail: “Where HAVE all the insects gone? Experts warn windscreens free of dead flies, gnats, moths and wasps signal an alarming decline in bugs”.
(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4827190/windscreens-free-insects-signal-alarming-decline-bugs.html)
The recent topic on Electromagnetic Radiation: Effects on Invertebrates, Vertebrates and Plants at the EU’s own EKLIPSE Mechanism, requested by the UK charity Buglife, reviewed 97 recent studies on the effects of EMR on wildlife, firmly establishing the principle that EMR has detrimental effects on plant, animal and insect life. The committee’s assessment was extremely conservative, ignored the results of many peer-reviewed, well-conducted and well-regarded studies, and covered only a small part of the large body of scientific literature available on the subject, but there can now be no question that EMR affects the environment. The findings of the EKLIPSE committee, limited as they are, provide ample evidence to trigger the precautionary principle with regard to the environment. It does not matter that knowledge gaps exist, or that we do not fully understand the mechanisms by which EMR damages living things. It is enough that dangerous effects from electromagnetic radiation have in fact been formally identified. The precautionary principle must be enacted at once to protect the natural world, or we will lose the biodiversity that makes this continent unique. In destroying the web of life around us, we destroy ourselves.
The need for precautionary action to protect the environment, as discussed in Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle and required by Article 191 of the Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2016:202:FULL&from=EN), states: “2. Union policy on the environment shall aim at a high level of protection taking into account the diversity of situations in the various regions of the Union. It shall be based on the precautionary principle and on the principles that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay.” If the alarming decline in biodiversity in the EU is not enough to trigger the precautionary principle with regard to wireless communications, one can only conclude that the EU is not truly committed to protecting the environment within its borders.
RF radiation as an environmental pollutant is finally beginning to get the recognition deserves. Not only was the topic requested by Buglife, UK, from the EU EKLIPSE Mechanism, but it has also been recognized as one of the global conservation challenges for 2018 (Sutherland, WJ et. al, “A 2018 Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biodiversity”) in a report prepared by scientists from many major nature NGOs.
The EU’s 2020 Biodiversity Strategy is to reverse the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems services in the EU by 2020. Specifically: 1) “By 2020, 50% more species assessed (i.e., 78% of bird species) under the Birds Directive show secure or improved status” and 2) “100% more habitats assessments and 50% more species assessments under the Habitats Directive show a favorable or improved conservation status.” It will be impossible to achieve these targets while simultaneously promoting the Digital Agenda 2020 and the WiFi4EU Initiative. Scientists have been warning that RF radiation harms nature for many years. It is, in fact, a pollutant, and it should be recognized as such. The EU should have taken action long before now.
In recognizing the harmful effects of RF radiation, the EU should also recognize that there may be no biologically safe limits with respect to the natural world. The United States and Europe employ ICNIRP-based standards, but other countries, such as Russia and India, employ much lower standards. Biodiversity loss does not appear to be significantly less in countries with lower radiation levels because the frequencies employed in wireless communications, and not the power levels, are the agents for biological effects in living organisms. Put simply, it is the frequencies themselves which are the poison. This is why it is urgent to, at the very least, remove all cell towers and wireless communications infrastructure from nature reserves and Natura 2000 areas.
The EU has made halting climate change a high priority, as noted in Article 191 of the Consolidated TEU/TEFU: “promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change”. Wireless technology is a very energy intensive technology, using over 10 times the energy of efficient wired networks (http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/rtucker/publications/files/energy-wired-wireless.pdf). It takes far more energy to send a communication signal through the air than it does to send it on a wire or through a fiber optic cable. Fiber optic is the most energy efficient and fastest communication technology. While data centers needed for cloud computing are certainly energy consumptive, a recent study showed 90% of the energy use was actually related to accessing those centers using wireless technology (http://www.ceet.unimelb.edu.au/publications/ceet-white-paper-wireless-cloud.pdf). The EU should halt all promotion of wireless technologies because they worsen climate change and damage the environment. The EU should only promote wired technologies because they are energy-efficient and do not harm wildlife.
Promoting a wireless digital agenda does not make economic sense, either. In the “State of Nature in the EU” report of 2016, the benefits from the Natura 2000 network alone are estimated at 200-300 billion euros per year. The alleged economic benefits of 5G, as stated in the EU document “5G for Europe: An Action Plan” are: “Worldwide 5G revenues should reach the equivalent of 225 billion euros in 2025. Another source indicates that the benefits of 5G introduction across four key industrial sectors may reach 114 billion euros per year.” In other words, the economic benefits of 5G are worth approximately one-half to one-third of the economic benefits of the Natura 2000 network, which may be sacrificed if wireless technologies continue to devastate nature. In any case, the value of nature to the EU cannot be summed up in purely monetary terms. To attempt to put a price tag on it is to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
To sum up, wireless technologies result in a serious loss of biodiversity, harm the environment, threaten food production, increase climate change and bring less than one half of the added value to the EU economy of the Natura 2000 networks alone. Yet the EU persists in an agenda that undermines its own biodiversity targets and threatens human health and well-bring.
Part III. Electromagnetic radiation from wireless infrastructure and devices compels exposure to a Group 2B carcinogen
The WHO/IARC has classified extremely low electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) and radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) as Group 2B, possibly carcinogenic to humans, the former in 2002 and the latter in 2011. Additional evidence of carcinogenicity is now available, including The United States National Toxicology Program reports finding that radiofrequency radiation at non-thermal levels breaks DNA and causes certain types of cancer. A new study from the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, which is due to be published this month, confirms the findings of the NTP study concerning the carcinogenicity of RF-EMF (see http://microwavenews.com/news-center/more-coincidence). Dr. Anthony Miller, a senior epidemiologist with IARC during the 2011 classification recently said in a conference presentation that radiofrequency radiation should be re-classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgGJeOVEdQs and https://smartgridawareness.org/2013/12/04/rf-fields-possibly-probably-or-definitely-carcinogenic/).
As Dr. Magda Havas explains in “When theory and observation collide: Can non-ionizing radiation cause cancer?” one of the main reasons why ELF-EMF and RF-EMF were initially classified as 2B and not 2A was that, at the time, scientists could not identify a biologically plausible mechanism to explain how these RF waves caused cancer. However, Havas says, “We now have a plausible mechanism to support a carcinogenic effect of NIR [Non-Ionizing Radiation]. This mechanism involves production of free radicals…"
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311002388_When_theory_and_observation_collide_Can_non-ionizing_radiation_cause_cancer).
Many leading scientists now say that the science clearly supports reclassification of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans) and possibly even reclassification as Group 1 (carcinogenic to humans). The EU must therefore take action to prevent or minimize environmental exposure to ELF-EMF and RF-EMF.
The SCENIHR assessment, adopted in January 2015 is over 3 years old and thus is invalid, as stated in Directive 2001/95/EC Article 13(2). Furthermore, there are serious questions about the objectivity of SCENIHR’s analysis.
ICNIRP and SCENIHR cannot be regarded as qualified unbiased expert bodies (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/bem.21949/full). Both entities have membership with substantial industry ties. Asking them about the safety of exposure to wireless radiation is akin to asking tobacco industry experts about the safety of exposure to cigarette smoke. To this day, tobacco companies still have not admitted it is a public health hazard. It took far too long, and many people died as a result of the delay, but we finally stopped listening to them. It is now time to stop listening to the wireless industry and industry-affiliated experts about the safety of wireless.
More importantly, governments have known that RF-EMF is hazardous to human health for decades. The US government recently declassified a document by the Naval Research Medical Institute which documents the biological effects on human health from 2,300 studies completed prior to 1971. (https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Naval-Madical-Research-Institute-2300-Studies-on-EMF-Health-Effects.pdf) Similar research had been conducted by the UK government as well as by other governments around the world. In 1996, the German government commissioned a report based on 878 Russian health studies on EMF. The results so horrified them that they buried the report
(https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/German-Report-on-878-Russian-EMF-Health-Studies.pdf). A number of early government reports on the harmful effects of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF are available at http://www.orsaa.org/research-papers.html and include reports to the US Defense Intelligence Agency and to NASA.
The fact is that governments have known that ELF-EMF and RF-EMF are harmful to biological systems for a long time. They knew this long before the first cell phone was ever placed on the market, so it is a mystery why this technology was ever licensed in the first place. RF-EMF has also been used in the development of weapons, notably crowd-control weapons used by the US and Israeli governments such as the Active Denial System, which was developed by the US Air Forces Research Laboratory and Raytheon. It employs the same millimeter-wave spectrum as 5G to heat the water in the skin and cause penetrating pain. The possibility that wireless infrastructure currently used for mobile communications could become a weapon to be used against EU populations at a future date is a terrifying prospect.
The 2015 SCENIHR opinion does admit that RF radiation has two effects on human beings. It finds that there is some evidence of DNA spindle disturbances and mitotic spindle disruption, and it finds evidence that RF exposure “may affect brain activities during wake and sleep.” Both are serious effects. Sleep deprivation is a common form of torture, and lack of sleep inhibits the production of melatonin, a natural anti-oxidant vital to protecting the body against disease. The WHO/IARC classifies shiftwork that involves circadian disruption as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. In finding that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields disrupt sleep, the SCENIHR committee elevates the risk of exposure to RF-EMF to Group 2A.
The SCENIHR committee’s now-outdated conclusion that ELF-EMF and RF-EMF between 0 Hz and 300 GHz is “safe” is nonsense. However much the SCENIHR committee denies that there are health effects from non-ionizing radiation, neither they, nor the EU itself, can deny the WHO/IARC classifications of ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2B carcinogens.
It may be argued that a classification of Group 2B is not sufficiently serious to worry about. This is emphatically not so, The Group 2B classification includes such agents as gasoline engine exhaust, heavy residual oil fuels, lead, the potent insecticide parathion, and occupational exposures to dry-cleaning chemicals, bitumen, chemicals used in printing processes and the combustion of various poisonous substances encountered by firefighters. No one would consider imposing these agents on entire populations, nor is there any historical precedent for this. Would the EU mandate that we should all inhale gasoline engine exhaust twenty-four hours a day, or that we should all drink water from lead pipes, or compel everyone to eat vegetables sprayed with parathion? No. The Group 2B classification is a warning to avoid exposure where possible, and to limit exposure when avoidance is not possible. It is not an invitation to compel exposure to an agent designated as Group 2B, and there is not one single instance of any substance so designated being forced upon the population at large. Uniquely among the IARC’s list of Group 2B carcinogens, radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are not controlled, not discouraged, not limited, but ubiquitously promoted within the EU, at the expense of the EU taxpayer from whom all EU funds ultimately derive.
The EU’s policy of allowing and promoting wireless technologies across its member states, with programs like WiFi4EU, the Digital Agenda 2020 and the push for 5G, compels everyone, and all of nature, to be exposed to a 2B carcinogen everywhere they go, without the means or possibility of avoiding exposure even if they choose not to use wireless devices.
Part IV. 5G will make the situation much worse
The current situation is this: the countryside is full of cell towers, so a simple walk in the country results in exposure to radiofrequency radiation. Cell towers are often placed very close to people’s homes, yet those people have no right to object provided it is not on their own land or building. Towns and cities are irradiated not only by the cell towers, but also by Wi-Fi in parks, public squares, playgrounds, public buildings, libraries, offices, restaurants, cafes and shops.
There is Wi-Fi in most state and private schools. There is Wi-Fi on public buses, including school buses, Wi-Fi on ferries, Wi-Fi in airports, and, increasingly, Wi-Fi on airplanes. Most businesses and many homes have Wi-Fi. The WiFi4EU Initiative and Digital Agenda 2020 will ensure that even more dangerous radiofrequency radiation is unleashed on an unsuspecting and vulnerable public. Everywhere, one is surrounded by people using mobile devices and emitting harmful radiation. Thus, no one can choose not to be irradiated. There is no place to hide, either for people or the natural world.
5G will make this situation much worse. Small cells will be placed on lamp-posts all over towns and cities, very near to people’s houses, exposing the people in those houses to RF-EMF whether they want it or not. Since it has been found that the microwaves 5G employs go farther and penetrate further than expected (they can easily go through trees and windows) there will be no way to keep these microwaves out of one’s personal environment. In addition, the introduction of 5G does not mean that 2G, 3G and 4G systems will be abandoned. 2G, 3G and 4G systems will continue to operate, so people and nature will be irradiated by two or more frequencies of RF-EMF at the same time.
5G is the true Orwellian nightmare. At the moment, people can at least avoid using wireless devices and Wi-Fi in their homes. The invention of “smart” devices that connect with basic services such as water and electricity has only one endpoint: to compel the public to buy and use “smart” devices in their homes; these devices will communicate with “smart” meters, and service will be denied to those who refuse to comply. Thus not even one’s home will be free of RF-EMF, as one will have no choice in the matter. Everyone will be compelled to live with a 2B carcinogen all day, every day.
What will be true for a person’s home will also be true for his vehicle. New cars are all fitted with V2V communications, and the Wi-Fi is always on. It cannot be turned off or disabled. If it becomes compulsory to retro-fit older cars with V2V equipment to keep them on the roads, no one will be able to escape RF-EMF in his vehicle, either.
At the moment, no one is compelled to own or use a wireless device, but the imposition of “smart” meters and V2V equipment compels further exposure to a Group 2B carcinogen. If, in future (and this is already starting to happen in many places) it becomes compulsory to own a wireless device such as a smart phone in order to do such simple things as buy a ticket for public transport, buy time on a parking meter, access one’s bank account or pay for goods and services, then one will be compelled to carry a device that emits RF-EMF on or near the body in order to accomplish everyday tasks of life. Even Orwell couldn’t have imagined a technology so invasive or pervasive—and it is not even safe. 5G legislation will compel everyone to constant exposure to a 2B carcinogen at levels the WHO/IARC could not possibly have foreseen or imagined when it made its original assessment of RF-EMF as a Group 2B carcinogen.
Part V. Violation of fundamental rights and the Nuremberg Code
In its promotion of wireless technologies, the EU is violating fundamental rights. It is also violating the Nuremberg Code (https://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/nuremberg.pdf). The Nuremberg Code states that the voluntary consent of the human subject is “absolutely essential” and that he or she must be able to make “an understanding and enlightened decision”. The subject must be protected against “even the remote possibilities of injury, disability or death”. Also, “During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end, if he has reached the physical or mental state, where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible”.
Why does the EU’s promotion of wireless technologies violate the fundamental rights guaranteed under the EU Charter and the Nuremberg Code?
1. People can (at least for now) choose not to use a mobile device, but nobody, and no living creature, can choose not to be irradiated by cell towers, antennas and public Wi-Fi.
2. Wireless infrastructure and devices were never tested for biological effects, on man or nature before wireless systems were implemented and wireless devices were sold. From the moment the first cell tower was erected, man and nature have been subjected to a massive experiment to which they were not asked to consent, and from the effects of which there is no protection.
3. The placement of cell towers and wireless infrastructure on public lands and buildings compels everyone and every living creature to be exposed to RF-EMF. 5G will compel everyone to have RF-EMF in their homes and cars as well.
4. This experiment in human and environmental health has continued through four generations of wireless technology, 5G is already being implemented in some places, and there are plans for another technology called Li-Fi. Each succeeding generation of wireless technology, while using non-ionizing radiation, moves closer to the ionizing end of the spectrum. None of these frequencies have been tested for biological effects even though governments have known for decades that non-ionizing radiation is dangerous.
The EU is criminally negligent for ignoring all the evidence and expert testimony showing environmental and public health damage and for not implementing the precautionary principle as required under EU law. The EU is criminally liable for compelling EU citizens and nature to be exposed to a Group 2B carcinogen through its continued promotion of wireless technologies. The EU will be liable for mass crimes against humanity and nature if it continues to promote wireless technologies to the detriment of human health and the environment.
Furthermore, a reduction in radiation levels to “safer” standards is unacceptable for two reasons. The frequencies themselves, and not the power levels, are the agents for biological harm. Even at lower thresholds, people will still be subjected to non-ionizing radiation against their will and without their consent. Second, there may be no biologically safe standard for nature.
Let us review the articles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights that are being violated.
1. If I cannot avoid, and cannot go where I wish or need to go without fear of harm or effects from RF radiation, I am neither free nor secure. (Article 6)
2. If a pregnant woman cannot leave her home without exposing herself or her unborn child to RF radiation, and if a child cannot ride the school bus or go to school or the playground without being subjected to Wi-Fi, nor be in any public place without being exposed to RF radiation, the child’s right to care and protection are not being ensured. Nor are the child’s rights ensured when he or she is allowed to own and use wireless devices or is subjected to Wi-Fi at school or in the home. (Article 24)
3. If RF radiation from cell towers, Wi-Fi and mobile devices makes me sick, if I develop cancer or any other health problem as a result of constant and unavoidable exposure to RF radiation, where is the “high level of human health protection” that the EU promises me? (Article 35)
4. If the environment is full of man-made RF radiation, how is this an “improvement of the quality of the environment”, especially when all of nature is affected? How is the quality of anyone’s environment improved when birds, butterflies and bees disappear, when trees and plants die off, and aquatic life goes extinct? Food supplies will diminish, as will the number of edible crops, if pollinators such as bees, wasps and butterflies are driven extinct by man-made RF radiation, or if RF radiation affects crop yields. (Article 37)
5. When the EU actively promotes wireless technology, when it allows dangerous RF-emitting devices to be sold on the open market and then fails to make the manufacturers of such devices display clear warning labels on their products, how is the consumer being protected? When the EU and its member states enable telecoms providers to erect cell towers all over the countryside, on public land, including near people’s homes, or throughout cities where people live in close proximity to the base stations, booster and Wi-Fi masts, whose rights are being protected? Is it the right of the consumer or the right of the telecoms provider? Surely it is the latter, especially when the citizens have no right to demand that these health hazards be removed. If the right of telecoms companies to erect infrastructure which powers the devices they sell exceeds the right of citizens to refuse them, the consumer is not being protected. It is not enough to say that I have the right not to buy or use a wireless device if I do not also have the right to refuse the infrastructure that is integral to the operation of the device. The EU’s policies on wireless technologies, including the provisions of the Digital Single Market, the WiFi4EU Initiative, and the Digital Agenda 2020, place the interests of telecoms providers over the rights and health of EU citizens who will be paying for this infrastructure with their tax money. (Article 38)
Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of the European Union is essentially a restatement of the Nuremberg Code. Article 3 states that, in the case of a medical or biological experiment, the person(s) involved must give free and informed consent. Who was ever informed? Who was ever asked to consent? I was never publicly and officially informed, by the EU or by any country in which I have lived, of the potential dangers of wireless communications. There was never, at any point, a government-sponsored public debate on the advisability of allowing wireless communications. There was never a referendum, nor any opportunity to vote on this. No one was ever asked to sign a consent form. Had I been asked, I would not have given consent. But I was not asked, nor was anyone else.
Ownership and use of mobile phones and other mobile devices does not imply informed consent. The majority of the population remains ignorant of the deleterious effects of the radiation from base stations and Wi-Fi, about which neither any government body, nor the telecommunications industry, nor the mainstream media, informs them. The information is available only to those who make the effort to look it up; it is not, for all practical purposes, in the public arena. Furthermore, mobile devices are deliberately designed to be addictive through the use of a technique called “persuasive design”. The addicted consumer is hardly likely to seek information that his device may be harming him. (See “Ex-Google and Facebook employees launch a campaign to warn about the addictive dangers of the technologies they helped build” at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5352867/Campaign-launched-warn-dangers-technology.html)
Wireless technology is, in effect, a massive biological experiment. And it is an experiment. Something which has not been tried before, which is tried for the first time, is by definition an experiment. This is the first time that these frequencies have been used, outside of a laboratory, on a massive scale, without the effects on the human body or nature being pre-determined. By the time of 3G—around 2010—background radiation levels had reached one quintillion times (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times) the natural radiation levels of the earth. Now they are even higher. RF radiation from wireless technology affects all life. Wherever man-made radiofrequency radiation is present in the environment, it passes through and affects every carbon-based life form, including the human body.
Unlike a pharmaceutical drug, wireless communications were never tested for health or environmental effects before being released on the market—despite a plethora of early research showing harmful biological effects. If they were a medicine, they would never have been licensed, or they would have long ago been withdrawn. In pharmaceutical research and development, laboratory animals developing cancer is enough to stop development of a medicine, regardless of the millions of euros already invested. Any pharmaceutical company continuing the development and marketing of such a substance would face dire legal consequences. With wireless technologies, laboratory experiments such as the National Toxicology Program’s study have clearly shown that RF radiation causes cancer in animal models. However, rather than halt wireless deployment and further development, governments and technology companies try to argue that these laboratory results do not necessarily imply harm to human beings.
Where is the precautionary behavior here that governments insist on from the manufacturers of medicines? Actually, it can be argued that the issue of safety for wireless radiation is even more worrying than for a pharmaceutical; a pharmaceutical will be consumed by a small proportion of the public--those who are ill—while wireless radiation is consumed (or absorbed) 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by everyone!
Instead telecoms companies—service providers and manufacturers of wireless devices—have been allowed to conduct a decades-long series of experiments, using a series of ascending frequencies, without ever being asked to supply any evidence that their products do not harm human beings or the environment. They have been, and continue to be, allowed to continue this massive biological experiment in the face of ever-mounting evidence of harm. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Part VI. I do not consent
Let me make my position on this matter clear: I have never given consent for the biological experiment which is mobile technology to proceed. I do not consent, now, to the frequencies used for 2G, 3G, and 4G, 4G+ or 4.5G mobile communications. I do not consent to Wi-Fi, and I certainly do not consent to the WiFi4EU Initiative, the policies of the Digital Single Market, or the Digital Agenda 2020. I will not give my consent for the frequencies to be used for 5G mobile communications. I will not give my consent for Li-Fi, another type of wireless technology, which may be implemented in the future. I have never wished, and I do not wish now, to participate in these experiments.
Article 3 prohibits making “the human body and its parts a source of financial gain” as part of a medical or biological experiment. My body and its parts are being used as a source of financial gain for the entire mobile communications industry. I am irradiated; they profit. The telecoms industry is the fastest-growing and most profitable sector of the stock market, and their profits derive from a massive biological experiment using human bodies and the environment throughout Europe and all over the world as laboratory subjects. I do not consent to this either.
Nor do I consent to governments profiting from the irradiation of my body, which is what happens every time a government licenses bandwidths to mobile communications operators or leases public land for the erection of cell phone base stations and public buildings for Wi-Fi masts. Governments make billions of euros every year from leasing public land for these purposes, and even more from licensing bandwidths. Governments also are using my body to make money.
Under the Nuremberg Code, I have the right to bring this experiment to an end. In this document, I am exercising that right. I do not feel that it is possible for me to continue because the risk of harm to myself, to those I care about, and to nature is too great.
The European Union has been warned repeatedly about the dangers of radiofrequency radiation, particularly with reference to the telecommunications industry. There have been the Vienna Resolution (1999), the Salzburg Resolution (2000), the Freiburger Appeal (2002), the Bamburger Appeal (2002), the Catania Resolution (2002), the Lichtenfelser Appeal (2005), the Benevento Resolution (2006), the London Resolution (2007), the Venice Resolution (2008), the Porto Alegre Resolution (2009) , Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe (2011), the International EMF Scientists’ Appeal (2015) , the Madrid International Scientific Declaration (2017) , the Nicosia Declaration (2017) and the Reykjavik Appeal (2017). There has been an appeal from scientists calling for a moratorium on 5G in Europe (2017). There have been discussions in the European Parliament, and the EU parliament itself has said that radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation standards are obsolete and do not protect the public. Euro MPs have read the Bioinitiative Report. The WHO/IARC has classified ELF-EMF and RF-EMF as Group 2B. Now leading scientists are calling for the WHO/IARC classification of RF-EMF to be upgraded to Group 1, carcinogenic to humans. Yet still wireless technologies are expanding throughout Europe and are being actively promoted by the EU, while wireless infrastructures are paid for with taxpayers’ money. This must stop.
RF radiation from wireless communications—both the infrastructure and the devices—is not safe. Articles 3, 6, 24, 35, 37 and 38 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as well as the Nuremberg Code, are being violated. Since RF radiation was classified a Group 2B carcinogen in 2011, millions of new base stations have been erected and 4G, 4G+ and 4.5G have been introduced across the EU. Wi-Fi hotspots have multiplied exponentially. Now the EU, through its plans for the Digital Single Market, the WiFi4EU Initiative, and the Digital Agenda 2020 proposes to make RF radiation both ubiquitous and compulsory throughout the EU, using public money.
I demand that this massive biological experiment cease. I demand that all cell towers and public Wi-Fi infrastructure be taken down. I demand that wireless communications be discontinued in favor of safe wired communications. Modern fiber optics provide excellent, fast, affordable means of communication without endangering the health of EU citizens or our environment. I have a right to be protected. Everyone has that right. I demand that protection, for myself and for the millions of EU citizens, adults and children, whose informed consent was never sought or given. I demand that right for nature also, which was never given a voice in this matter.
Furthermore, I hereby notify and warn the EU that if it does not recognize its statutory obligation to protect the health of EU citizens and their environment, and if it continues to compel its citizens and their environment to be exposed to man-made RF radiation, it will be legally liable when mass casualties, mass extinctions and mass degradation of the environment occur as a result of its promotion of wireless technologies. To that end I intend to publish both this letter and the EU’s response to this letter.
Your answer to this letter should be sent to the email addresses listed below:
Signed,
EU Wireless Complaint (Word format)
https://app.box.com/s/bcz6hbucnxinlj3jjegugz2l7qze8jiu
Send this to your Legislatures, and record their Names . this is a Crime against Humanity , and the Criminals who allow this to Happen shall be punished , so help me GOD
ReplyDeleteWow! Complete, unerringly accurate, neither minimising or over-stating cataclysmic effects and the iniquity of the official lie.
ReplyDeleteMuch gratitude from me.
Just one question I have, and i wonder what Dianas', or anyone elses' answer would be. I struggle with one myself.
One main plank of the letter is that the Nuremberg cod is violated by allowing experiments on subject population without consent and enlightened knowledge etc. If someone were to employ the reductio ad absurdum at that point of asking :" Does this mean we should now shut down radio and tv transmission too ?" what could one say ?
Sylvan, if it quacks like a duck, and it swims like a duck, then it's probably a duck :-)
DeleteIn other words, if it's radiofrequency radiation (a Group 2B Carcinogen as things currently stand), and we know that this radiation is linked to scores of serious health effects (including - eventually - cancer), and none of us have given our explicit consent to being experimented on in such a fashion - even if we ourselves watch tv and listen to the radio - then surely an argument could be made...?