Health & Fitness

02/18/20

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder characterized by episodes of both depressed and elevated mood. It typically begins in the late teens to early 20s. During depressive episodes, people experience low mood, loss of self-confidence, hopelessness, and impaired sleep and appetite. Manic episodes are marked by an increase in energy, euphoric or irritable and rapidly changing mood, higher self-confidence, and decreased need for sleep. People may experience a mood episode every few years, or as frequently as several times a year.

Bipolar disorder can be treated with medications and psychotherapy. Certain chronotherapies — approaches designed to harness and normalize the body’s natural rhythms, such as light therapies — may help too, according to a recent systematic review of research.

Why might light therapies help?

Circadian rhythms, our natural 24-hour clocks, are disrupted in bipolar disorder. In addition, people with bipolar disorder seem to be more sensitive to light.

One way of treating bipolar disorder is to manipulate the circadian rhythm. This can be achieved with bright light therapy, dark therapy, sleep deprivation, and certain types of psychotherapy.

Bright light, dark light, and sleep deprivation

Bright light therapy. Animals and humans experience seasonal and daily rhythms of body function and behavior that are influenced by light, among other environmental factors. Light activates the retina in the eye, resulting in a stimulus being transmitted from the eye to the hypothalamus in the brain. The hypothalamus helps regulate mood. In bright light therapy, a light box using fluorescent bulbs that emit 7,000 to 10,000 lux of UV-filtered bright white light is placed on a table at about eye level. (There are also head-mounted units or light visors.) Depending on the light output, time required is between 30 minutes and two hours a day. It’s reasonable to consider this treatment to help prevent or treat episodes of depression. It may be especially useful if a person has trouble tolerating medications.
Dark therapy. Just as light therapy can improve mood, decreasing light can dampen manic symptoms. For treatment of mania, amber glasses that block blue light are worn in the evenings.
Sleep deprivation. Onset of antidepressant effects can be rapid and striking. In total sleep deprivation, one is kept awake for 36 hours, all night and the following day. In partial sleep deprivation, one sleeps only four to five hours at night. Unfortunately, improvement in mood is short-lived. Switches to mania have been reported, so it should only be used in combination with a mood stabilizer.
Though widely used, at this time there is little evidence to support the use of the supplement melatonin in bipolar disorder, according to the researchers.

Typically, light therapies are combined with other treatments for bipolar disorder, including those described below. Less often, they may be effective if used alone.

Additional approaches to changing circadian rhythms

Psychotherapy techniques can help people adjust dysregulated sleep patterns. Indeed, for typical insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy, not medication, is the treatment of choice. Therapy works by controlling or eliminating negative thoughts and actions that keep one awake.

Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy. This therapy is centered around the observation that a switch to depression or mania is often associated with a relationship difficulty that results in sleep deprivation. The therapist helps the patient work on regulating routine as well as the interpersonal problem.
Cognitive behavioral therapy. Originally designed to treat major depression, this therapy aims to mitigate stressful life events that interact with negative cognitive styles to precipitate mania and depression.

These treatments can be combined with each other and used with medications, such as mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs. This may allow a person to take a lower dose of an antipsychotic drug than would otherwise be needed to manage symptoms. There are no absolute contraindications to bright light or dark therapies. However, using bright light therapy in the evening may worsen insomnia, and dark therapy should not be used in depression. Sleep deprivation is only used during the depressive phase because it can provoke manic symptoms or worsen them.

The post Can light therapies help with bipolar disorder? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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Hidden Emails Reveal Pesticide Conspiracy

As explained by the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies, “neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides in the world.”¹ If you were to visit a conventional farm, you’d likely see evidence of their use in the form of brightly colored red corn seeds and blue soybean seeds, which are color-coded to denote treatment with neonicotinoids.

The majority of such seeds come pretreated with the chemicals to ward off insect pests, but in so doing they’re harming pollinators like bees at alarming rates.

To get an idea of just how widespread their usage is, a report published in Agricultural & Environmental Letters noted that in the U.S. neonicotinoids were used on “79% to 100% of corn acres” by 2011, but despite this, application of the pesticide still doubled between 2011 and 2014.²

“Because the increased use on corn cannot be explained by expanding treated acres, it must correspond to increasing per-seed application rates. Notably, this increase has come as concerns about nontarget effects and resistance have mounted,” the researchers noted.³

This statement is noteworthy, especially as it’s been revealed that “a sophisticated information war” kept neonicotinoids on the market despite scientists expressing grave concerns.⁴

An exposé by The Intercept, which obtained lobbying documents and emails, revealed an extensive playbook used by the pesticide industry to downplay the pesticides’ harms by influencing beekeepers, regulators and academia. Meanwhile, bees and other pollinators are still in decline and the pesticide industry has gotten richer:

“The global neonic market generated $4.42 billion in revenue in 2018, roughly doubling over the previous decade, according to new figures provided to The Intercept from Agranova, a research firm that tracks the industry.”

US Embraces Neonicotinoids as Other Countries Ban Them

Entomologists Dennis vanEngelsdorp, now a chief apiary inspector in Pennsylvania, and Jeffrey Pettis, a former USDA government scientist, were among the first to suggest a link between neonicotinoids and bee deaths.

They exposed bees to very small, sublethal doses of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, then exposed them to the gut parasite Nosema. The findings were clear that exposure to the pesticide, even at very low levels, increased the bees’ susceptibility to the parasite.

The researchers explained, “We clearly demonstrate an increase in pathogen growth within individual bees reared in colonies exposed to one of the most widely-used pesticides worldwide, imidacloprid, at below levels considered harmful to bees.”⁵

One of the observed effects in bees is a weakening of the bee's immune system.⁶ Forager bees may bring pesticide-laden pollen back to the hive, where it's consumed by all of the bees.

About six months later, their immune systems fail, and they end up contracting secondary infections from parasites, mites, viruses, fungi and bacteria. The chemicals have also been shown to trigger immunosuppression in the queen bee, possibly leading to an impaired ability to resist diseases.⁷

The European Union temporarily banned the use of neonicotinoids in 2013, and banned neonicotinoids for outdoor use for good in 2018 due to environmental concerns, specifically the chemicals’ impact on the bee population.⁸ The chemicals are still widely used in the U.S., however, and this is largely due to concerted efforts by the pesticide industry. The Intercept reported:⁹

“In the U.S., however, industry dug in, seeking not only to discredit the research but to cast pesticide companies as a solution to the problem. Lobbying documents and emails, many of which were obtained through open records requests, show a sophisticated effort over the last decade by the pesticide industry to obstruct any effort to restrict the use of neonicotinoids.

Bayer and Syngenta, the largest manufacturers of neonics, and Monsanto, one of the leading producers of seeds pretreated with neonics, cultivated ties with prominent academics, including vanEngelsdorp, and other scientists who had once called for a greater focus on the threat posed by pesticides.”

Entomologist Exposing Neonicotinoids’ Risks Changed His Tune

Initially, vanEngelsdorp made numerous media appearances suggesting that pesticides were among the likely culprits in bee deaths, but then did an about-face, in which he started to downplay their role or brush them off as a risk entirely.

“In the following years, vanEngelsdorp used his voice to dismiss concerns with neonics in the media. His shift in rhetoric coincided with a push by the pesticide industry, in response to rising calls for pesticide restrictions to stem bee losses, began a push to rebrand itself as bee-friendly,” according to The Intercept.¹⁰

He joined Monsanto’s Honey Bee Advisory Council around that time, and received at least $700,000 in funding from Project Apis m., a Bayer-funded foundation, for his nonprofit, the Bee Informed Project. In 2013, vanEngelsdorp also went on to edit a study used by Syngenta to claim no link between neonicotinoids and poor bee health.¹¹

A group of entomologists later called out the study, saying it had “a number of major deficiencies regarding the study design, the protocol and the evaluation of results,”¹² as did a group of scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who wrote:¹³

“Conclusions derived from inspection of the data were not just misleading in this case but are unacceptable in principle, for if data are inadequate for a formal analysis (or only good enough to provide estimates with wide confidence intervals) then they are bound to be inadequate as a basis for reaching any sound conclusions.

Given that the data in this case are largely uninformative with respect to the treatment effect, any conclusions reached from such informal approaches can do little more than reflect the prior beliefs of those involved.”

The Intercept revealed a number of other questionable actions by vanEngelsdorp over the years, including:¹⁴

Lending his name to advocacy efforts on behalf of the pesticide industry
Engaging with executives of Bayer’s Bee Care Center to suggest ways to minimize annual hive loss calculations when speaking to reporters
Avoiding the mention of pesticides as a factor in bee deaths in a mini-documentary series called “Fight to Save the Mighty Honeybee”
Citing Varroa mites, not pesticides, as a driver of bee deaths, in part to attempt to defeat legislation to ban neonic-based products for consumers in the state of Maryland

Industry Tries to Use Varroa Mites as a Scapegoat

Varroa mites are indeed dangerous to bees, feeding off their fat and blood and potentially transmitting a virus called deformed wing virus.¹⁵ The mites can be deadly and have been implicated in colony collapses, but there’s also a connection between the mites and neonicotinoids.

Bees rid themselves of Varroa mites by regular grooming, but research suggests exposure to neonicotinoids at low doses leads to drops in self-grooming behavior in bees, leaving them more susceptible to disease from the mites.¹⁶ It’s also possible that bees become more susceptible to the mites due to neonicotinoids’ adverse effects on immunity. According to The Intercept:¹⁷

“The greatest public relations coup has been the push to reframe the debate around bee decline to focus only on the threat of Varroa mites, a parasite native to Asia that began spreading to the U.S. in the 1980s. The mite is known to rapidly infest bee hives and carry a range of infectious diseases.

CropLife America, among other groups backed by pesticide companies, has financed research and advocacy around the mite — an effort designed to muddy the conversation around pesticide use. Meanwhile, research suggests the issues are interrelated; neonics make bees far more susceptible to mite infestations and attendant diseases.”

This is yet another area of controversy surrounding vanEngelsdorp, who gave a presentation in 2016 at a summit for corporate representatives and researchers involved in the bee crisis. His presentation suggested Varro mites, not pesticides, were to blame for colony losses.

“I was shocked,” Luke Goembel, an official with the Central Maryland Beekeepers Association, told The Intercept, “because the journals are full of research that describes many avenues by which pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, almost certainly lead to hive losses.”¹⁸

Former Government Scientist Demoted After Speaking the Truth

Pettis, the former USDA scientist who worked with vanEngelsdorp, is now president at Apimondia, a beekeeper conference. He also experienced industry pressure to speak only about Varroa mites. His career was suddenly derailed after he presented testimony about neonicotinoids before the House Agriculture Committee in 2014, and didn’t stick to “the script.” As reported by The Washington Post in 2016:¹⁹

"Pettis had developed what he describes as a 'significant' line of research showing that neonics compromise bee immunity. But in his opening remarks before Congress, he focused on the threat posed by the varroa mite, often put forward by chemical company representatives as the main culprit behind bee deaths.

Only under questioning by subcommittee Chairman Austin Scott (R-Ga.) did Pettis shift. Even if varroa were eliminated tomorrow, he told Scott, 'we'd still have a problem.' Neonics raise pesticide concerns for bees 'to a new level,' he said. About two months later, Pettis was demoted, losing all management responsibilities …

Pettis said, the USDA's congressional liaison told him that the Agriculture Committee wanted him to restrict his testimony to the varroa mite. 'In my naivete,' he said, 'I thought there were going to be other people addressing different parts of the pie. I felt used by the whole process, used by Congress.'

The hearing was 'heavily weighted toward industry,' he said, 'and they tried to use me as a scientist, as a way of saying, 'See, it's the varroa mite,' when that's not how I see it.' … He said he walked up to Scott afterward, to make small talk, and the congressman 'said something about how I hadn't 'followed the script.'"

USDA Whistleblower Rebuked for Neonicotinoid Research

USDA whistleblower Jonathan Lundgren, Ph.D., is another scientist who faced retaliation when he started talking about his research, which showed neonicotinoids cause decline in bee and Monarch butterfly populations.²⁰

After publicly discussing his findings, Lundgren claimed that he faced suspensions at work and an investigation of misconduct that he believes was industry motivated. “I guess I started asking the wrong questions, pursuing risk assessments of neonicotinoids on a lot of different field crop seeds used throughout the U.S. and how they were affecting nontarget species like pollinators,” Lundgren told The Intercept.²¹

Lundgren went on to run Blue Dasher Farm in South Dakota, which is looking for natural pest control methods and crop rotation for agriculture. He believes most research is now industry influenced, noting, “Universities have become dependent on extramural funds, entire programs are bankrolled by these pesticide companies, chemical companies.”²²

Neonicotinoids Persist in the Environment

Researchers screened oilseed crops in the EU for neonicotinoids during the five-year moratorium. They found neonicotinoids in all the years it was banned in bee-attractive crops, with residue levels depending on soil type and increasing with rainfall. They concluded that this poses a “considerable risk for nectar foraging bees” and supports “the recent extension of the moratorium to a permanent ban in all outdoor crops.”²³

There are other concerns as well, like the fact that planting neonicotinoid seeds kills off insects that prey on slugs — prominent corn and soybean pests — thereby reducing crop yields.²⁴

An investigation by the U.S. EPA even found that treating soybean seeds with neonicotinoids provides no significant financial or agricultural benefits for farmers.²⁵ As research has demonstrated, regenerative farming improves biodiversity of the soil, does not harm the environment and increases farmers' net profits.

You can get involved by actively seeking out and supporting organic, regenerative farmers, who have decided that avoiding chemical-treated seeds and excessive chemical spraying is essential to nurturing soil health, protecting the environment and growing nutritious food. You can also consider converting part of your own yard into an edible, bee-friendly landscape using organic and regenerative methods.

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Super Bowl Control: You're Not Paranoid. They're Watching

Google is undoubtedly one of the largest, most powerful businesses in the world. The company achieved this by focusing on more than one market — such as search and advertising — to make their product appear indispensable. In 2017 the company¹ garnered 90% of the search market based on the user data they control.

Years of planning, researching and data mining went into the development of this company, now worth three-quarters of a trillion dollars, according to CBS News. Nothing was by accident.

The search engine was originally conceived of and built by two Stanford University students working in their college dorm.² A Sun-Microsystems co-founder was the first angel investor, whose 1998 check helped the pair raise $1 million, including an investment from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com.

In 22 short years the company went from having a general understanding of your needs to knowing and nearly predicting your next thought. In fact, as much as a decade ago,³ Eric Schmidt, Google CEO from 2001 to 2015, said in an interview at the Washington Ideas Forum:⁴

"With your permission you give us more information about who some of your friends are. We can probably use some of that information again with your permission to improve the quality of your searches … So one of the things that eventually happens in that preceded lot of reasoning is that we don't need you to type at all because we know where you are … we know where you've been … we can more or less guess what you're thinking about."

The technology behind Google’s ability that Schmidt talked about in 2010 has only continued to grow, aided by scientists at DeepMind.⁵ This artificial intelligence startup was acquired by Google in 2014⁶ and has the knowledge and power to sort through data and detect patterns.

Patterns + Data = Persuasion, Conditioning and Manipulation

Each decision in this massive machine-learning company is made with the goal of growth, acquisition and power. Behavioral persuasion comes in many forms, but Google has perfected the art of understanding your focus and serving ideas that meet their needs. Under the guise of providing more accurate search results, they track multiple data points, including your search history.⁷

Jeffrey Pfeffer from Stanford University's graduate school of business talked about power and influence at a NextGen CMO Academy, saying that the idea that “ … you’re going to resolve everything just on the basis of data is a myth — everybody has different data and a different perspective about that data."⁸ However, as Amy Bucher, Ph.D., writes, persuasion may not be required to change your behavior:⁹

"It’s not about making someone share your rationales and motivators. It’s about understanding theirs and helping them to see the desired behavior as a mechanism to get there. So next time you want to work on changing someone’s behavior, start by asking them what they really care about, and then draw a connection for them."

Google has become an expert at understanding what you care about and then drawing a connection through your search results that persuades you to make decisions in which they may have a financial interest.

Be Wary of Heartstring Tugs in Advertisements

Google leveraged its understanding of Americans’ preferences and proclivities by specific, targeted advertising during this year’s Super Bowl. Just like horses and puppies make for great Budweiser commercials but have nothing to do with beer, the stories and imagery embedded in Google Super Bowl commercials were designed to pull at your heartstrings as they sell you on their corporate brand.

Take Alzheimer’s disease, for instance. The problem is real. You may know someone whose family member struggles with this, or you may fear this gut-wrenching disease that steals your memories might strike you. Wouldn’t it be helpful to be reminded of your past and the things you hold inherently true — those things that make you, well, you?

One short and wildly expensive ad that played during the Super Bowl promises you that Google can do just that. Sports Illustrated reported that the cost of ads during the Super Bowl jumped from $1.2 million (adjusted for inflation) in 1985 to an astounding $5.6 million for 30 seconds in January 2020.¹⁰

You can bet no company, no matter how deep their pockets, is spending $186,666 per second on an ad without a return on their investment. The return Google is counting on is your loyalty and their subsequent ability to use surveillance data to build responses to your searches and influence your opinion.

I wrote about Google’s behind-the-scenes control in, “Google — A Dictator Unlike Anything the World Has Ever Known.” The article includes an interview I did with Robert Epstein, a Harvard-educated psychologist, who exposed how the manipulation is being done, the techniques that haven’t been available before AI development and how those techniques don’t leave a paper trail.

Two Ads Designed to Entice You to Hand Over Your Private Data

Along another heartstring-tugging line, Facebook released its first-ever Super Bowl ad,¹¹ a 60-second blitz that zeroed in on the “rock” hard strength and power of muscles, people and fun (think: comedian Chris Rock), all rolled up into the various ways you can utilize Facebook groups. On MSN, Business Insider speculated¹² that Facebook spent more than $10 million on this ad, based on the fact that a 30-second commercial cost around $5.6 million.

And for what? In a feel-good last image, even “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone is there to “rock” you into wanting to join a Facebook group. So, what does Facebook — which charges you nothing to join — get back once you climb onboard and join lots of groups? The answer is: They get YOU — you and all the data on yourself, your work, your friends and your family that you willingly share when you join groups and post your photos and written comments, on their site.

Using that data, Facebook even has the ability to access your computer or smartphone's microphone without your knowledge. And with all that information they can design ads targeted specifically at you, in real time. No wonder Facebook is willing to spend more than $10 million to lure you in!

Not to be undone, Amazon’s Super Bowl ad starring Ellen DeGeneres quickly became the bowl’s most-watched on YouTube.¹³ For a full minute-and-a-half, Amazon extolled its voice-activated Alexa, which you can use for everything from ordering products sold on Amazon to using it to run your “smart” home.

And what did Amazon get in return? As revealed by The Washington Post,¹⁴ “When Alexa runs your home, Amazon tracks you in more ways than you want.” As the Post found out, the spying includes more than just what movie you ordered last week: From snippets of “spaghetti-timer requests” to sensitive family conversations and more, Alexa keeps records on everything it hears. Put plainly, Alexa is a bugging device you invite to spy on you.

5G Isn’t a Hero to Your Health

Another short, $11.2 million Super Bowl ad also tapped into those things you hold dear, drawing a connection between 5G and the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect you and me.

Although the video portrays 5G as being helpful to first responders, it actually is a threat to public health, surpassing the level of low frequency microwave radiation that 4G emits. The “G” stands for generation of mobile network technology. 5G is the fifth generation, and LTE is part of the fourth generation.¹⁵ The mobile networks are promising that 5G offers greater speed than its predecessors.

The improved speed and reduced latency offered by 5G are quite alluring: CNN reports that while 4G made apps for Lyft and Uber possible, with 5G a rideshare may not require a human driver.¹⁶

But, is this worth the health problems that come with it? Unfortunately, you may not get to choose.¹⁷ The current 4G network relies on large masts placed several miles apart, but 5G masts will be on streetlights and the sides of buildings very close to one another.

Persistent proximity to electromagnetic fields (EMF) like those found from your cell phones, Wi-Fi and 4G towers can trigger mitochondrial dysfunction and nuclear DNA damage. As I talk about in "A Film About the Impending 5G Apocalypse" the exposure has been linked to chronic disease, depression, Alzheimer's and infertility.

In the article you’ll also find an explanation of how the damage happens at the cellular level. It’s not pretty. Unfortunately, you may not even know of the damage being done until it's too late. And, since exposure is so ubiquitous it is difficult to link exposure to your health.

Is It Real or Is It Google?

Just after Trump became president the media began carrying stories of "fake news." Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies began collecting documents that were so explosive he knew Google would remove them when word got out. In his private investigation into what was real and what was fake, he discovered other disturbing projects.

One of these was a program Google calls Machine Learning Fairness. Vorhies explained the program is a relatively new, small part of artificial intelligence (AI) designed to simulate the brain, which could be used to play a programmed game of chess. Vorhies found it can also classify content and then rank it.

AI decides, based on input from Google, if the content is "fair" or "not fair." Fair content rises to the top of the search results, while not fair sinks out of sight. Ultimately, this results in a twisted view of your world.

As I recount in "Why the World Needs a Google Detox," in mid-2019 Vorhies resigned from Google and was attacked through the legal system in an attempt to destroy him financially. In response, he went completely public with his documented information.

As you consider how Google manipulates data and helps you draw conclusions based on their knowledge of your beliefs, it’s much easier to see how their multimillion-dollar Super Bowl advertisement is subtly altering your perception of their intentions.

Google Instills Brand Loyalty Raising the Next Generation

Changing long-term behavior is much easier when you start with children; this is why Google’s influence over them has long been a concern. In mid-2014 a journalist from the International Business Times wrote an article titled, “How Google Took Over the American Classroom and Is Creating a Gmail Generation,” in which he wrote:¹⁸

“Google apps, services and increasingly, Chromebooks, have become ubiquitous in the American classroom and it's not hard to understand why: they require no expensive hardware, they never need to be updated, and they’re free, an important consideration for cash-strapped districts ...

South Carolina’s Richland School District 2 boasts 22,000 Chromebooks, which covers a student populace nearing 27,000, who also use Google Apps. That makes for a sizeable student population that will become accustomed to utilizing Google services.”

In the past five years the number of students using Google Chromebooks has grown, as has the database of information Google has mined from them. For comparison, in 2012 Chromebooks accounted for less than 1% of shipments to the educational market but by 2017 this number had risen to 60%.¹⁹ In May of 2017 The New York Times succinctly described the long-term plan:²⁰

“Schools may be giving Google more than they are getting: generations of future customers. Google makes $30 per device by selling management services for the millions of Chromebooks that ship to schools. But by habituating students to its offerings at a young age, Google obtains something much more valuable.

Every year, several million American students graduate from high school. And not only does Google make it easy for those who have school Google accounts to upload their trove of school Gmail, Docs and other files to regular Google consumer accounts — but schools encourage them to do so.”

Take Steps to Protect Your Privacy

The bottom line is, you need to ask yourself what is it you want. Knowledge? Digital speed? Or privacy? Just remember, if you give up your privacy in the interest of convenience, Google, Facebook, Amazon and mobile networks will learn and then draw a line connecting what you want to what they have to offer.

They have spent decades learning how to discern your movements, track them and use the data for their own good. You’ll find what they are raking in, how they’re using it and simple steps you can use to protect your privacy in “Google — One of the Largest Monopolies in the World.”

Also, consider how you might protect your health from EMF exposure generated through your phones, Wi-Fi, clocks and microwave ovens. In “A Practical Guide to EMF Mitigation” I discuss what it is, how it harms your health and some simple steps you can take to protect yourself and your family.

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Hazards in Your Cellphone

In 2017, Wendy Mesley with Canada's CBC News conducted an investigation into a little-known fact about cellphones. Inside the manual is a warning, one that could drastically change the use of cellphones as you know it — if only it were taken seriously.

In short, the warning states to keep the phone a certain distance away from your body — usually 5 to 15 millimeters (mm), or two-tenths to six-tenths of an inch — to limit exposure to radiofrequency (RF) exposure to under the federal safety limit.

In the video Mesley asks random cellphone users to try to find the warning hidden in their phone, and none are successful. She pulls it up on her iPhone, reading:

"To reduce exposure to RF energy, use a hands-free option, such as speakerphone … Carry iPhone at least 5 millimeters away from your body to ensure exposure levels remain at or below the as tested levels."

If you carry your phone in your pocket or your bra, or hold it against your ear when you talk, you're violating this warning with unknown health consequences.

Berkeley's 'Right to Know' Ordinance

Perhaps the only place in the U.S. where the hidden cellphone warning is not so hidden is Berkeley, California, which Mesley visits.

In 2015, the Berkeley City Council passed the ordinance, which requires retailers to either post or provide flyers with a safety message warning consumers that those who carry cellphones next to their bodies could be exceeding the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) safe exposure guidelines.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) sued the city of Berkeley, calling on former Big Tobacco attorneys to stop the ordinance, but it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in December 2019.¹ Ellie Marks, executive director of the California Brain Tumor Association, told The Daily Californian:²

"I started working on this cell phone 'Right to Know' with the Berkeley City Council in 2009 — it's been a 10-year journey. I'm thrilled that we had a victory. I think people should have access to this information so that they can make an informed decision (on) how they and their children can use (cell phones)."

Marks also noted that the warning being posted in Berkeley is the same one the FCC already asks cellphone companies to provide to its customers, but this certainly makes it appear as though the manufacturers have hidden the warning on purpose so consumers cannot easily find it.

Testing Highlights Outdated One-Size-Fits-All Model

Download Interview Transcript

In the film, Mesley brings three newly purchased cellphones to RF Exposure Lab in San Marcos, California, one of several labs across the U.S. that conducts specific absorption rate (SAR) testing for cellphones. SAR is a measure of how much RF energy your body will absorb from the device when held at a specific distance from your body.

One concerning aspect of the test is revealed right off the bat: The simulated head is based off Army measurements of an average-sized human head, and as Mesley states, it appears quite large. The anthropomorphic mannequin (SAM) used to measure SAR is modeled after attributes of the heads of the top 10% of military recruits in 1989 — in other words, a 6-foot, 2-inch-tall, 220-pound male, which is larger than most of the U.S. population.

The head certainly doesn't represent the exposure levels that would be received by a child with a much smaller head, and greater susceptibility to radiation harms, suggesting the testing is outdated. According to Om P. Gandhi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah:

"RF exposure to a head smaller than SAM will absorb a relatively higher SAR. The SAR for a 10-year-old is up to 153 percent higher than the SAR for the SAM model. When electrical properties are considered, a child's head's absorption can be over two times greater, and absorption of the skull's bone marrow can be 10 times greater than adults."³

Mesley then visits Devra Davis, Ph.D., founder and president of the Environmental Health Trust, who has warned for years not only about the risks of cellphones in general but, in particular, about the risks to pregnant women and their unborn children, noting that prenatal animal studies have shown exposure to radiation from cell phones:

Altered DNA
Altered brain metabolism
Compromised spinal cords
Affected learning abilities

Children's brains contain more liquid than adults', which impacts the amount of radiation absorbed, with children absorbing far more. Among teens who use cell phones from a young age, the risk of brain cancer is about four to five times higher than that of teens who didn't use cellphones.⁴

Cellphone Study Finds Tumors, DNA Damage

Davis mentions two government-funded studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an interagency research program currently under the umbrella of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.⁵ The $25-million research found male rats were more likely to develop tumors in their heart known as malignant schwannomas.⁶

In making their conclusions, NTP uses the labels "clear evidence," "some evidence," "equivocal evidence" and "no evidence." They found "clear evidence" that exposure to cellphone radiation led to heart tumors in the male rates, along with "some evidence" that it caused brain and adrenal gland tumors in the rats.⁷

The studies also found evidence of DNA damage and damage to heart tissue in exposed male and female rats, but not mice, as well as prostate, liver and pancreatic tumors in both rats and mice.⁸ In October 2019, NTP published a follow-up evaluating DNA damage in three regions of the brain, the liver and blood cells of rats and mice that were removed at an earlier time point from the two-year ongoing study.⁹

DNA damage is concerning because, if not repaired, it can lead to tumors. The study found exposure to radio frequency radiation (RFR) used by cellphones was associated with an increase in DNA damage, with significant increases in DNA damage found in the:

Frontal cortex of the brain in male mice
Blood cells of female mice
Hippocampus of male rats

What Happens When Phones Are Tested Against the Body?

Mesley then asks to have the phones tested the way people actually use them: very close, if not immediately next to, their body. The tests start out further away, with exposures 5 mm to 15 mm from the body — the way cellphone manufacturers conduct their tests. Under these conditions, RF exposure comes in within the safety limit.

Next, the test is done with no gap, a test rarely done by manufacturers since it's not required. RF exposure went up significantly, by three to four times, exceeding the safety limit in all cases. According to Mesley, 7 out of 10 people say they carry their cellphone in their pocket or against their body, which means they're being exposed to radiation levels above safety limits.

While Health Canada said their safety limits include a wide safety margin, Davis says the system is out of date and doesn't gauge risks according to the way cellphones are actually used.

More than 200 studies have been submitted to Health Canada showing harm from RF radiation at levels below the safety limit for which cellphones are tested, Mesley says, but Health Canada claims many of these studies simply aren't good enough for them to change their recommendations.

Further, independent SAR testing paid for by the Chicago Tribune revealed several popular cellphones emit far higher levels of RF radiation than legally permitted. For instance, at a distance of 5 mm from your body (the distance used by Apple), the iPhone 7 was found to emit anywhere between 2.5 and 3.46 W/kg, which is 1.6 to 2.2 times the legal limit.¹⁰

At a distance of 2 mm from the body — which mimics carrying your phone in your pocket — the results ranged from 3.5 W/kg on the low end to 4.69 W/kg on the high end, which are 2.2 to 2.9 times above the legal limit.

The three Samsung Galaxy smartphones tested, Galaxy S9, S8 and J3, were all within the legal limit at 10 to 15 mm from the body (the distance used by Samsung), but RF radiation levels skyrocketed at 2 mm from the body, raising serious questions about the safety of keeping a phone in your pocket.

At the very least, if you use a cellphone, do not carry it in your pocket, bra or on your body, and don't allow children to use cellphones except in an emergency. Unfortunately, the planned implementation of 5G is bound to further magnify the health risks associated with cellphones and other wireless devices.

Tips for Safer Cellphone Use

To protect yourself and your family from cellphone radiation and other sources of harmful electromagnetic fields, consider taking the following precautions:

Avoid carrying your cellphone on your body unless in airplane mode and never sleep with it in your bedroom unless it is in airplane mode. Even in airplane mode it can emit signals, which is why I put my phone in a Faraday bag.

When using your cellphone, use the speaker phone and hold the phone at least 3 feet away from you.

Seek to radically decrease your time on the cellphone. Instead, use VoIP software phones that you can use while connected to the internet via a wired connection.

Connect your desktop computer to the internet via a wired Ethernet connection and be sure to put your desktop in airplane mode. Also avoid wireless keyboards, trackballs, mice, game systems, printers and portable house phones. Opt for the wired versions.

If you must use Wi-Fi, shut it off when not in use, especially at night when you are sleeping. Ideally, work toward hardwiring your house so you can eliminate Wi-Fi altogether. If you have a notebook without any Ethernet ports, a USB Ethernet adapter will allow you to connect to the internet with a wired connection.

Shut off the electricity to your bedroom at night. This typically works to reduce electrical fields from the wires in your wall unless there is an adjoining room next to your bedroom. If that is the case you will need to use a meter to determine if you also need to turn off power in the adjacent room.

Use a battery-powered alarm clock, ideally one without any light. I use a talking clock for the visually impaired.

If you still use a microwave oven, consider replacing it with a steam convection oven, which will heat your food as quickly and far more safely.

Avoid using "smart" appliances and thermostats that depend on wireless signaling. This would include all new "smart" TVs. They are called smart because they emit a Wi-Fi signal and, unlike your computer, you cannot shut the Wi-Fi signal off. Consider using a large computer monitor as your TV instead, as they don't emit Wi-Fi.

Refuse smart meters as long as you can, or add a shield to an existing smart meter, some of which have been shown to reduce radiation by 98% to 99%.¹¹

Consider moving your baby's bed into your room instead of using a wireless baby monitor. Alternatively, use a hard-wired monitor.

Replace CFL bulbs with incandescent bulbs. Ideally remove all fluorescent lights from your house. Not only do they emit unhealthy light, but more importantly, they will transfer current to your body just being close to the bulbs.

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