Page 78 - Winter2014

All Thumbs Book Reviews

An Electronic Silent Spring: Facing the Cognitive deterioration in these people resembles
Dangers and Creating Safe Limits that of head injury victims.
by Katie Singer And then there is a sore subject I have
Portal Books, 2014 brought up before. Nobody has shot me yet so I’m
going to tempt fate and do it again. The subject is
Many people may be doing everything cell phones. A Swedish study found that for every
“right” to protect their health in terms of diet, one hundred hours of cell phone use, the risk of
exercise and avoiding toxic chemicals. They get cancer increases 5 percent. For every year of use,
enough good fat, avoid trans fats, avoid junk in the cancer risk increases 8 percent. After two or
general and eat nutrient-dense food. They are three thousand hours of cumulative analog cell
careful about chemicals in hygiene products and phone use, the cancer risk is 490 percent greater.
tap water. They do everything right but. . . they Digital “smart” phones generate more radia-
still have some nagging health problem. Why? tion than analog phones. If you raise the question
This book may answer that question. It covers of safety with any large agency the standard
the subject of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) response is usually something about the devices
very thoroughly. meeting FCC guidelines. Somewhere implied in
The average man on the street is still very all that is the assumption that only evil heretics
skeptical that radiation from our electronic toys would question the omniscience of any govern-
could be harmful. Katie Singer pulls information ment agency, including the FCC. One thing to
from many sources, some of which I’m familiar keep in mind is that the FCC only considers
with and have even reviewed before, so I know whether a device works and whether or not its
she is not making things up. signals interfere with any other signals the FCC
The short list of things that produce unsafe deems important. Signals inside your own body
levels of EMR includes just about any digital or that keep you healthy are not important in this
wireless item (computers, cell phones, Internet context and consequently don’t matter. The FCC
routers, TVs), fluorescent and compact fluores- is not a health agency. That is not their job and
cent lights, dimmer switches, faulty home wir- they don’t care. Any testing done by other agen-
ing, battery rechargers, and digital smart meters. cies has only been done for large healthy males.
Nearly all microwave ovens leak. Some items Testing has not been done for women, children,
like computers have power supplies that can the aged or the handicapped.
generate EMR even when turned off, if they So whose job is it to protect citizens’ health
are plugged in. If you want to get off the grid and safety? Officially, it is the FDA’s job, but
The average completely you should know that solar power they don’t have funding for that. They seem to
man on the systems can generate a lot of noise also. have plenty of money to shut down small farms

The next question is what kind of health that aren’t hurting anybody but no money for
street is effects result from these things. The short list is this.
still very Alzheimer’s, diabetes, psoriasis, insomnia, can- Singer’s message is not all doom and gloom.
skeptical that cer, leukemia, ADHD and vision problems. South She does fill a chapter with proposed solutions

radiation from Korea may be the most connected country in the to the problem. They fall into two general cat-
world at the moment. Doctors there have come egories—what you can do yourself and what
our electronic up with a term for a condition they call “digital government agencies can or should do. There are
toys could be dementia.” Young people in particular have be- many good ideas for what you can do yourself.
come so dependent on their digital crutches that There are cheap ways of turning an AM radio
harmful. they can’t remember their own phone number. into a noise detector to track down sources of
74 Wise Traditions WINTER 2014 Wise Traditions

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