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Victory: Judge upholds towns refusal of 5G small-cells
USA Created: 26 Aug 2022
Victory in Flower Hill, NY! Judge says village's denial of small cell applications was legal and reasonable.

In a landmark legal decision, Judge Frederic Block, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, found that the Village of Flower Hill, NY, was justified in denying the application of ExteNet (acting as an agent for Verizon Wireless) to place 18 small cell antennas in the Village.

The Judge quoted from the 1996 Telecommunications Act, citing the provision that "nothing in this chapter shall limit or affect the authority of a State or local government or instrumentality thereof over decisions regarding the placement, construction, and modification of persona wireless service facilities."

He noted that other courts have found the Act to be "in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction." Nevertheless, he reasoned, a plain reading of the text supports the claim by the Village that it has acted legally.

Most importantly, the Judge ruled that the provisions of the 1996 Act do not necessarily apply to the new uses of wireless to provide broadband and other services. "Improved capacity and speed are desirable (and, no doubt, profitable) goals in the age of smartphones," he wrote, "but they are not protected by the Act."

This is a Hallelujah moment for all those working to limit the reckless deployment of wireless technology into our neighborhoods and homes.

A copy of the judge's decision can be found here:
https://casetext.com/case/extenet-sys-v-vill-of-flower-hill
Click here to view the source article.
Source: Americans for responsible Technology, 26 Aug. 2022

5G base stations use a lot more energy than 4G base stations: MTN
USA Created: 28 Jul 2022
Carriers have been looking at energy efficiency for a few years now, but 5G will bring this to top of mind because it’s going to use more energy than 4G. Telcos spend on average 5% to 6% of their operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization, on energy costs, according to MTN Consulting. And this is expected to rise with the shift to 5G.

A typical 5G base station consumes up to twice or more the power of a 4G base station, writes MTN Consulting Chief Analyst Matt Walker in a new report entitled “Operators facing power cost crunch.” And energy costs can grow even more at higher frequencies, due to a need for more antennas and a denser layer of small cells. Edge compute facilities needed to support local processing and new internet of things (IoT) services will also add to overall network power usage.

Exact estimates differ by source, but MTN says the industry consensus is that 5G will double to triple energy consumption for mobile operators, once networks scale.

Warnings of more power consumption are coming from some Chinese operators that are leading the world in 5G deployments. In November 2019, China Mobile EVP Li Zhengmao said that its electricity costs were rising fast with 5G. China Mobile has tried using lower cost deployments of MIMO antennas, specifically 32T32R and sometimes 8T8R rather than 64T64R, according to MTN. However, Li says 5G base stations are carrying five times the traffic as when equipped with only 4G, pushing up power consumption. The carrier is seeking subsidies from the Chinese government to help with the increased energy usage.

According to Huawei data on RRU/BBU needs per site, the typical 5G site has power needs of over 11.5 kilowatts, up nearly 70% from a base station deploying a mix of 2G, 3G and 4G radios. 5G macro base stations may require several new, power-hungry components, including microwave or millimeter wave transceivers, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), faster data converters, high-power/low-noise amplifiers and integrated MIMO antennas.

The increased power demands of a 5G site can create several problems:

Insufficient AC power supply
Insufficient battery capacity: more backup battery capacity is needed, yet traditional lead-acid batteries have low energy density and their capacities are difficult to expand.
Unable to support high-power long-distance transmission: in 5G scenarios requiring high power supply to remote AAUs, the voltage drop required means that transmission distance is limited.

In addition to using more energy in the 5G RAN, carriers are also deploying edge computing resources to support such things as low-latency applications and IoT services. “Schneider Electric predicts that with 5G, the power distribution will require hundreds of thousands or even millions of micro data centers globally,” according to MTN. "Powering these sites will add to the telco utility bill and add a layer of complexity to network operations as edge power costs need to be minimized."

While the Chinese mobile operators may be a bit ahead of others in terms of 5G rollouts and lessons about energy efficiency, other operators are already thinking about utility bills, as well.

In March, AT&T COO John Stankey said that as part of an overall company effort to reduce costs, AT&T is looking at opportunities to take advantage of different architectures to lower energy costs.

“The bottom line is that, in an increasingly 5G world, telcos will face significant growth in their energy bills,” writes MTN Consulting. “To address this issue, telcos will need to take actions at the organizational, architectural and site levels.”
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Source: Fierce Wireless, Linda Hardesty, 03 Apr 2020

5G and electromagnetic fields
USA Created: 28 Jul 2022
With more bandwidth, EMFs become stronger.

Recently, we tried to cut through the babble about 5G, look at actual data, and figure out how troublesome it really is for aviation. (See Pro Pilot, April 2022, p 8). Since then, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has doubled down on blaming its victims, ordering avionics makers to bring their “defective” radar altimeters up to a standard of signal discrimination required in no other country. However, that is not our topic here. This time, we will look at what electromagnetic fields (EMFs) may be doing – not to your equipment, but to you.

Why EMFs matters

Many hundreds of scientific studies have linked radio frequency EMFs to serious medical issues.

They include DNA damage, rare brain cancers, including glioma and acoustic neuroma, salivary tumors, heart disease, diabetes, sperm abnormalities, reduced volumes of the brain’s gray matter and damage to white matter, neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression, and even very early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

The list seems to grow almost daily. This may be significant to pilots. Nina Anderson, a retired corporate pilot who has built a second career as a respected consultant specializing in EMF issues, reports that jet cockpits are the most EMF-dense environments she has ever examined. Every flight instrument and radio contributes its share.

We should note that all findings of a link between EMFs and health are disputed. For every study showing that electromagnetic fields subvert biological systems, scientists funded by the telecommunications industry can provide one to refute it, plus an explanation of why the other research was methodologically flawed or otherwise invalid.

They do so routinely. Anderson has little sympathy for them. A similarity to the tobacco industry may have been mentioned. Nonetheless, since the 1990s, the great preponderance of independent evidence has shown that exposure to EMFs has medical consequences. A lot more supporting data has been added since then.

What has changed

Nature exposes all life to EMFs. Most forms are weak, and distributed over a wide range of frequencies. The sun’s ultraviolet light causes burns and skin cancers, and contributes to skin aging.

As far as we know, natural EMFs are otherwise harmless. Technology is different. The EMFs our artifacts create are stronger than most natural fields, and we marinate in them 24/7. Their frequencies are often well suited to couple with biological processes. They’re also polarized, where natural EMFs are not.

This can greatly amplify their biological effects. EMF sources abound in our homes and workplaces – even on the street. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth devices, computers, microwave ovens, “smart” electric meters, and the inverters that turn DC electricity from solar panels to 120V AC, all generate EMFs at varying frequencies and power.

A single fluorescent light can add high-frequency voltage spikes to electricity that arrived “clean.” Turn off all these devices, and we still would receive EMFs from our neighbors – especially in apartments – and when passing cellphone towers. In the years ahead, we will experience even more EMFs.

Devices connected to the “Internet of things” pass data and control signals back and forth wirelessly almost constantly. Estimates vary, but they could be 30 to 50 billion of them by 2025. In time, their “electrosmog” will fill the air as London’s pea-soup fogs did in the age of coal.

Why 5G matters

Cellphones are a particular concern because they broadcast next to our ears at frequencies that in recent generations can extend into the microwave range. And in all but the most rural areas, tower transmissions are with us always. Each new generation of phones carries more data faster than the last by transmitting at higher frequencies.

4G phones, for example, operate at 2.5 GHz microwave frequencies. 5G extends to 39 GHz. And generations up to 8G are already under development. The good news is that the electrical component of high-frequency EMFs penetrates barely 1 mm into the body.

The bad is that it couples to biological processes much more efficiently than phone transmissions used to, and nothing keeps their magnetic component at bay. There is more. Buildings block 5G signals, so many more transmitters are needed to serve an urban area. They also use beam forming to aim all their power in one direction rather than omnidirectionally, as previous cell technologies have done.

Standing in a 5G beam at a given distance subjects us to much more powerful electromagnetic radiation than 4G did – and, because there are more transmitters, we have more opportunity for exposure. Telecoms point out that no one has ever shown that 5G transmissions harm human health, and this is true.

The technology is so new that no one has had time to carry out the necessary studies. Yet, even for 4G, the data is compelling. As long ago as 2009, neurosurgeon Vini G Khurana at the Australian National University, and colleagues in Australia, Austria, and Sweden, reviewed long-term epidemiologic studies of cell phones and brain cancer.

They found that using a cell phone for 10 years or more doubled the risk of glioma and acoustic neuroma, but only on the side of the head where users held their phones. In Malta, researchers studied the incidence of glioblastoma multiforme, the rare brain cancer scientists have long suspected might be linked to the use of cell phones.

From 2008 through 2017, the number of people who had used cell phones for 10 years or more, when excess cancers are considered most likely to appear, was rising fast. Medical records showed an obvious trend. In 2008, there were only 0.73 cases per 100,000 population.

Ten years later, there were 4.49 per 100,000. Something might have caused this other than the growing use of cell phones, but no credible alternative has been suggested. Moreover, researchers at the Yale School of Public Health reported in 2020 on genetic variations that predispose people to develop thyroid cancer.

Heavy cell phone use more than doubled the risk of thyroid cancer in those with any of four such variations. Professional critics can find ways to trash any inconvenient research. For the rest of us, the picture should be clear.

The bottom line

EMFs can affect us in ways that are especially important in the air. Known effects that appear within the duration of an average flight include fatigue, irritability, an inability to concentrate, and mild cognitive impairment resulting in task saturation, mistaken priorities, complacency, and spatial disorientation. Between 1993 and 2013, US Air Force pilots were involved in 72 severe accidents attributed to spatial disorientation.

The incidents resulted in 101 deaths and 65 aircraft lost. The possibility that electromagnetic fields were to blame concerned the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) enough that in October 2020 it initiated a 2-year project called Impact of Cockpit Electro-Magnetics on Aircrew Neurology (ICEMAN).

ICEMAN appears to have been dormant for some 20 months, but in May DARPA issued a $371,000 grant to Spotlight Labs, specialists in human factors analytics in Haddonfield NJ, and Norwich University in Vermont. Engineers there will use 5 workstations to simulate EMF in the cockpit of an F-16 and identify any effects on experienced F-16 pilots.

ICEMAN has $1.5 million in total funding and is scheduled to last 3 years. A hint of what ICEMAN could find comes from the International Association of Fire Fighters. As early as 2004, the organization published a resolution stating that it did not want telecom infrastructure located near fire stations.

The issue came up when firefighters in Santa Barbara responding to emergencies could not remember such basic information as where they were going or how to administer CPR. The problem affected those operating from stations with cell towers nearby.

According to Dr Gunnar Heuser, now retired from the UCLA Medical Center Department of Medicine, brain scans showed changes in their gray and white matter.

Looking ahead

Regulators and advisory bodies have been remarkably unmoved by all this evidence. A few decades ago, the only known hazard of radio frequency (RF) signals was excessive heating: when powerful enough, RF can warm tissues like a microwave oven. Emissions were known to cause corneal damage in this way, and FCC regulations were designed to prevent that kind of injury.

They have remained unchanged since 1977. Independent researchers say that emissions are 10 to 100 times higher than they should be. The official positions of nearly all regulators and medical bodies match that of the telecom industry exactly. FCC, FDA, and even the National Cancer Institute declare, in FCC’s words, “At relatively low levels of exposure to RF radiation, ie, levels lower than those that would produce significant heating, the evidence for production of harmful biological effects is ambiguous and unproven.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) concurs. Yet, one government body does not. In 2019, the New Hampshire state legislature created a commission to study the environmental and health effects of evolving 5G technology. It reported in November 2020 that 5G signals unambiguously couple with biological processes in ways that cause health problems.

The commission also concluded that regulators and advisory bodies had been captured by the telecoms they were supposed to police. They had cause to believe it.

The picture is clearest at WHO

The guidelines most European governments rely on for EMF standards come from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) – a private non-governmental organization based in Germany.

In practice, it is tightly bound to both WHO and the telecom industry. ICNIRP was founded in 1992. Its first chairman was Australian biophysicist Michael Repacholi. He had no background in EMF research, and he immediately adopted the idea that only heating injury matters.

Four years later, he became founding chairman of the WHO EMF Project and established the same policy there. Despite what might seem a conflict of interest, he held both offices simultaneously. His chosen successor at WHO was Emilie van Deventer, an electrical engineer from the University of Toronto praised by the university magazine for her “invaluable” service to the telecom industry. It brought in donations and lucrative research contracts.

She received research funding from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, Communications & Information Technology Ontario, and Nortel, then Canada’s largest telecommunications company. Deventer took office in 2008 and remains head of the EMF Project today.

The EMF Project is WHO’s sole authority on electromagnetic radiation. It established the organization’s current policy in a 2016 monograph. The 6-member core group in charge of writing it had only 1 independent member. The rest belonged to ICNIRP and many to other industry groups as well. Their rejection of non-thermal risks from EMF remains unchanged. Similar – although less obvious – influences can be found at most regulatory bodies concerned with EMF.

In the US, of course, we also have congressmen to run interference for donors’ companies. Their interest in tightening regulations is, at best, inconspicuous. In all, anyone concerned about the possible health risks of EMFs will have to protect themselves. How that can be accomplished in the cockpit is not obvious. If you are interested in more information about EMFs, it can be found at the Scientific Alliance for Education (safehelpsyou.org).
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Source: Professional Pilot, Owen Davies, 27 Jul 2022

FCC proposes funding Wi-Fi on school buses
USA Created: 12 May 2022
FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed that federal funding be provided to equip school buses with Wi-Fi, potentially closing the homework gap by that much more. I don’t know if any kids are going to do any work at 7:20 in the morning or right after the last bell has rung, but it certainly can’t hurt.

The proposal would allow the use of E-rate program funds, generally set aside for school tech and connectivity costs, to be used for purchasing wireless hot spots or other methods for getting the buses connected.

“The ‘homework gap’ is still a hard fact of life for millions of schoolchildren in urban and rural America. Wiring our school buses is a practical step we can take that is consistent with the history of the E-rate program. This common sense change could help kids who have no broadband at home,” said Rosenworcel in a statement announcing the proposed ruling.

$35 million has already been spent on this through the FCC’s Emergency Connectivity Fund, and the declaratory ruling (as the proposal is formally called at this point) found that the costs would more than justify the benefits.

Though it’s easy to think of scenarios like a kid uploading their homework on the bus as silly or typical of teenage procrastination, connectivity is a serious problem around the country. And some kids have pretty long bus rides! If Wi-Fi at home is cutting out, and you can’t access the school servers on mobile, what are you supposed to do, stop by the library on the way to homeroom?

Being able to polish off that essay and upload it from the bus (after a bit of feedback from their seatmate, of course), or skimming through that lecture one more time before the test, could be actually helpful. Once they have it, they’re going to rely on it.

It makes sense these days much more than even five years ago because mobile networks and integrations for things like cars and buses are far cheaper and more standard. If they can put Wi-Fi on subway trains, or on company shuttles, we can put them on our big orange buses. And you know we might even get a little WAN party going.
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Source: TechCrunch, Devin Coldewey, 12 May 2022

The Death of Millimeter-wave Cellular?
USA Created: 15 Apr 2022
Apple recently announced that is not building millimeter-wave spectrum antennas into the next generation SE iPhone. Interestingly, this is a phone sold by Verizon, which spent a year advertising on TV and showing us speed tests on cellphones that were receiving gigabit speeds.

As a reminder for those who have never encountered the technology, Verizon and AT&T both deployed some millimeter-wave hot spots in downtown areas of major cities at the height of the 5G marketing craze. The frequency was only available on special phones made at the time to receive the faster speeds.

I always assumed that this was a marketing gimmick because it makes no sense as a deployed technology. The speeds can be blazingly fast, but the millimeter-wave signal only carries perhaps 1,000 feet from a hotspot – and that is with zero objects in the path. Millimeter-wave spectrum penetrates nothing, and the technology is so finicky that if you were receiving a signal and turned away from the transmitter, your body would cut off the transmission. The frequency is not well suited for busy urban streets. It can’t reach around corners, barely goes through glass, and is blocked by anything moving into its path.

Pushing the millimeter-wave fast 5G story was a big part of the early 5G strategy for the cellular carriers. Remember all of the talk about the U.S. losing the 5G war to China? I still chuckle when I occasionally hear that old chestnut today. The federal government had serious discussions about buying Nokia or Ericsson so that we wouldn’t fall behind in 5G. The cellular carriers stirred up everybody in D.C., and we had Congress, the White House, and The FCC all issuing dire warnings about falling behind with 5G. I remember being particularly amused when a big federal government 5G summit was held in South Dakota in 2018 – the last place where 5G, a technology to solve urban cellular data issues, is likely to ever have any impact.

It turns out that the cellular companies had some big motivations for pushing the 5G narrative so hard. In 2018, the 4G networks were getting into trouble. We didn’t see the first fully compliant 4G LTE cell site until that year, so most of the country was still working on some early version of what might be best described as 3.5G. Urban networks were getting so congested that calls and broadband connections were regularly being dropped. Cellular broadband traffic growth was doubling in less than every three years – and network engineers were warning management about the likely collapse of urban networks during busy times.

The primary thing the cellular carriers wanted was more spectrum. It looks like stirring up the public and politicians worked, and the FCC released several choice mid-range bands of spectrum in a shorter time frame than might have been expected. The industry was also hoping for federal handouts to somehow help propel them to 5G – but that never happened in any big way that I could ever see.

The funny thing to me is that I think the cellular companies could have gotten the same thing by just telling the truth – they legitimately needed the FCC to release much-needed spectrum. Every cellphone user would have supported the idea. But nobody ever told the real story, because that would have meant admitting that networks were underperforming. My theory is that the carriers didn’t want to take a hit on stock prices – so they instead orchestrated the 5G circus that had America convinced that 5G was going to solve all of our ills. What is funniest about the whole 5G fiasco is that Oulu University in Finland, which leads the world in 5G research, said at the end of 2021 that it’s still likely to be 2027 until we see the first mature 5G cell site. We’re not behind China with 5G – because nobody has 5G!

It’s not a surprise that Apple is dropping the spectrum from its phones. It costs chip space and power for every additional spectrum that is supported by a cellphone. Cell manufacturers care more about long battery life than they do about a technology that never made it out of the downtowns of a few major cities.
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Source: CCG Consulting blog, Doug Dawson, 08 Apr 2022

A Mysterious Illness Is Destroying His Body. His Only Hope Is the Perfect House.
USA Created: 26 Feb 2022
There’s getting sick, and there’s what this guy had: a decades-long struggle with a mysterious illness that short-circuited his nervous system and ransacked his body, testing his patience, his marriage, and his resolve. Then he built the house that just might save his life.

I WAS DRIVING along Mission Ridge Road, the afternoon sun shining in a brilliant blue sky. Fanning out below were sweeping views of Santa Barbara and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Some people might have been inspired to pull over and take a photo. Me, I was overcome with the thought of turning the wheel and Thelma & Louise–ing it off the side of the road. I wondered if I would feel pain as the car flipped and spun into a twisted, mangled wreck, or if I would be knocked unconscious and numb to it all.

It was September 2021. The house wasn’t done. The house in which I was supposed to heal from the strange affliction that was scrambling my body and destroying my life. I had blown through our budget and was steadily chipping away at our savings, trying to cover every last detail. The advanced air system, the whole-house water filtration, the special flooring free of formaldehyde, the special wiring to reduce electromagnetic fields, the special fucking caulk.

And yet now it seemed likely that I would not be able to live in our new house at all. That the very place designed to make me healthier might in fact make me sicker. I looked at the houses as I drove, imagining the people inside were happily Zooming and making sandwiches. I couldn’t so much as touch my phone or eat a macadamia nut without launching into a panic.

I’d felt pressure before—about our finances, our marriage, my career, our kids, my health. Everyone does. Now all of those stresses were bombarding me at once. Just the thought of driving off Mission Ridge into oblivion gave me the one thing I needed most in that moment: relief.

--------8<------- SNIP --------8<-------

Read the entire article via the source link below...
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Source: Mens Health, Mike Bender, 22 Feb 2022

Havana Syndrome Is Likely Real, Feds Admit
USA Created: 10 Feb 2022
EDITOR’S NOTE: After years of stonewalling and outright denials, a federal government report conceded on February 1, 2022 that US diplomats around the world may have been repeatedly assaulted by “pulsed microwave radiation” — a futuristic weapon deployed by unknown adversaries with unknown but clearly malign intent.

In this opinion piece, Paul Brodeur, a writer for The New Yorker — who won an Alicia Patterson Foundation Award for his reporting on the potential dangers of microwave radiation — lays out the tortured history behind the new government report, and its significance for understanding the frightening prospects for technological warfare in the 21st century. Brodeur’s take on the situation is very different from that expressed by other writers for the same magazine, as shown below.

WhoWhatWhy introduction by Gerald Jonas.

During the past five years, US newspapers and magazines have published a number of articles about the Havana syndrome — a sudden onset of ringing in the ears, dizziness, imbalance, earache, headache, and changes in behavior — which originated in the city after which it is named, and soon afflicted several hundred Foreign Service and CIA officers around the world.

The most detailed of these articles appeared in The New Yorker in November 2018, under the title “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome.”

It was written by Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson. Relying heavily on State Department and intelligence agency sources, Entous and Anderson informed their readers that no one in the United States government had any idea how the Havana syndrome was operating to adversely affect the people who were exposed to it. Other media echoed similar claims of ignorance about the syndrome.

These claims are open to question. I am a former staff writer at The New Yorker who, in 1976, wrote the first articles about the ability of microwave radiation to cause changes in the central nervous system and behavior, as well as other biological effects. They appeared in the magazine when the Soviet Union was bombarding the US embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation known as the “Moscow Signal.”

At the time, government officials surmised that the Soviets were using the radiation to activate listening devices hidden in the walls of the embassy. They also voiced concern that it was being employed to affect the behavior of US diplomats and other personnel who were stationed there.

If Entous and Anderson had consulted The New Yorker library to learn whether the magazine had previously published anything about a phenomenon suspected of causing changes in the behavior of diplomats, they would have found my articles about the adverse biological effects of microwave radiation and the Moscow Signal.

They would also have come across a raft of evidence documenting the efforts of the State Department and other government agencies to keep awareness of the signal under wraps.

As a result, they might have been dubious about believing what they were being told about the Havana syndrome by sources that had gone to great lengths to deceive the press and public about the earlier Soviet irradiation of the Moscow Embassy and its staff.

My own experience with the State Department regarding the Moscow Signal should serve instructive. Within a week of the publication of my articles I received three envelopes in the mail postmarked Washington, DC, with no return address. They had obviously been sent by people who wished to remain anonymous.

Each of the envelopes contained a copy of a classified cable signed by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger which listed potential questions that might be asked about my articles by Foreign Service employees at the Moscow Embassy, followed by answers that were to be given by State Department spokesmen in the event the questions were posed.

The cable read like ventriloquism by satellite. One of the queries assumed that someone might ask “Isn’t the State Department knuckling under pressure from military and industrial interests to downplay or even cover up the significance of microwave effects on health?”

To this query the spokesman was told to reply “No.”

To another possible question: “What about the former Embassy administrative officer’s wife who died of cancer?” The spokesman was told to reply “I do not intend to discuss individual cases,” — which omitted the fact that the State Department had settled a lawsuit brought by the administrative officer, claiming that his wife’s cancer had been caused by radiation.

The prepared response to an additional question revealed more deceit on the part of the Department. The telephone of Walter J. Stoessel Jr., the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, was said to have given off high levels of radiation, and it was widely rumored that he had developed a serious blood disorder. Indeed, The Boston Globe had reported that the ailment resembled leukemia, and was thought to be caused or aggravated by microwave radiation.

If asked “What about Ambassador Stoessel’s health? Has it improved since he left Moscow?” The prepared reply was: “Ambassador Stoessel is on duty in Bonn and I have nothing to add to my earlier comments.”

The fact of the matter is that Stoessel had developed leukemia and had taken a leave of absence from his duties in Germany to be treated at a blood disease clinic in Switzerland. When I interviewed his daughter, Katherine, she told me her father was convinced that his illness had been caused by exposure to microwave radiation in Moscow but had decided to become, in her words, “a good soldier in the cause of national security.’’

(Regarding the connection between exposure to microwave radiation and the development of cancer, it is interesting to note that in 2011, a committee of more than 30 medical scientists convened by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC] evaluated human epidemiological studies showing increased brain cancer among long-term users of cell phones, which emit low-level microwave radiation into the ears of users, and concluded that microwaves were a possible human carcinogen. Also of interest is a 2018 study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program which found that rats exposed to cell phone microwave radiation were more likely to develop certain cancers than unexposed animals, and which has resulted in calls for the IARC to upgrade microwave radiation from a possible to a probable cause of cancer.)

Stoessel died of leukemia in 1986. The obituaries that appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post made no mention of his microwave exposure. Notes of my two meetings with his daughter, as well as a copy of Kissinger’s cable, can be found in the collection of my papers at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

Kissinger’s cable and its attempt to deceive Foreign Service employees at the Moscow Embassy did not become widely known until the following year when my New Yorker articles appeared in expanded form in a book titled “The Zapping of America.” However, if Entous and Anderson had read those articles they would have learned the following about the biological effects of microwave radiation and its probable connection with the Havana syndrome.

They would have learned that studies of Soviet radar workers exposed to microwaves during and after World War II demonstrated they were experiencing headache, fatigue, diminished intellectual capacity, and loss of memory — some of the same symptoms US diplomats and spies were undergoing when subjected to the Havana syndrome — and that Soviet scientists were investigating the technology behind these symptoms.

They would have learned that during the early 1960s an American scientist named Allan H. Frey had discovered that human beings could hear pulsed microwave radiation, which they might have found interesting considering that they had described victims of the Havana syndrome as suffering from “mysterious sonic attacks.”

They would have discovered that US intelligence agency officials had known since the early 1960s that the Russians were irradiating the US embassy in Moscow with microwaves, but those officials had kept it secret for more than 10 years from the Foreign Service employees who were stationed there.

Most important of all, they would have learned that in 1965 the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an organization within the Department of Defense tasked with developing new weaponry, had set up a special laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington where rhesus monkeys were irradiated with microwaves at power densities and frequencies similar to those of the Moscow Signal in order to determine whether the signal could induce changes in the behavior of the animals.

Might this have led them to wonder if the United States had become engaged in a race with the Soviet Union to develop a microwave weapon?

Whatever the case, a second article about the Havana syndrome, which was written by Entous alone, appeared in the May 24, 2021, issue of The New Yorker under the title “Are U.S. Officials Under Silent Attack?”

Entous disclosed that by now the government had decided the syndrome was probably being caused by microwave-emitting devices aimed at US officials to collect intelligence from their computers and cell phones, resulting in brain injury in the process.

He did not speculate on the reason for the previous five-year stonewalling of the press and public about the syndrome, but it seems likely that the government may have wished to hide its own development of a microwave weapon because it was concerned about adverse reaction on the part of the American people to such a fearsome means of mind and crowd control.

Toward the end of his piece, Entous revealed the extent to which his sources were continuing to mislead him. “U.S. national security agencies have a program under way to develop effective countermeasures,” he wrote. “They are looking into what it might take to build a device that can cause brain injuries similar to those which have been observed in Havana syndrome patients. As part of that effort, scientists at a military laboratory are planning on exposing primates to pulsed microwave radiation and then studying their brains.”

The credulity that allowed Entous to report on such a program as if it was just beginning would boggle the mind were it not apparent he had no idea of the ARPA-funded research with monkeys more than half a century earlier.

Credulity regarding the Havana syndrome was not limited to reporting in The New Yorker as became evident on January 20, 2022, when The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and other newspapers and TV networks in the nation ran stories about a so-called “interim report” issued by the CIA which sought to reverse the government’s previous position regarding the role of microwave radiation in the Havana syndrome.

According to the CIA, microwaves were not being used by any foreign power against the United States nor were they causing the strange symptoms afflicting US diplomats and intelligence agents. Rather, these symptoms were the result of environmental factors, undiagnosed medical conditions, and stress.

The article in the Times raised the possibility that stress was causing psychogenic reactions or so-called functional illness — aka mass hysteria — in syndrome victims. An article in Slate suggested that the syndrome was a condition to be found in people whose brains had gone “haywire.”

None of the journalists who covered the story saw fit to find out what environmental factors and undiagnosed medical conditions might be causing the symptoms associated with the Havana syndrome.

Nor did any of them question how mass hysteria might suddenly have affected the 1000 government officials whom the Agency numbered as claiming to have been exposed to it.

Instead, for the most part, they dutifully reported on the findings of the CIA interim investigation just as their colleagues had dutifully reported on earlier claims by the government that it had no idea what the Havana syndrome was or how it operated.

Ten days later, whipsawed by conflicting information, they were obliged to write about yet another intelligence assessment. The latest investigation — which was conducted by a panel of experts convened by the director of national intelligence and the deputy director of the CIA — contravened the findings of the Agency’s interim report by ruling out psychosocial factors, neurological abnormalities, mass hysteria environmental conditions, and medical problems as accounting for the syndrome.

At the same time, it reduced the scope of the problem by concluding that the most plausible cause for the phenomenon in a small group of unsolved cases — albeit one accompanied by many caveats — was pulsed microwave radiation.

The investigation made no attempt to explain how the 1000 previously estimated cases of the syndrome had been winnowed down so quickly, let alone how two reports issued within ten days of one another — the first by the CIA and the second with input from the Agency — could arrive at such opposite conclusions.

Nor did journalists covering the story ask for explanation.

A plethora of questions begs to be raised about the confusing and contradictory reporting on the Havana syndrome that has found its way into the nation’s media.

Should journalists be relying so heavily on sources in the State Department, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies in writing their articles?

Do they have any idea of the sorry record of these organizations when it comes to disclosing accurate information about the harmful biological effects of microwave radiation?

Has it occurred to them that a military establishment such as ours which has developed drones that can be controlled with radiation beamed from satellites to kill people riding in cars in Iraq and Afghanistan has surely been capable of experimenting with various frequencies and pulse widths of microwave radiation to come up with a device similar to the one causing the Havana syndrome?

Are they so trusting of their intelligence-agency sources as to believe that the government would have waited more than half a century to begin developing such a weapon?

Answers to these questions may not be forthcoming anytime soon. Meanwhile, journalists might benefit from vaccination with a strong dose of skepticism to protect us all against the obfuscation spread by a government that appears determined to keep a lid on the mystery of the Havana syndrome.
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Source: WhoWhatWhy, Paul Brodeur, 07 Feb 2022

Emirates president: The 5G snafu is the biggest screwup I've witnessed in my career
USA Created: 9 Feb 2022
Major international airlines are scrambling to modify or cancel flights to the United States amid uncertainty about potential interference between new 5G cell phone services and critical airplane technologies. Emirates has canceled flights to nine US destinations today.

The president of Emirates tells CNN that the airline was not aware of some of the potential 5G rollout issues until yesterday morning, calling the situation "one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible" he has seen in his aviation career.

Speaking to CNN's Richard Quest today, Emirates president Tim Clark said that they were not aware of the issues until yesterday morning "to the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator to and from the United States and within the United States."

Transportation regulators had already been concerned that the version of 5G that was scheduled to be switched on could interfere with some airplane instruments, and many aviation industry groups shared those fears — despite reassurances from federal telecom regulators and wireless carriers.

Specifically, the Federal Aviation Administration has been worried that 5G cellular antennas near some airports — not air travelers' mobile devices — could throw off readings from some aircraft equipment designed to tell pilots how far they are from the ground.

Those systems, known as radar altimeters, are used throughout a flight and are considered critical equipment. (Radar altimeters differ from standard altimeters, which rely on air pressure readings and do not use radio signals to gauge altitude.)

In December, the FAA issued an urgent order forbidding pilots from using the potentially affected altimeters around airports where low-visibility conditions would otherwise require them. That new rule could keep planes from getting to some airports in certain circumstances, because pilots would be unable to land using instruments alone.

"We were aware of a 5G issue. Okay. We are aware that everybody is trying to get 5G rolled out after all it's the super cool future of whatever it may be communication and information flow. We were not aware that the power of the antennas in the United States have been doubled compared to what's going on elsewhere. We were not aware that the antenna themselves have been put into a vertical position rather than a slight slanting position, which then taken together compromise not only the radio altimeter systems but the flight control systems on the fly by wire aircraft. So on that basis we took that decision late last night to suspend all our services until we had clarity," he added, telling Richard Quest the airline wouldn't take any risks.

When asked on what he makes of the situation, Clark said: "I need to be as candid as I normally am, and say this is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issue subjects, call it what you like, I've seen in my aviation career because it involves organs of government, manufacturers, science, etc. And you know, the notion that, for instance, the United States government should sell its franchise for all the frequencies for a large amount of money. Somebody should have told them at the time - that the risks and the dangers they placed in certain frequency uses around field, airfields, metropolitan fields that should have been done at the time."
The Emirates president added that services will be restored if the rollout is suspended and the question of interference of their aircraft systems on approach and landing is removed.

AT&T, which owns CNN's parent company, and Verizon both announced Tuesday that they would delay activating 5G on some towers around certain airports. The wireless technology's rollout near major airports had been scheduled for Wednesday.

"We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner," Megan Ketterer, a spokesperson for AT&T, said.
The Biden administration welcomed the delay, saying in a statement that the "agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90% of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled."
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Source: CNN, Chris Liakos and Richard Quest. 19 Jan 2022

Pittsfield Board of Health votes to send cease and desist order to Verizon for cell tower
USA Created: 8 Feb 2022
After months of neighbors calling for action, the Pittsfield Board of Health voted unanimously Wednesday to send a cease and desist order to Verizon if the company doesn’t address concerns over the cell tower at the top of Alma Street.

What You Need To Know:

- The Pittsfield Board of Health voted to send a cease and desist order to Verizon regarding the Alma Street cell tower
- Verizon will have seven days to respond before the order is issued
- Nearby residents are still experiencing symptoms they say are caused by the tower
- There is the potential for a long legal battle to turn the tower off if the order is issued

“This is a historic moment for the health and safety of our neighborhood,” said Courtney Gilardi, who has been leading the neighborhood’s efforts against the tower for the past 17 months. “The board has always had the ability to do what is right, and now they have the will to do what is right.”

When we visited the neighborhood last spring, many residents said they were experiencing symptoms they never had before. This week, those issues are still around.

“My symptoms are ongoing and have worsened,” said Elaine Ireland, a neighborhood resident. “I never was one to have headaches before. I’m getting regular headaches, ringing in the ears that, it just gets in the way of everyday life.”

One family sold their home and moved out. Courtney Gilardi and her family have been living out of a temporary cottage a few miles down the road for months to find relief.

“Last night, when we came home from the meeting, my little one said, ‘mama, I actually don’t remember what it’s like to live in our own house,’” said Gilardi. “And it broke my heart to hear that from her.”

The board of health is giving Verizon seven days to begin discussions to turn off the tower before the cease and desist order will be issued.

If they do have to send the order, the neighbors are prepared for what could be a lengthy legal battle.

“Our doctors, our scientists, there’s an amazing team of attorneys, we believe we will be vindicated in court because the science is settled, and it’s on the side of those who are suffering,” said Gilardi.

“Win, lose, or draw, no matter what happens, we’re going to be here,” said Charlie Herzig, who lives on Alma Street. “So you can bet we’re going to be there to defend as much as we can.”

A statement from Verizon reads: "Verizon telecommunications equipment and networks comply with all health and safety standards established by the FCC. We have met on multiple occasions with the Pittsfield Health Department and members of the community to address their concerns with this site. All of Verizon’s equipment at the Pittsfield tower operates well under the FCC’s conservative limits, as confirmed by the city’s own RF study from last summer."
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Source: Spectrum News 1, Matt Ristaino, 03 Feb 2022

Report says wireless radiation, said by telecom companies to be harmless, could be hurting wildlife
USA Created: 6 Feb 2022
Health researchers raised concerns in the 1990s about the possible harmful effects of wireless radiation from cellphones and towers, and their warnings met pushback from telecommunications companies on the verge of growing a mega-industry.

Industry-backed researchers assured federal agencies health concerns — especially those centered on the possibility of low-level microwaves causing cancer — lacked conclusive evidence.

Regulators accepted their assessments, and the alarm bells went silent.

Now a trio of researchers have compiled a report saying the widespread installation of cell towers and antennas is generating electromagnetic fields — EMFs for short — that could be physiologically harmful.

The report focuses on potential impacts on wildlife, trees, plants and insects, such as bees, because there are no regulations protecting them from EMFs emanating from wireless antennas. Wildlife protections are becoming more vital as this radiation — known more specifically as radiofrequency EMFs — escalates through 5G technologies, the researchers warn.

"There needs to be regulatory standards to address EMFs affecting wildlife," said Albert Manville, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and one of the paper's authors.

Manville also is an adjunct science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

He said he provided the Federal Communications Commission with some research on how the electromagnetic pollution can hurt wildlife and the steps that could be taken to lessen the impacts.

But the FCC has been unresponsive, Manville said, arguing the agency tends to accommodate the industry it's supposed to regulate.

"That's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is," he said.

The FCC did not respond to questions about whether it would consider making efforts to reduce animals' EMF exposure.

The three authors drew from 1,200 peer-reviewed studies to compile a three-part, 210-page report titled "Effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields on flora and fauna." It was published in the journal Reviews on Environmental Health.

Science journalist Blake Levitt, who also co-wrote the report, said they dug up overlooked studies that contained compelling research on how living organisms react to low-level EMFs. Their compilation invalidates any claims that the EMFs don't cause biological effects, she said.

"We just blew the whole thing out of the water and took it to the ecosystem level, which is really where it needed to go," Levitt said. "Nobody had done that before. We need a whole lot more scrutiny put to the low-intensity stuff."

Ambient EMFs have risen exponentially in the past quarter-century, as cellphones were widely adopted, to become a ubiquitous and continuous environmental pollutant, even in remote areas, the report said, adding studies indicate EMFs can affect animals' orientation, migration, food finding, reproduction, nest building, territorial defense, vitality, longevity and survival.

EMFs' toxic effects on an animal's cells, DNA and chromosomes have been observed in laboratory specimens — and thus would apply to wildlife, according to the report.

Many types of wildlife are exposed to EMFs from wireless sources, such as deer, seals, whales, birds, bats, insects, amphibians and reptiles, the report said. Many species have been found more sensitive to EMFs than humans in some ways.

The report recommends new laws that include the redesign of wireless devices and infrastructure to reduce the rising ambient levels.

It comes several months after a federal court in Washington, D.C., ordered the FCC to review its guidelines for wireless radiation and justify why it should retain them, as the standards haven't been updated since 1996. This radiation should not be confused with radioactivity, the court noted, adding microwaves used in transmitting signals are low enough to not heat tissues in what are known as "thermal effects."

But medical studies suggest the lower-level radiation could cause cancer, reproductive problems, impaired learning and motor skills, disrupted sleep and decreased memory.

These studies and others were submitted to the FCC after it opened a notice of inquiry in 2013 under the administration of former President Barack Obama to probe the adequacy of the 1996 guidelines, which were geared toward avoiding thermal effects, the court said.

In 2019, the Trump administration's FCC deemed the inquiry unnecessary, saying the 1996 rules were sufficient and required no revision.

Two judges called that FCC action "arbitrary and capricious," saying the FCC made the decision out of hand, ignoring all the science presented and offering no reasonable, fact-based argument to back it up.

The agency also failed to look at the technological developments in the past 25 years and how they've changed the degree of exposure, the judges wrote. And they said it refused to examine possible health effects from EMFs that fall below the threshold set in 1996.

"When an agency in the commission's position is confronted with evidence that its current regulations are inadequate or the factual premises underlying its prior judgment have eroded, it must offer more to justify its decision to retain its regulations than mere conclusory statements," the judges wrote.

"Rather, the agency must provide 'assurance that [it] considered the relevant factors,' " they added.

The FCC's reluctance to ensure wireless transmissions are safe for human health extends to wildlife, even as 5G technology gains momentum, said Theodora Scarato, executive director of the Environmental Health Trust, a nonprofit think tank that led the petition against the FCC.

Scarato said her group is promoting the wildlife report to fill a crucial gap in wireless oversight.

She plans to submit the report to the FCC as it conducts its new review of wireless radiation, with the hope the report will go on the record and be considered when crafting future rules.

Regulators need to determine how much EMFs must be curbed to safeguard flora and fauna, she said.

"What is a limit for a person is going to be different" than for animals, Scarato said.

The study notes EMFs can disrupt the Earth's natural magnetic fields that birds, cats, fish and other animals use to navigate and orient themselves.

Towers keep the EMFs away from people on the ground but leave birds vulnerable because they fly near the transmitters and even perch on them, Scarato said.

"Air needs to be designated as habitat," she said. "And EMFs need to be regulated like other pollutants."

The transmissions can disorient bees, causing them to become lost, not return to their hives and die, Manville said.

The bees are already threatened by pesticides and climate change, he said. "It's death by a thousand cuts."

If they have a mass die-off, it could be disastrous for growers that depend on them to pollinate crops, he added.

Manville said as a federal biologist, he pushed to get the Interior Department to establish an environmental review that covered how new sources of wireless radiation would affect wildlife. Interior officials were receptive in 2014, but his proposal stalled at the Commerce Department, which was in charge of internet technology, he said. Then later, the Trump administration scrapped it.

Scarato said this "landmark paper" could be the catalyst for creating wildlife guidelines.

"The challenge before us is there isn't an environmental agency who's even looking at the science at this time," she said. The study's authors "make the case for regulations that we need."
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Source: Santa Fe New Mexican (via Yahoo News), Scott Wyland, 05 Feb 2022

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