The herd immunity concept is a mathematical theory that states that a vast majority of the community must be immunized to protect the entire community from disease. Both politicians and medical providers work hard to force vaccinations upon every man, woman, and child in the world.

Remarkable controversy exists on the safety and efficacy of vaccinations in the United States. Research supporting vaccine safety is scant yet crucial to the well being of every American citizen. Every day, parents are coerced, cajoled, and even bullied at gunpoint into vaccinating their children. Parents who make conscious choices not to vaccinate after weighing the risk benefit ratio of vaccinations are sometimes turned over to Child Protective Services for so-called child endangerment. But who is really endangering the children?

Here is a glance at just a tiny portion of the many 2008 vaccination statistics:

January 4: A 45-day-old child in Hanoi died after being vaccinated with hepatitis B vaccine.

January 25: A 2-month-old in the central province of Thua Thien – Hue died after getting hepatitis B vaccine and diphteria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine.

January 31: French authorities opened an investigation for manslaughter against a vaccination campaign in the 1990s that resulted in 30 plaintiffs who have launched a civil action for vaccine damages, including the families of five people who died after vaccination.

February 19: A 4-month-old child died after vaccination with diphteria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine and drinking two drops of anti-polio medicine named Poliovax.

February 25: Damage suits were filed in Japan by hundreds of people who contracted hepatitis B through mandatory childhood vaccinations

February 28: A study found that 9 out of every 10,000 children vaccinated with ProQuad, a combination measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox vaccine, have seizures and convulsions.

March 2: A 2-month-old child in Ca Mau died after being injected with hepatitis B, pertussis and tetanus vaccines.

April 23, 2008: 4 infants died after receiving measles vaccinations,

April 30: A 3 month old baby died after being vaccinated for whooping cough, diphtheria and jaundice.

May 13: A 17-year-old boy died after measles inoculation.

May 15: 60 people in eastern Ukraine were hospitalized after measles vaccination.

May 16: 32 additional people in eastern Ukraine were hospitalized after measles vaccination.

Most vaccine related deaths, particularly in the US, are classed as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) instead of vaccine induced. SIDS is the single most common cause of death in the post neonatal period. Between the years1983 and 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that SIDS was listed as the cause of death for 61,882 infants.

Since 1980 the amount of vaccinations required for children began to rise quite dramatically. These vaccines contain various toxicants including thimerosal, a mercury (Hg) containing neurotoxicant, which may contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders including SIDS, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), which are all on the rise (Hertz-Piccioto et al, 2006; Losiniecki & Prahlow, 2006; Braun et al, 2006; Meggs et al, 1996; Szpir, 2006).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders may affect as many as 1 in 6 children in the U.S. totaling over 12 million citizens (Ball, 2001).

Many of these conditions developed or expanded around the time of increased vaccinations. Comparison of data on the increase of neurodevelopment disorders and the growth of synthetic chemical production show the data began to merge around 1970 (Colborn,v 2004) much the same time the number of vaccines given to children began to increase. Vaccines warrant further investigation as possible causation of neurodevelopment disorders.

The pharmaceutical industry and government do a great job quelling the fears of Americans when it comes to vaccinations. This is accomplished in numerous ways, largely through the media, by creating fear of disease, publicizing statistically insignificant measles cases to create fear of pandemics, employing catchy vaccine campaigns, and working to create guilt for choosing not to vaccinate.

Guilt is created by campaigns which claim that good parents vaccinate and if a parent loves their child, they should vaccinate. Critical thinking tells us that the statement “good parents vaccinate” is faulty reasoning or logical fallacy, known as an appeal to popularity.

Another logical fallacy that government and medical providers engage in is the appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is something that is claimed to be true, in this case vaccinations are good for health, on the basis of an assertion by an authority figure who is not an expert, such as a politician. Yet politicians regularly enact laws requiring children to be vaccinated before entering school.

New Jersey parents were recently told they would be jailed if they did not show up at court on a Saturday morning to prove their children were vaccinated or be led to vaccination by gunpoint at the courthouse. The individual health of the children was not taken into account and the judges and politicians involved did not have medical degrees to make determinations as to the appropriateness of vaccination for a given child.

In some cases vaccinations have contraindications for certain populations. Yet parents were coerced by the logical fallacy, appeal to authority, that these authority figures had their children’s best interests at heart.

What is really crucial to know is do vaccines and work? And more important, are they safe? What are the risks? Finally, does the child or individual have any contraindications to the vaccine in question? With that information, a risk/benefit analysis for the child can be completed. This is what the pharmaceutical industry and government don’t want… thinking parents. There is money to be made in vaccinations by drug companies, some of which is then passed on to politicians in the form of campaign contributions. Amongst all of this, parents must make decisions that could change their child’s life, cause seizures, inflict their death, impair them with autism, or save them from disease.

Government would like parents to believe that vaccines are perfectly safe, that there is no connection to any neurological disease, and deaths which occur immediately post-vaccination have nothing to do with the vaccination. Researchers with conflicts of interest are often employed or paid sums of money to produce studies finding that there is no connection to any death or illness from vaccines, especially autism. Yet, truly independent studies are finding just the opposite. There is indeed a correlation between increasing vaccination and simultaneously increasing childhood illness, and even death.

The first research project to examine effects of the total vaccine load received by children has found autism-like signs and symptoms in infant monkeys receiving the same vaccinations. Wakefield and colleagues found functional brainstem anomalies in vaccinated animals that may be relevant to some aspects of autism, an acquired neurodevelopmental disorder.

Hewitson examined behavioral, functional, and neuromorphometric consequences of the childhood vaccine regimen and also found it mimics certain neurological abnormalities of autism.

Walker and colleagues (2008) found many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression profiles between vaccinated and unvaccinated animals.

There are many more studies with similar findings, including many which have been denied publication by medical journals, which are largely owned by pharmaceutical companies with vested interest in selling their vaccines.

Which is worse… the risk of disease or an injurious inoculation? Only you can decide and each of us should have the right to decide what is best for our bodies and the bodies of our loved ones.

References

Ball LK, Ball, R, Pratt, RD (2001). An assessment of thimerosal use in childhood vaccines. Pediatrics. 107:1147-1154.

Braun, JM, Robert SK, Froehlich, T, Auinger, P, & Lanphear, BP (2006). Exposures to environmental toxicants and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in U.S. children. Environmental Health Perspectives. 114:12, 1904-1909.

Colborn, T (2004).Neurodevelopment and endocrine disruption. Environmental Health Perspectives. 112:9, 944-949.

Hertz-Picciotto, I, Croen, L, Hansen, R, Jones, C, Van De Water, J, & Pessah, I (2006). The CHARGE study: an epidemiologic investigation of genetic and environmental factors contributing to autism. Environmental Health Perspectives. 114:7, 1119-1125.

Hewitson, et al. Pediatric Vaccines Influence Primate Behavior, and Amygdala Growth and Opioid Ligand Binding. IMFAR . May 16, 2008.

Japan facing vaccination lawsuits. United Press International. February 25, 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/02/25/japan_facing_vaccination_lawsuits/6883/

Losiniecki, A, & Prahlow, JA (2006). Sudden Infant Death Due to Neurofibromatosis Type 1. American Journal of Medical Pathology. 27:4, 317-319.

Meggs, WJ, Dunn, KA, Bloch, RM, Goodman, PE, & Davidoff, AL (1996). Prevalence and nature of allergy and chemical sensitivity in a general population. Environmental Health Perspectives. 51(4), 275-82.

Over 90 hospitalized after measles vaccination in east Ukraine. Russian News and Information Agency. May 18, 2008. Retrieved from: http://en.rian.ru/world/20080518/107670116.html

Parents worry about post-vaccination deaths. VietNamNet Bridge. March 6, 2008. Retrieved from: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2008/03/772057/

Protocol broken in lethal vaccination case. The Times of India. April 27, 2008. Retrieved from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chennai/Protocol_broken_in_lethal_vaccination_case/articleshow/2986732.cms

Stobbe, M. Kids vaccine linked to fever, seizures. Associated Press. February 28, 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/health/5576512.html

Szpir, M (2006). New thinking on neurodevelopment. Environmental Health Perspectives. 114:2, A100-A107.

Wakefiled, Stott, C, Lopresti, B, Tomko, J, Houser, L, Sackett, G, Hewitson, L,. Pediatric Vaccines Influence Primate Behavior, and Brain Stem Volume and Opioid Ligand Binding. IMFAR. Saturday, May 17, 2008.

Walker, SJ, Lobenhofer, EK, Wakefield, A, Hewitson, L. Microarray Analysis of GI Tissue in a Macaque Model of the Effects of Infant Vaccination. IMFAR. May 17, 2008.

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The Cell Phone and the Cell: The Roll of Calcium

A discovery made over thirty years ago may hold the key to why weak non ionizing electromagnetic radiation seems to have so many ill effects on health, ranging from exacerbating allergies and autism to reducing fertility and promoting cancer. We now have a plausible scientific explanation for the mechanisms involved.

Andrew Goldsworthy 2008

Electromagnetic fields have effects at the cell level

Weak non-ionizing radiation, such as that from mobile (cell) phones has biological effects, ranging from changes in brain function to the exacerbation of allergies and the induction and promotion of cancer. There have been many attempts to find the mechanisms and hundreds of scientific papers have been written about the changes they cause in the physiology and biochemistry of a wide range of living organisms (www.bioinitiative.org). These include plants, animals and even single cells such as yeast and diatoms. This means that least some of the effects must be occurring at the level of individual cells. There is more than one mechanism, but the one I will discuss here is the electromagnetic removal of calcium ions from cell membranes, which makes them become porous and leak. This simple observation can explain almost all of the known biological effects of weak electromagnetic radiation (Goldsworthy 2007).

Our bodies make good antennas

The biological effects of electromagnetic radiation probably begin with the organism acting like the antenna of a radio. The radiation generates eddy currents flowing through it and (in the case of cell cultures) also through the surrounding medium. When they impinge on the delicate membranes that surround its individual cells, they disturb their ionic structure and destabilise them. The same is true of the membranes that divide cells into their various internal compartments and organelles.

The human body makes a good antenna since blood vessels, which are low resistance pathways filled with a highly conductive salty fluid, connect virtually all of its parts. Even cell membranes, which have a high resistance to DC, allow radio-frequencies through because of their high capacitance. So when you use a mobile phone, its signal will be transmitted to all parts of your body; nowhere is safe.

Radiation increases membrane permeability

Many scientific studies suggest that the first effect of the eddy currents is to generate small alternating voltages across the cell membranes, which increase their permeability. This can have serious metabolic consequences as unwanted substances diffuse into and out of cells unhindered, and materials in different parts of the cell, that should be kept separate, become mixed. But how do these tiny alternating voltages increase membrane permeability?

The answer lies in their ability to remove calcium ions from the membrane surface. We have known since the work of Suzanne Bawin and her co-workers (Bawin et al. 1975) that electromagnetic radiation that is far too weak to cause significant heating can nevertheless remove radioactively labelled calcium ions from cell membranes. Later, Carl Blackman showed that this occurs only with weak radiation, and then only within one or more “amplitude windows”, above and below which there is little or no effect (Blackman et al. 1982; Blackman 1990).

How weak fields remove calcium ions from membranes

Calcium ions are positively charged calcium atoms. Free calcium ions normally occur in calcium salts but, like other positive ions, they can also bind to the negatively charged membranes of living cells. These membrane-bound ions are in chemical equilibrium with the corresponding free ions in the surrounding medium, but there is a disproportionately large amount of calcium because it has two positive charges (i.e. it is divalent), which attracts it more strongly to the negative membrane. Most of the other readily available ions in living cells (e.g. potassium) have only one charge (i.e. they are monovalent). However, the extra charges on the divalent ions such as calcium and magnesium are literally their undoing. They let weak alternating electromagnetic fields remove them selectively from the membrane, which can have dire metabolic consequences.

The apple harvester

A simple way to explain the selective removal of divalent ions is to imagine trying to harvest ripe apples by shaking the tree. If you don’t shake it hard enough, no apples fall off, but if you shake it too hard, they all fall off. However, if you get it just right, only the ripe ones fall off and are “selectively harvested”.

We can apply the same logic to the positive ions bound to cell membranes. Alternating voltages try to drive these ions off and then back onto the membranes with each half cycle. If the voltage is too low, nothing happens. If it is too high, all the ions fly off, but return when the voltage reverses. However, if it is just the right, it will tend to remove only the more strongly charged ones, such as divalent calcium with its double charge. Since at least some of these divalent ions will probably be replaced at random by other ions when the field reverses, there will be a net removal of divalent ions. However this occurs only within a narrow range of field strength to give an amplitude window.

There may be more than one window. Blackman discovered at least two for calcium removal from brain tissue. This may be because not all membranes are alike; for example, some may hold their calcium more firmly and need a stronger field to remove them. Also, the local availability of other ions to replace the calcium may affect the ease with which it is removed. Nevertheless, the general effect is that electromagnetic exposure within an amplitude window reduces the amount of calcium bound to the membrane.

Frequency effects

If they are to remove calcium in this way, the fields must be alternating. Low frequencies work best because they allow more time for dislodged calcium ions to diffuse clear of the cell membrane and be replaced by different ions, before the field reverses. Pulses are more effective than smooth sine waves because their rapid rise and fall times catapult the ions quickly away from the membrane and leave even more time for them to be replaced by different ions before the field reverses. This is probably why the pulsed radiation from mobile phones can be particularly damaging.

Radio waves

High frequency electromagnetic fields such as radio waves have relatively little biological effect unless they are amplitude modulated with a low biologically-active frequency. In amplitude modulation, the signal strength of the radio wave rises and falls in time with the low modulating frequency, but this has much the same effect in dislodging calcium ions as the raw low frequency.

Ion cyclotron resonance

Some low frequencies are unusually effective, either on their own or when used to modulate radio waves. This may be due to resonance. An example is 16Hz, which is the ion cyclotron resonance frequency of potassium ions in the Earths magnetic field.

Cyclotron resonance occurs when ions move in a steady magnetic field such as that of the Earth. They go into orbit around its lines of force at a characteristic frequency, which depends on the charge to mass ratio of the ion and the strength of the steady field (see Liboff et al. 1990). If they are simultaneously exposed to an alternating field at this frequency, they absorb its energy and increase the diameter of their orbits, which also increases their energy of motion and chemical activity.

Potassium resonance is particularly important because potassium is by far the most abundant positive ion in the cytosols of living cells, where it outnumbers calcium by about ten thousand to one. It is therefore the ion most likely to replace any calcium that has been lost by electromagnetic exposure. An increase in the chemical activity of potassium will therefore have a major impact on its ability to replace calcium. Consequently, calcium loss is enhanced at the resonant frequency for potassium. Also, any metabolic consequences of this calcium loss may be similarly enhanced. So if we discover bioelectromagnetic responses that peak or trough at 16Hz, this is evidence that it may stem from divalent ion depletion in membranes.

In fact, many biological responses appear to peak at around the resonant frequency for potassium. These include stimulations of the growth of yeast (Mehedintu & Berg 1997) and higher plants (Smith et al. 1993), changes in rate of locomotion in diatoms (McLeod et al. 1987), and the especially severe neurophysiological symptoms reported by electrosensitive people exposed to the radiation from TETRA handsets (which is pulsed at 17.6Hz). All of this supports the notion that a large number of the biological responses to weak electromagnetic radiation stem from the loss of calcium (and possibly other divalent ions) from cell membranes.

Calcium removal makes cell membranes leak

Positive ions strengthen cell membranes because they help bind together the negatively-charged phospholipid molecules that form a large part of their structure. Calcium ions are particularly good at this because their double positive charge enables them to bind more strongly to the surrounding negative phospholipids and hold them together like a cement. However, monovalent ions are less able to do this (Steck et al. 1970; Lew et al. 1998; Ha 2001). Therefore, when electromagnetic radiation replaces calcium with monovalent ions, it weakens the membrane and makes it more likely to tear and form pores, especially under the stresses and strains imposed by the moving cell contents. Normally, small pores in phospholipid membranes are self-healing (Melikov et al. 2001) but, while they remain open, the membrane will have a greater tendency to leak.

Metabolic consequences of membrane leakage

Membrane leakage can explain almost all of the adverse effects of electromagnetic radiation, including those from mobile phones and their base stations. I will describe just a few and explain how they can occur.

Mobile phone radiation can damage DNA

Lai and Singh (1995) were the first to show this in cultured rat brain cells, but it has since been confirmed by many other workers. The most comprehensive study on this was in the Reflex Project, sponsored by the European Commission and replicated in laboratories in several European countries. They found that radiation like that from GSM mobile phone handsets caused both single and double stranded breaks in the DNA of cultured human and animal cells. Not all cell types were equally affected and some, such as lymphocytes, seemed not to be affected at all (Reflex Report 2004). However, in susceptible cells, the degree of damage depended on the duration of the exposure. With human fibroblasts, it reached a maximum at around 16 hours (Diem et al. 2005).

Because of the very high stability of DNA molecules, they are unlikely to be damaged directly by weak radiation. The most plausible mechanism is that DNase (an enzyme that destroys DNA), and possibly other digestive enzymes, were leaking through the membranes of lysosomes (organelles that digest waste) that had been damaged by the radiation. If so, there is also likely to be considerable collateral damage to other cellular systems.

If similar DNA fragmentation were to occur in the whole organism, we would expect a reduction in male fertility from damage to the DNA of developing sperm, an increased risk of cancer from DNA damage in other cells (this may take many years to appear) and genetic mutations that will appear in future generations. It would be unwise to assume that exposures of less than 16 hours are necessarily safe, since covert DNA damage could give genetically aberrant cells long before it becomes obvious under the microscope. It would also be unwise to assume that the damage would be restricted to the immediate vicinity of the handset since the signal is transmitted easily through the human body and only very weak fields are needed to give these non-thermal effects. Nowhere is safe, not even the sex organs.

Mobile phones can reduce fertility

We might expect DNA damage in the cells of the germ line to result in a loss of fertility. Several studies have shown significant reductions in sperm motility, viability and quantity in men using mobile phones for more than a few hours a day (Fejes et al. 2005; Agarwal et al. 2006; Agarwal et al. 2007), so it is advisable for men to keep their mobile calls to a minimum. We do not yet know the effects of mobile phone use on female fertility since the eggs are formed in the unborn foetus and we will have to wait until the child reaches puberty to see the full effects of her mother’s mobile phone use.

So far, similar investigations have not been performed with the radiation from mobile phone base stations, but we cannot assume that they are necessarily safe just because they are further away. Radiation levels, even hundreds of metres from the mast, can still give biological effects and living near one will involve a considerably longer exposure than from just making the occasional phone call.

Radiation and allergies

The current massive increase in allergies and allergy-related illnesses can be attributed to our rising exposure to electromagnetic radiation. By increasing the permeability of the barriers that normally protect all of our body surfaces, it enhances the penetration of foreign chemicals and allergens and increases our sensitivity to them.

Electromagnetic exposure disrupts tight junction barriers

We might expect radiation that is strong enough to disrupt lysosomes also to be strong enough to disrupt the outer membranes of living cells so that these too become more permeable to large molecules.

The effects of this would be most serious in the cells of the “tight-junction” barriers that protect many parts of our bodies. These normally give extra protection because the gaps between their cells are sealed with impermeable materials to restrict the passage of unwanted substances around their sides. An example is the blood-brain barrier, which normally prevents foreign materials in the bloodstream from entering the brain. The radiation from mobile phones can increase the permeability of this barrier, even to protein molecules as large as albumin (Persson et al. 1997) and this can damage the neurones beneath (Salford et al. 2003).

Calcium ions control barrier tightness

The loss in “tightness” of the blood-brain barrier could be due to an increase in membrane leakiness and/or to a disruption of the tight junctions themselves. Either of these could be triggered by an electromagnetically-induced loss of calcium. The central role of calcium in controlling the “tightness” of these layers is supported by an observation by Chu et al. (2001) on respiratory epithelia (which also have tight junctions). They found that either low levels of external calcium or the addition of EGTA (a substance that removes calcium ions from surfaces) caused massive increases in its electrical conductance (a measure of its permeability to ions) and to its permeability to much larger virus particles.

We have many tight junction barriers

One of these is the protective layer in the skin called the stratum granulosum, which is the outermost layer of living skin cells, where the cells are connected by tight junctions (Borgens et al. 1989; Furuse et al. 2002). In addition to this, virtually all of our other body surfaces are protected by cells with tight junctions, including the nasal mucosa (Hussar et al. 2002), the lungs (Weiss et al. 2003) and the lining of the gut (Arrieta et al. 2006). An electromagnetically-induced increase in the permeability of any of these would allow the more rapid entry into the body of a whole range of foreign materials, including allergens, toxins and carcinogens.

Loss of tightness can exacerbate many illnesses

Electromagnetically induced losses of barrier tightness at our body surfaces can explain how the general increase in public exposure to electromagnetic fields may be responsible for our ever-increasing susceptibility to various allergies, multiple chemical sensitivities, asthma, skin rashes and bowel cancer to name just a few. In addition, a non-specific increase in the permeability of the gut has been linked to type-1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome and a range of others (Arrieta et al. 2006). The list is truly horrendous and points to a very real need to reduce our exposure to non-ionising radiation.

Electrosensitivity

Electrosensitivity (alias electromagnetic hypersensitivity or EHS) is a condition in which some people experience a wide range of unpleasant symptoms when exposed to weak non-ionizing radiation. Only a small proportion of the population is electrosensitive (currently estimated at around three percent) and an even smaller proportion is so badly affected that they can instantly tell whether a radiating device is switched on or off. At the other end of the scale, there are people who may be electrosensitive but do not know it, because they are chronically exposed to electromagnetic fields and accept their symptoms as being perfectly normal. Electrosensitivity is in fact a continuum and there is no clear cut-off point.

Causes and symptoms of electrosensitivity

Why some people are particularly susceptible to this condition is uncertain and not everyone shows the same symptoms. However, they seem to be characterised by having skins that have an unusually high electrical conductance (Eltiti et al. 2007, Table 5). This is consistent with them having a stratum granulosum, in their skins that is abnormally leaky, and may account for the high incidence of allergies and chemical sensitivities commonly found in this group.

One explanation for their sensitivity to the radiation is that they normally have low levels of calcium and/or magnesium in their blood. This gives low concentrations of these ions on their cell membranes, so that that less has to be removed by electromagnetic exposure to produce biological effects. The range of electromagnetically-induced symptoms reported by electrosensitives (which includes skin disorders, pins and needles, numbness, burning sensations, fatigue, muscle cramps, cardiac arrhythmia, and gastro-intestinal problems) is remarkably similar to those from hypocalcaemia (low blood calcium) (http://tinyurl.com/2dwwps) and hypomagnesaemia (low blood magnesium) (http://tinyurl.com/3ceevs). This suggests that they share a common aetiology, that being that there are inadequate concentrations of these divalent ions on the cell membranes to maintain stability. This promotes the formation of pores and gives rise to an unregulated flow of materials across them. Low levels of external calcium are known to increase the excitability of cultured nerve cells (Matthews 1986), which could account for the neurological disturbances found in electrosensitive individuals.

Ordinary people are affected too

Even people not suffering from EHS show changes in brain function in response to the radiation from mobile phones and their base stations. These include reacting more quickly to simple stimuli but having a poorer performance in more complex tasks (Abdel-Rassoul et al. 2007). Among the detrimental effects, is that on our ability to drive motor vehicles. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, we are four times more likely to have an accident while talking on a mobile phone, regardless of whether it is a hands-free type, whereas talking to a passenger has little or no effect.

All of this can be explained as being a result of membrane leakage in neurons (highly branched brain cells, which behave like telephone exchanges that can transmit information to up to thousands of others). An essential part in the transmission of signals from one neuron to another is the release of calcium ions through membranes into the cytosol (the main part of the cell) in the transmitting neuron. This then triggers the secretion of chemical neurotransmitters that carry the signal to other neurons via the synapses (where their branches make close contact). Because electromagnetically induced membrane leakage will give a higher background concentration of calcium in the cytosol, the neurons will respond sooner to stimulation and give a faster reaction time for the whole organism.

However, they also generate spurious nerve impulses that may have no right to be there. For example, Beason & Semm (2002) found that simulated mobile phone signals caused a 3.5 fold increase in the firing rate of bird neurons. If this were to happen in humans, we would expect it to trigger random thoughts, create a general mental fogginess and give symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Expected consequences are a loss of concentration and a reduced ability to perform complex tasks. Tasks likely to be affected include learning in classrooms fitted with Wifi and driving a car while using a mobile phone.

Autism

There has been a 6000 percent increase in autism in recent years, which corresponds in time to the proliferation of mobile telecommunications, Wifi and microwave ovens. We can also explain this in terms of electromagnetically-induced membrane leakage leading to brain hyperactivity.

Just after its birth, a child’s brain is essentially a blank canvas, and it goes through an intense period of learning to become aware of the significance of all of its new sensory inputs, e.g. to recognise its mother’s face, her expressions and eventually other people and their relationship to him (Hawley & Gunner 2000). During this process, the neurons in the brain make countless new connections, the patterns of which store what the child has learnt. However, after a matter of months, connections that are rarely used are pruned automatically (Huttenlocher & Dabholkar 1997) so that those that remain are hard-wired into the child’s psyche. The electromagnetic production of spurious action potentials during this period will generate frequent random connections, which will also not be pruned, even though they may not make sense. It may be significant that autistic children tend to have slightly larger heads, possibly to accommodate unpruned neurons (Hill & Frith 2003).

Because the pruning process in electromagnetically-exposed children may be more random, it could leave the child with a defective hard-wired mind-set for social interactions, which may then contribute to the various autistic spectrum disorders. These children are not necessarily unintelligent; they may even have more brain cells than the rest of us and some may actually be savants. They may just be held back from having a normal life by a deficiency in the dedicated hard-wired neural networks needed for efficient communication with others.

A useful homology might be in the socialisation of dogs. If puppies do not meet and interact with other dogs within the first four months of their life, they too develop autistic behaviour. They become withdrawn, afraid of other dogs and strangers, and are incapable of normal “pack” behaviour. Once this four-month window has passed, the effect seems to be irreversible (just like autism). If this homology is correct, it suggests that experiments on dogs could hold the key to the investigation of autism and its possible links with electromagnetic exposure.

Defense mechanisms

The body is well able to detect weak non-ionizing radiation and the resulting damage. This ability probably evolved over countless millions of years to mitigate the effects of the wideband radiation from lightning during thunderstorms. We already know how some of them work. These are as follows.

Calcium expulsion

The concentration of free calcium in the cytosols of living cells is normally kept extremely low by metabolically-driven ion pumps in the cell membrane. Under normal circumstances, the entry of free calcium ions is carefully regulated and small changes in their concentration play a vital role in controlling many aspects of metabolism. These processes can be disrupted if electromagnetically-induced membrane leakage lets extra and unscheduled amounts of calcium into the cell, either from the outside or from calcium stores inside. To compensate for this, the mechanism that normally pumps surplus calcium out can go into overdrive. However, its capacity to do this is limited because, if the pumping were too effective, it would hide the small changes in calcium concentration that normally control metabolism.

Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC)

The activation of the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase is triggered by calcium leaking into cells through damaged membranes and by nitric oxide produced by damaged mitochondria (membrane-bound particles that provide most of the cell’s energy). This enzyme leads to the production of chemicals called polyamines that help protect DNA, and the other nucleic acids needed for protein synthesis.

Heat-shock proteins

These are perhaps wrongly named because they can also be produced directly in response to electromagnetic radiation at levels millions of times lower than those that generate significant heat (Blank & Goodman 2000). We even know the base sequence of the DNA that senses the radiation. The job of these heat-shock proteins is to combine with vital enzymes, putting them into a sort of cocoon that protects them from damage. However, this also stops them working properly, so it isn’t an ideal solution.

As we can see, these defense mechanisms are triggered either by radiation-damage or by the radiation itself. Their role is to try to limit the damage, but they cannot be deployed without using extra energy and disrupting the cell’s normal functions. Consequently, they are programmed not to cut in until the damage approaches intolerable levels. This effect will maintain the damage and observable symptoms close to the levels at which they cut in over a wide range of radiation intensities. Consequently, electrosensitive individuals may find that their symptoms (such as headaches and dizziness) from distant mobile phone masts and local handsets may be approximately the same, at least in the short term.

Long-term effects

These defense mechanisms originally evolved to protect living organisms from weak natural radiation, such as that from thunderstorms. However, they were “designed” only for intermittent use because they disrupt normal metabolism and are expensive in bodily resources and energy. These resources have to come from somewhere. Some may be drawn from our physical energy, making us feel tired. Some may come from our immune system, making us less resistant to disease and cancer. There is no hidden reserve. As it is, our bodies are constantly juggling resources to put them to best use. For example, during the day, they are directed towards physical activity but during the night, they are diverted to the repair of accumulated damage and to the immune system. Day and night irradiation from mobile phone masts (which run continuously) will affect both, with little or no chance to recover. In the long term, this is likely to cause chronic fatigue, serious immune dysfunction (leading to an increased risk of disease and cancer) and many of the neurological symptoms frequently reported by people living close to mobile phone base stations (see Abdel-Rassoul et al. 2007).

Wifi and DECT phones may be just as bad

Wifi is a family of systems widely used for the wireless interconnection of computers. A typical system consists of a router, which acts as a nerve center connecting computers to each other and to the Internet. DECT stands for “Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications”. It was originally a European standard for cordless phones but has now become widely adopted throughout the world, including the USA. A typical installation consists of one or more base stations that plug into a phone line and each may then connect wirelessly to several handsets. What routers and DECT base stations have in common is that they both transmit their information in the form of pulsed microwaves, which are similar but not identical to those of mobile phones, and they both normally run continuously.

However, there is a growing number of anecdotal reports that the continuous radiation from Wifi routers and DECT phone base stations can have similar effects to mobile phone base stations so they should also be considered as potentially unsafe. We should perhaps add to these the growing use of DECT cordless baby alarms. Although to date there is no firm evidence of adverse effects, these devices irradiate the baby continuously at close range and, to the best of my knowledge, they have no