“Smart” Meters and Health
– An excerpt from An Electronic Silent Spring
Cindy Sage and James J. Biergiel, EMF electrical consultants: Typical gauge electrical wiring that provides electricity to buildings (60 Hz power) is not constructed or intended to carry high frequency harmonics. But the exponential increase in use of appliances, variable speed motors, office and computer equipment and wireless technologies has greatly increased these harmonics in community electrical grids and the buildings they serve with electricity. Harmonics are frequencies higher than 60 Hz that carry more energy and ride on the electrical wiring in bursts. Radiofrequency (RF) is an unintentional by-product on the electrical wiring.
Such RF may contribute to electrical fires where there is a weak spot (older wiring, undersized neutrals for the electrical load, poor grounding, use of aluminum conductors, etc.). The use of “smart” meters will place an entirely new and significantly increased burden on existing electrical wiring because of the very short, very high-intensity wireless emissions (radio frequency bursts) that these meters produce to signal the utility about energy usage.
In June, 2012, in the Quebec-based magazine, La Maison du 21e siecle, fifty-four scientists and health professionals from around the world released “Smart Meters: Correcting the Gross Misinformation.” This statement explains that “if a smart meter is located on a wall with a bedroom or kitchen, the RF exposure can be the same as if you are within 200 to 600 feet of a cell tower with multiple carriers. With both cell towers and smart meters, the entire body is immersed by microwaves that go out in all directions, which increases the risk of overexposure to many sensitive organs, such as the eyes and testicles. With a cell phone, people are exposed to microwaves primarily in the head and neck (unless using speaker mode), and only when they use their device.” These fifty-four scientists and medical experts urgently recommend a return to analog mechanical meters.
According to environmental consultants Sage Associates, “smart” meters violate the FCC’s public safety standards and endanger people with medical implants as well as developing fetuses and children whose central nervous systems continue to develop into their late teens.(1)
For a video of a man whose pacemaker shut off after “smart” meters were installed around his neighborhood, go to youtube.com/watch?v=BRDhogkdxW4.
In Austin, Texas, Dr. Laura Pressley and her husband noticed that their legs twitched every 25 seconds at bedtime. A meter determined that the wireless utility meter near their bedroom also pulsed every 25 seconds. An interview with Dr. Pressley, “Is Your Smart Meter Causing Brain Damage?” is posted at youtube.com/watch?v=dhF6C_pB22g&feature=em-uploadermail
Judy Neal, 52, Northeast: I had good health, a cell phone and Wi-Fi until September, 2009. I work at home, but starting that month, I could not focus enough to work. I could not remember words or where I’d put things. Every night, I woke up several times, agitated. I was always on high alert. Privately, I wondered if I had Alzheimer’s.
In February, 2010, during a winter storm, our electricity kept going off and on. I got a high-pitched, painful ring in my right ear. I started having heart palpitations and nightmares, and my other symptoms got stronger. I wondered if something was wrong with our electricity. My electrician wondered if my electric company had installed “one of those new meters” on our home. They had – in June, 2009.
After several phone calls and a letter from my doctor, my electric company removed the transmitting “smart” meter. Within days, the pulsing and loud buzzing quieted, and my thinking got clear again. But now, if I am near a cell phone or Wi-Fi or if I drive by a cell tower, I get sharp pain in my head and pressure in my ears.
I consider the “smart” meter my tipping point. Unfortunately, my neighborhood is still flooded with them. Each one transmits pulses of microwave radiation 24/7. When I requested studies about the meters’ effects on human health, my electric company told me I would need a subpoena.
In the fall of 2012, I compiled a list of friends and acquaintances in my town (population 8000) who’ve gotten sick or died since transmitting meters were installed here:
* Three men (48, 55 and 60) and one woman (70) died of a massive heart
attack in 2009; previously, none of them had had a heart condition.
* Two women who’d each been in remission from breast cancer had
recurrences. One has died. The other is currently in treatment.
* Two women in their 50s committed suicide.
* One woman in her 40s had a stroke.
* Several people now have high blood pressure and tinnitus, problems
they had not had before.
When I reported this at a city council meeting, members of a Boy Scout troop, attending for another matter, spoke up and said that they have headaches and cannot sleep. Then, a friend told me that she knows seven people newly diagnosed with cancer. In 2013, two more men in their 40s had heart attacks; one died.
We need independently-funded studies about the health effects of these meters, including when they’re installed on homes that have Wi-Fi, DECT cordless phones, fluorescent lights and/or digital appliances. States that have not yet installed them need to wait until such tests have been conducted, because too many people are getting sick.
Nannette Proctor, 39, Northwest: After our town got “smart” meters, my husband went on anti-anxiety medication for the first time. Two years later, our twelve-year-old told me that she did not do well on tests because she could not remember what she had studied the night before. That sobered me. I got the “smart” meter removed from our house.
For a catalog of symptoms reported by ratepayers after “smart” meter installation, go to EmfSafetyNetwork.org.
Endnotes
. Sage Associates, “Thirteen Flaws of Smart Meter Technology,” 2011;
www.sagereports.com