Autoimmune Disease and EMR Shielding

People with autoimmune disease “seem predisposed to Electrosmog hypersensitivity at levels currently existing in typical home and work environments,” report Trevor G. Marshall and Trudy J. Rumann Heil in a 2017 Immunologic Research article. Marshall and colleagues were researching the use of the drug olmesartan (marketed to treat mild hypertension) as a way to stimulate the immune system (via the vitamin-D receptor) in people with autoimmune disease (e.g., lupus, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Sjogren’s, celiac). Some patients in the study began using commercially available shielded clothing and tenting to protect themselves from electromagnetic radiation (EMR) in their environment. The fabric in these products usually contains threads of silver-coated polyester that partially block EMR. Low-level non-ionizing EMR is known to suppress the immune response—“roughly equivalent to the effect of the NSAID diclofenac,” according to a mouse study.

After receiving several anecdotal reports from patients that this shielding was linked to improved symptoms, Marshall and colleagues decided to investigate. They provided 64 patients with sleeping caps made from the same type of material. The cap covers the entire head from the back of the neck (and brain stem) to the bridge of the nose, covering the forehead and eyes and leaving the nose and mouth exposed. The participants were initially asked to wear the cap once for four hours while sleeping and once for four hours during the day. Since the researchers were simply trying to determine whether the caps had any effect, they asked the patients to report whether they noticed a “strong effect” (good or bad), “definite effect,” “weak effect,” or “no effect.” Ninety percent of the patients reported a “strong” or “definite” effect; yet, only an estimated 3% of the general population is regarded as sensitive to EMR. Marshall and Heil, say “…follow-up reports have indicated a durable response over many months”

Given that electrosmog may affect a sizeable percentage of people with autoimmune disease, the authors urge a closer look at EMR’s effect, using a Faraday cage or washout measures to control for its effect during studies.

When patients with autoimmune disease turn off WiFi routers and stop using cell phones, immune activity increases; and some patients experience more disease symptoms. The authors say, “…we need to plan how to handle subjects whose symptoms become untenable (due to immunopathology) during acclimatization to an Electrosmog-quiet environment, or during immune washout. We cannot ignore the increasing body of evidence, showing electromagnetic effects on the immune system.”

Marshall TG, Heil TJR. Electrosmog and autoimmune disease. Immunol Res. 2017;65:129-135.

Arthur Firstenberg and The Invisible Rainbow

“On Wednesday, March 24, 2021, both the number of satellites in low orbit around the earth, and the volume of data they transmit, increased significantly,” reported Arthur Firstenberg in a Cellular Phone Task Force newsletter (www.cellphonetaksforce.org). Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched another 60 satellites that day; over 1300 are now in orbit. The company has approval to operate 12,000 satellites and requested approval for 30,000 more to supply satellite internet to subscribers. OneWeb also launched 36 satellites that day. This UK company aims to provide internet service to northern Europe, Greenland, Canada, and Alaska when it has 250 satellites in orbit; it is over halfway there. At least seven other companies intend to provide internet and cell phone service via thousands of satellites.

On that same March day, Firstenberg, who had developed symptoms of electromagnetic radiation sensitivity after an x-ray overdose in 1982 as he neared the end of medical school, became ill. His body hurt and itched, and he was unable to sleep. Firstenberg was not alone. He began receiving similar reports from people living in the US, Canada, Norway, Australia, and South Africa.

People who report ill health effects from electromagnetic radiation (EMR) are too often considered delusional, but as Firstenberg relates in his meticulously researched and highly readable book The Invisible Rainbow (Chelsea Green, 2020), the health effects caused by electricity have been known since the 1700s, after Pieter van Musschenbrock and colleagues at the University of Leyden were able to store the static electricity they produced by running a wire into a glass bottle partially filled with water. Documents from that time, which Firstenberg includes in an extensive bibliography, reveal that the Layden experiment led to widespread experimentation and parlor entertainment.

People lined up to experience the power of electricity, generated by friction machines. Physicians in the 1700s began using electrical current to reduce pain, restore muscle tone, change pulse rate, stimulate appetite, and incite menstruation and uterine contractions. But they also became aware of a long list of adverse effects, including dizziness, headaches, nervousness, irritability, depression, insomnia, fatigue, numbness and tingling, muscle cramps, joint pain, backache, heart palpitations, nosebleeds, itching, tremors, eye pain, coughing, respiratory infections, paralysis, sensitivity to alcohol and chemicals, allergies, and more. Scientists at the time observed that some people were very sensitive to the smallest electrical shock while others felt nothing when exposed to the strongest current. Some never generated static electricity while others were “walking spark generators.”

At that time, electricity was viewed as the energy that drove all movement in life, as life’s innate, driving force. But that changed when Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery, giving “an enormous boost to the industrial revolution” (p 45). Volta, a self-taught physicist, insisted “that electricity had nothing to do with life’ (p.45). Yet, as Firstenberg shows, every expansion of electromagnetic radiation from telegraph wires, electric motors, alternating current generating stations and the wires that conducted the energy to buildings, radio stations, radar stations, and satellites have brought an increase in chronic illnesses with the same symptoms and toxic responses to electricity first identified in the 1700s.

George Milken Beard, MD, in 1869, dubbed the condition “neurasthenia.” Although he did not link the array of symptoms to EMR, Beard thought it “a [physical] disease of modern civilization, caused by stress…” (p 51). Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud re-defined neurasthenia as “anxiety neurosis”—a diagnosis that many people who experience the myriad of EMR symptoms in the US still face. In Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia, however, neurasthenia is a physical, not psychiatric ailment. Firstenberg writes, “…in the twentieth century Russian doctors found a number of environmental causes for neurasthenia, prominent among which are electricity and electromagnetic radiation in their various forms” (p 64).

Neurasthenia is not the only EMR-related condition that Firstenberg discusses. He also tracks the rise in diabetes, heart disease, mitochondrial dysfunction, cancer, chronic fatigue/myalgic encephalomyelitis, and recurrent influenza pandemics to the expansion of man-made EMR. And humans are not the only beings affected. Bees die off. Birds fail to reproduce. Trees and other plants sicken and die. When transmitters and cell towers are turned off or fall down, health returns to humans, animals, and plants alike.

In August 2021, Environmental Health Trust and Children’s Health Defense won a case against the Federal Trade Commission, which issues licenses to the internet and cell phone industry. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit court “ruled that the FCC failed to consider the non-cancer evidence regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology when it decided that its 1996 radiofrequency emission guidelines protect the public’s health.” Instead of focusing on the FCC, Firstenberg and the organization he founded in 1996, Cellular Phone Task Force, are challenging the interpretation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, specifically Section 704, which “prohibits states and local governments from regulating cell towers on the basis of the environmental effects of radio-frequency radiation.” “Environment effects” have been interpreted to include health effects. Consequently, local governments and citizens cannot restrict cell towers and antennas based on health concerns.

Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety, of which Firstenburg is a part, is challenging a decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that upholds this long-held interpretation and allows the indiscriminate use of antenna and cell towers without regard to health. They aim “to get the issue of health and environmental effects of radio waves before the US Supreme Court this fall and are asking all like-minded organizations to write or join amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs by November 22, 2021, in support of their appeal.”

Over the years, I have read about terrible effects from pollution, toxic metals, and pesticides like glyphosate. After reading The Invisible Rainbow and the long history of EMR toxicity, I am convinced that stopping the 5G (and soon 6G) technology and developing safer alternatives is the single, most imperative action we can take to improve the health of ourselves and the planet. Given our addiction to the internet and cell phone, I don’t expect that to happen—at least, not any time soon. We may, however, be forced to deal with it.

Firstenberg A. Amicus Curiae Briefs Needed to Support Our Case in the Supreme Court. September 1, 2021. https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Amicus-briefs-needed-for-Supreme-Court.pdf

Firstenberg A. Appeal to US Supreme Court Being Prepared. August 3, 2021. https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Appeal-to-US-Supreme-Court-Being-Prepared.pdf

Firstenberg A. Update on Satellites. March 27, 2021. https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Update-on-Satellites.pdf

Is Radiofrequency Radiation a Factor in COVID-19?

Early in 2020, I was seeing reports that the areas being hardest hit by COVID-19 were also at the forefront of 5G wireless communication technology. 5G technology uses high frequencies (600 MHz to 90 GHz) in addition to the current 3G and 4G LTE microwave bands. Sold as “smart cities” and “the internet of things,” 5G technology requires installation of massive numbers of antennas in order to connect everything and everyone to the network. Consequently, exposure to wireless radiation will also increase. 5G was implemented in Wuhan, China, shortly before the illness made the news.

A few studies have found a correlation between 5G status and COVID-19 case numbers and death rates. Most recently, Canadians Angela Tsiang and Magda Havas analyzed the case and death rates for all 50 US states, the country’s largest counties, and the largest counties in California with respect to 5G use. Case and death rates were “statistically significantly higher for states and counties with compared to those without 5G millimeter wave (mmW) technology….population density, air quality and latitude were significant for only one or two of the analyses [sic].” Radiofrequency radiation (RFR) is known to have multiple biological effects, including oxidative stress and immune dysfunction.

What piqued my interest in the subject, though, was a 2021 study (preprint) by Beverly Rubik and Robert R. Brown. The two researchers dug through over 250 peer-reviewed research reports from 1969-2020 to identify specific biological effects caused by radiofrequency radiation. While they do not view 5G implementation as the cause of the pandemic, they did find evidence that RFR, “in particular, 5G, which involves 4G infrastructure densification, has exacerbated COVID-19 prevalence and severity by weakening host immunity and increasing SARS-CoV-2 virulence.”

Interestingly, many of RFR’s adverse effects, as reported in the literature, mirror known characteristics of COVID-19. RFR causes morphologic changes in red blood cells, including the presence of echinocytes (“spiky” shaped) and rouleaux formation (rolls of stacked red blood cells). Both have been observed in COVID-19 patients. RFR impairs microcirculation and reduces hemoglobin and red blood cell levels, worsening hypoxia. Reduced hemoglobin (in severe disease) and endothelial injury, leading to impaired microcirculation, are part of COVID’s profile.

RFR increases cellular oxidative stress and oxidative injury to tissues and organs; glutathione levels, the body’s major protection against oxidative damage, decreases with RFR exposure. Low glutathione levels were found in some COVID-19 patients; cases studies have reported benefits from intravenous glutathione as a treatment.

RFR is known to increase intracellular calcium by activating voltage-gated calcium channels. Increased intracellular calcium promotes viral entry into cells, replication, and release. It also increases pro-inflammatory pathways, leading to coagulation and thrombosis. Rubik and Brown report that a 2020 study found that elderly hospitalized COVID-19 patients were more likely to survive and less likely to require intubation when treated with a calcium channel blocker (amlodipine or nifedipine), compared to controls [Solaimanzadeh I. Cureus. 2020;12(5):e8069].

RFR is known to worsen heart arrhythmias and cardiac disorders. A review of over 2000 publications on RFR exposure’s effects, published in the 1970s, “concluded that microwave radiation can alter the ECG (electrocardiogram), cause chest pain, hypercoagulation, thrombosis, and hypertension in addition to myocardial infarction.” Blood clotting disorders and heart problems are risks associated with COVID-19.

Rubik and Brown point out that internet use (and RFR exposure) has greatly increased since early 2020, as many have relied on wireless technology for work, school, worship, and socialization during shutdowns and quarantines. Also, ICU patients are exposed to new monitoring devices that employ wireless technology.

Rubik and Brown say, “Several unresolved safety issues must be addressed before wireless 5G is further implemented. Questions have been raised about 60 GHz, a key 5G frequency planned for extensive use that is a resonant frequency of the oxygen molecule. It is possible that adverse bioeffects might ensue from oxygen absorption of 60 Ghz.”

Rubik B, Brown RR. Evidence for a Connection between COVID-19 and Exposure to Radiofrequency Radiation from Wireless Telecommunications Including Microwaves and Millimeter Waves. January 8, 2021. https://osf.io/9p8qu/

Tsiang A, Havas M. COVID-19 Attributed Cases and Deaths are Statistically Higher in States and Counties with 5^th Generation Millimeter Wave Wireless Telecommunications in the United States. Medical Research Archives (European Society of Medicine). 2021;9(4).