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00:00:39.280Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Debra Davis.
00:00:47.720Even the United States Government Accountability Office issued a report last month on 5G and they concluded that it's been marketed as this great energy saving technology, but that because of the tremendous increase in demand that comes about with 5G, that there will be no gain in real efficiency.
00:01:12.660In other words, that the increase in demand will swamp any increase in efficiency that might be created.
00:01:20.280Dr. Davis is an internationally acclaimed award-winning scientist and author of more than 220 scientific publications and three popular books, including When Smoke Ran Like Water and Disconnect.
00:01:35.160She was the U.S. Senate-confirmed presidential appointee to the National Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
00:01:43.440and served as an advisor to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the World Health Organization.
00:01:51.920Dr. Davis was formerly a professor at the University of Pittsburgh
00:01:55.500and was the founding director of the world's first Center for Environmental Oncology.
00:02:00.860She is currently the president of the Environmental Health Trust.
00:02:05.160Well, Dr. Davis, thank you so much for joining me today. The topics we're about to cover are
00:02:12.780things that go through my mind often, but have yet to find somebody to really go in depth with.
00:02:20.860So thank you so much for being with us. I'm delighted to be with you, Ayanna.
00:02:26.180Wonderful. Well, Dr. Davis, your work with Environmental Health Trust on cell phone radiation, environmental pollutants and disease is so vital and also incredibly overwhelming.
00:02:41.000You know, there is so much to discuss. And I'd like to begin by recognizing the United States is somewhat of an anomaly when it comes to attitudes towards technology.
00:02:51.480For example, France has banned the advertising of cell phones aimed towards children under
00:03:20.380There are more cell phones in the United States than there are people.
00:03:25.500So as an entrance point into discussing the impact of radiation and the threat of 5G,
00:03:30.820can you share how the United States differs in its attitude towards technology?
00:03:35.600I think the United States is governed by a technological imperative,
00:03:39.840which says if we can do something technically, then we should do it.
00:03:43.860And there's never been any consideration of its impact on the environment or public health.
00:03:48.860And so in the United States today, for example, some schools encourage children to use their phones in school. That is illegal in France and Israel and many other high-tech countries.
00:04:00.600So we have drunk the Kool-Aid completely when it comes to the way cell phones are being used, particularly by young children and especially by very young children.
00:04:11.440We understand that when phones were first marketed, they were, frankly, quite expensive.
00:04:18.160They cost the equivalent of, say, $3,000 for a phone today, and it costs over $1,000 a month just to operate one.
00:04:26.700So the early phones in the early 1990s were used chiefly by medical and military people, very limited and controlled uses.
00:04:35.160No one ever imagined that we'd see what we have today, where children as young as six are getting phones and little ones are using them kind of like pacifiers.
00:04:51.280And industry experts tell me some of them are just horrified by some of the uses and
00:04:57.020exposures that we see taking place with young children today, because few people understand
00:05:02.020that a cell phone is a two-way microwave radio.
00:05:07.300Thank you so much for that introduction, Dr. Davis.
00:05:11.640Now, in preparing for our conversation, I looked at much of the published research on
00:05:16.520cell phone radiation, and the science is portrayed as being very erratic.
00:05:21.360From 2003 to 2009, there were a series of studies on cell phone exposure and male fertility,
00:05:27.920and each one seemed to contradict the other.
00:05:31.080Similarly, the World Health Organization research project titled Interphone took 10 years
00:05:37.020and cost $30 million and ultimately produced contradictory conclusions.
00:05:43.600So I'd like to ask why research on cell phone exposure has been so unreliable, and if this
00:05:49.360is a reflection of the wide discrepancies between independent studies on cell phone radiation
00:05:53.800versus that of industry-funded studies in order to prevent any sort of meaningful regulation.
00:06:00.840Well, the answer for why there's such inconsistent results is that there is something called the
00:06:06.260manufacturing of doubt. And we have seen that when it comes to climate science. We've seen that when
00:06:12.180it comes to a lot of environmental studies on pesticide impacts, and we have it here as well.
00:06:17.300That is to say that when you look at who has funded research, you'll find that the majority
00:06:23.700of studies that say that there's no problem have been funded by industry.
00:06:28.580And that is, by the way, the majority of studies, because there's very little money to support
00:06:33.140groups like ours, which is the only independent group of its kind doing research in this field.
00:06:39.780And we do not take money from industry.
00:06:42.240And we are trying to create independent, scientifically credible information.
00:06:47.300But you're absolutely right. When you look at the evidence, you see a mix of evidence.
00:06:51.380And the reason is that a lot of those studies have been manufactured and they are inconclusive by design or they're designed to find no problem, whether there is one or not.
00:07:02.960Let me give you one example, as you can see on our website as well.
00:07:07.460Since 2017, there were reports that American diplomats in Cuba and China and Russia experienced
00:07:16.280strange effects on their brain and brain damage, that the people reporting these said they felt
00:07:24.460like they had been targeted by some sort of weapon. And they were frankly at first dismissed
00:07:30.160as kooks. Just last week, the National Academies of Sciences issued a report in which it concluded
00:07:37.580that these diplomats have suffered permanent brain damage that were likely caused by pulsed
00:07:45.200microwave weapons. And yet for three years, the people suffering from these effects were basically
00:07:51.960denied support from the federal government, and they were made to feel like there was something
00:07:56.320wrong with them. The reality is, this is a very rare and terrible thing that happened,
00:08:02.760but that microwaves at a high power can damage the brain. So the question we have to ask
00:08:09.440is what about microwaves at a lower power? A cell phone, after all, is very weak,
00:08:15.280but the signal from the cell phone is pulsed microwave radiation. And what we have to ask
00:08:23.260ourselves, what are we doing to our children and our grandchildren, some of whom are growing up
00:08:28.560with levels of microwave radiation that did not exist even three years ago? And I think if you
00:08:35.580look at the totality of the independently produced evidence, which we have available on our website,
00:08:42.420you will see clear indications that cell phone radiation can suppress sperm count. In fact,
00:08:50.960experiments done on sperm are quite compelling because you can take two test tubes of sperm
00:08:57.080collected from a human. One test tube gets exposed to cell phone radiation under controlled conditions
00:09:03.180and the other doesn't have anything happen to it at all. It's the control tube. And after a few
00:09:09.060hours, you can evaluate the quantity of sperm, how well it swims, and what DNA damage there is to it.
00:09:16.680And these studies, which have been replicated by some of the top researchers in the world, consistently find that sperm that is exposed to cell phone radiation has three times more damage to its DNA and a much lower sperm count.
00:09:32.800wow that is frightening and i've heard that overall rates of many types of cancer are in
00:09:44.300decline except within certain age demographics namely under the age of 50 a group whose rates
00:09:51.700of cancer diagnosis like colon and rectal are actually doubling now i understand this can't
00:09:57.840be attributed to cell phone radiation alone. But it certainly plays a role in it, doesn't it?
00:10:04.260So can you share why you think we are seeing such a frightening increase in these diagnoses
00:10:09.100among young people, and how they correlate with parts of our bodies that are especially
00:10:14.400susceptible to radiofrequency radiation? My colleague Anthony B. Miller and I have
00:10:20.320published an article in a peer-reviewed journal that does report on this extraordinary growth
00:10:25.380in colorectal cancer and in particularly the quadrupling of rectal cancer in people under
00:10:31.160the age of 30 in the past decade. Now, this is a rare cancer, but because it's seldom looked for
00:10:37.800when people first complain of tummy aches or discomfort, unfortunately, some of these young
00:10:43.820people who develop this rare disease will die from it because you never think of someone age
00:10:48.88030 having rectal cancer. We are seeing an increase in certain types of cancer plausibly associated
00:10:56.140with cell phone radiation or with CAT scans, the computerized tomography exams, which we have done
00:11:04.440many more of than are needed, according to the radiologists. And the bottom line is that exposure
00:11:11.660to x-rays, ionizing radiation, as well as exposure to microwaves, non-ionizing radiation,
00:11:19.900can damage colorectal cells, can damage thyroid cells, and we are seeing unexplained increases
00:11:27.660in these types of cancer now in younger people. The reason why there's a general decline in cancer
00:11:35.580in the United States and many countries is largely for one reason, and that is fewer people are
00:11:42.960smoking. And smoking has been such a predominant cause of many different types of cancer and heart
00:11:49.420disease that when more people have stopped smoking, that has an overwhelmingly beneficial effect
00:11:56.940and cancer rates drop. That's a good thing. People should not smoke. However, if you look at cancers
00:12:04.920that are not related to smoking and not related to improved diagnosis like you get with the
00:12:11.640prostate-specific antigen test, the blood test for prostate cancer, or with mammographic screening
00:12:17.560for breast cancer. If you look at all the cancers that have nothing to do with screening
00:12:22.040and nothing to do with smoking, you find that there has been a continuing increase in those cancers.
00:12:28.420And we've published analyses of this increased generational risk, where we show that the generations born since the 1990s compared to those born earlier have a much higher risk of cancer not related to smoking or diagnostic ascertainment.
00:12:48.080Now, we can't tell you why these cancers are increasing, but here's what we can say.
00:12:54.600Studies that we've done with our colleagues in Brazil at the Federal University of Porto
00:12:59.600Alegre show that the parts of the body that absorb the most radiation when the phone is
00:13:05.760in the pocket would be, of course, the colorectal area, the reproductive area for men and women.
00:13:12.920And if you're talking on a phone, of course, the thyroid is going to get the highest exposure.
00:13:17.540And recently, Leonard Hardell and colleagues in Sweden have reported on a tripling of thyroid cancer that they believe is not explainable solely by an improved ascertainment and diagnosis.
00:13:31.700They believe that this increase in thyroid cancer is also in part due to the increased use of cell phone microwave radiation.
00:13:45.780And I'd like to ask you about what cell phones are doing to our brains.
00:13:50.960And a lot of people like to brush this off, but I read that Swedish neurosurgeon Leif
00:13:56.980Salford found that with just two-hour exposure to a cell phone, rats displayed neuronal damage
00:14:03.580in the cortex, hippocampus, and basal ganglia.
00:14:07.940How does cell phone usage increase our likelihood of brain cancer?
00:14:12.360Well, brain tumors take, unfortunately, up to 40 years to develop.
00:14:16.880And so that is why there are many different relevant factors, including a history of use of x-rays, dental x-rays and others.
00:14:26.980But the process by which cancer starts can involve a weakening of membranes.
00:14:34.640And in my book, Disconnect, The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, I tell the story of Alan Frey.
00:14:41.480who in the 1970s worked for the Office of Naval Research in the United States.
00:14:47.160And he showed that if you took an animal and exposed it to microwave radiation,
00:14:54.120and remember, there were no cell phones when he did this work,
00:14:57.220that it would weaken the membrane of the brain.
00:15:02.020Now, the brain has a blood-brain barrier,
00:15:05.100and it's designed to protect us from poisons that might be circulating in the body.
00:15:09.700And normally, it works to keep those poisons from getting into the bloodstream.
00:15:15.920And Alan Frey's work clearly showed that exposure to the microwave radiation, just like that
00:15:24.700that we use today in cell phones, weakens the blood-brain barrier.
00:15:29.240And that weakening of the blood-brain barrier means that any toxic agent that might be circulating
00:15:35.520in the body can get more deeply into the brain.
00:15:39.700And over the long haul, that could certainly increase the risk of brain cancer.
00:15:46.020It's now understood that exposure to smartphones, not necessarily through radiation alone, is responsible for something called lopsided brain development in children who are using technology heavily during their developmental stages.
00:16:01.760And even the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages families to reduce wireless radiation exposure.
00:16:08.100So how do cell phones affect children in terms of toxic exposure, digital dementia, and radiation?
00:16:16.180And not to get too apocalyptic, but realistically, what will future generations act like if we continue to raise them off smartphones?
00:16:25.200Well, that's a very, very good question.
00:16:27.720And I think the answer is that we don't know, but we have good reasons for concern right now.
00:16:32.980because we know that children who do spend more time on phones do have this unequal development
00:16:39.560in their brain. In fact, studies in Korea have diagnosed what they call digital dementia in
00:16:46.980children as young as eight. And that means that their brains are not developing fully so that
00:16:54.500there's a large body of evidence that's showing things from memory damage to balance problems
00:17:02.060and hearing problems in those who use cell phones the most.
00:17:07.220The Russian National Committee for Protection
00:17:40.820Well, I'd like to now ask about wired versus wireless headsets.
00:17:46.400Now, I know initially it was encouraged to wear wired headphones
00:17:49.520when on the phone to give our bodies a buffer from the radiation.
00:17:53.460But I read that testing done by the Consumers Association in the UK
00:17:56.800showed that using a wired headset actually tripled the radiation to the brain.
00:18:01.260Is this true? You know, do wired headsets provide safety? And if they do, how do we reckon with the wireless headsets and how they've been pushed as a trend, really? Do AirPods and the like increase high levels of radio frequency radiation because of Bluetooth technology and their position in the ear canal?
00:18:22.800First of all, I am not aware of any independent studies showing a tripling of radiation into the brain from a wired headset.
00:18:32.060What I can tell you is if you have a wired headset and it's draped on your body and your phone is in your pocket,
00:18:38.700then you are, in fact, extending the exposure because you're having your body in touch with it.
00:18:45.080Ideally, a wired headset should be used with wires running with an air tube between the wire and the ear, and then not on the body, but as my phone right now happens to be on airplane mode and is on my desk, I never keep it in my pocket.
00:19:04.000And I think that this is a question of changing people's habits and understanding that you don't want to have a two-way microwave radio next to your body.
00:19:13.920And so if you put a wired headset, and by the way, it's getting harder and harder to use a wired headset, because the latest phones, they don't even have a jack. So there are ways to get around that. But we need major public education about what the reasons are for using wired networks, such as what they've done in parts of Italy and Israel.
00:19:39.860do you mind describing that a bit more of what they are doing in italy and israel and then also
00:19:47.160going into the issue with wearing bluetooth ear pods because of course we all know they're getting
00:19:55.420very popular think about it bluetooth is a thousand times weaker than the wi-fi from your
00:20:02.760phone it is okay that's good however if you are keeping these things as i've seen some children
00:20:10.160with them in their head 10 hours a day it's like a fashion statement then even though it's much
00:20:16.660weaker radiation you're getting that directly into the ear canal in your brain as you correctly
00:20:22.780just said. So the mayor of the town of Borjo Franco di Vria in Piedmont, Mayor Livio Tola,
00:20:35.900instructed the town's high school and elementary school to use cables and to turn off the Wi-Fi
00:20:41.620because of their concerns that there was enough evidence of harm, that they didn't want to run
00:20:48.720the risk of treating their children like lab rats in an experiment with no controls.
00:20:54.460Now, Italy happens to be the home of Professoressa Fiorella del Poggi, and she has led in the
00:21:04.740conduct of some very important research showing that animals exposed to levels of wireless
00:21:11.500radiation that you might get from a router develop very rare, highly malignant tumors.
00:21:18.720And aware of this problem, some of the mayors in Italy have said that they have to reduce exposures as much as possible, especially for children.
00:21:30.340Now, this is not being met with unanimous enthusiasm, but the fact of the matter is that's one town in Italy, and there are many others where steps have been taken to try to reduce the burden on kids and others.
00:21:49.160For example, in Israel and in France, you cannot have wireless routers in kindergartens or nursery schools.
00:21:58.760And Israel has banned the use of cell phones in classrooms for several reasons, one of which has to do with bullying, but another which has to do with radiation exposure.
00:22:08.700The same in France. Teachers have wired computers for internet access, and they have major public health initiatives to educate people about why and how to reduce your exposures.
00:22:22.140now of course routers may seem different to folks than the ear pods and I don't mean to
00:22:32.060keep harping on this bluetooth headset question but I just see personally all of my friends wear
00:22:43.800bluetooth wireless headsets because one you know their phone can be across the room the wire doesn't
00:22:50.080need to be connected to the phone so maybe some people are thinking that it's healthier because
00:22:54.960the phone can be far away while you're wearing these bluetooth headphones whether they're apple
00:22:59.540airpods or some other brand but for those of us who are listening saying but wait i think these
00:23:06.680bluetooth headphones are better and and maybe people think that bluetooth isn't radiation
00:23:13.460I, you know, I'm very, you know, I'm confused. Okay. Okay. Okay. It is radiation. Um, there's
00:23:20.940no question about it. And the question you have to ask yourself is this, what kind of proof do you
00:23:25.780want? Do you want sick people and dead bodies, or do you want to pay attention to the animal research?
00:23:34.520Take a step back for a minute. Those drugs that we take, they're tested on animals
00:23:40.500and the animal tests just inform whether or not it's safe to do it in people. We've just gone
00:23:47.760through this now with the vaccine development. They first are tested in animals, then they're
00:23:52.780tested in people, then data are collected, and then they are released. Right now, what we have
00:24:00.800is backwards. We are being asked to prove that the technology is harmful before taking steps to
00:24:08.080reduce exposure. I think that's backwards. I think we should first say, do we have valid animal
00:24:15.340studies indicating risk? And there the answer is from Belpoji and others, yes, we do. And not only
00:24:23.020that, you have a security risk with Bluetooth because they're very, very easy to hack. But
00:24:30.080leaving aside that security risk, Dr. Joel Moskowitz of Berkeley has a website with lots
00:24:37.200of information about the problems that Bluetooth headphones can constitute. And again, links to
00:24:44.220that can be found on our website. Several doctors have reported, although the FDA tells you
00:24:51.200everything's fine, the reality is the FDA has been a captured agency along with the
00:24:57.560Federal Communications Commission when it comes to this issue.
00:26:19.860well thank you for all of that Dr. Davis and now I'd like to transition our conversation to
00:26:29.580discuss 5G. And to begin, I'd like to read a quote from Brussels environment minister,
00:26:35.240Celine Fremont, who in 2019 said, the people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can
00:26:41.580sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt. When asked about implementing 5G.
00:26:47.580Now, comparatively here in the United States, all we see are advertisements for the power
00:26:52.260and possibilities of 5G. For listeners, can you explain what is 5G and perhaps clarify that
00:26:59.220consumers don't need 5G at all. This is really just being driven by manufacturers who want to
00:27:05.680make a lot of money and governments who see an opportunity to forge through the technological
00:27:10.560frontier and could really care less about the well-being of their population.
00:27:16.080Well, it is, you know, it's complicated, right? First of all, what you see marketed today as 5G
00:27:24.360is not using the true 5G millimeter frequency that it will be able to use in another four years.
00:27:33.340And so I have to take a moment and explain. 3G and 4G operate on 900 million to 2.4
00:27:39.160billion cycles a second. That's what they work on. And they often have the antennas
00:27:45.640on towers miles away from where people live. Now, in the urban environment, it can be highly
00:27:51.720problematic, and people can get exposed to much higher levels where antennas are located closer
00:27:57.440to people. But in general, they have been further away from human populations. 5G,
00:28:04.300faster frequency, will allow you to download a movie to your phone in a few seconds. That's true.
00:28:14.180I'm not sure. I would actually not recommend watching a movie on your phone or on your
00:28:19.960wristwatch, but people are doing it nowadays. And the market for 5G is not about improving your
00:28:26.880phone reception at all. In fact, you will be using 4G LTE for voice for the foreseeable future.
00:28:34.320What 5G does is it can improve the speed with which you download information. However,
00:28:41.500in order for it to work, because the frequencies are so much faster and shorter, they have to
00:28:49.060cut down trees, and move other large objects so that every 100 meters or less, there's a new
00:28:56.9805G antenna located, sometimes outside your bedroom window. But you're absolutely right,
00:29:03.620Ayana. In order for 5G to be a commercial success, and that's what's driving this,
00:29:09.140you will need a 5G router, a 5G phone, a 5G computer, a 5G baby monitor, a 5G refrigerator,
00:29:18.220a 5G coffee pot, and on and on. Now, I don't want my coffee pot to talk to my refrigerator
00:29:24.860or be able to turn on my washing machine with my phone. And if I did, I could do it right now
00:29:31.340with 4G, by the way. But the whole promise of 5G to connect 50 billion devices through the
00:29:38.380Internet of Things is being rethought, including, by the way, in China. You've probably heard that
00:29:44.820we're in a fierce battle with China over commercializing 5G. But in fact, I recently
00:29:50.160wrote in the International Business Times that that conflict is more hype than reality. And it's
00:29:57.480designed to kind of goad the American appetite for competition with China. The former finance0.63
00:30:06.540minister of China, Liu Jiwei, warned last month in a publication that I have verified that existing
00:30:14.2605G technology in China is immature, very expensive, and doesn't work very well. In addition,
00:30:21.960the electricity costs for 5G are 10 times the profit. That's what he said. And therefore,
00:30:30.800of course, the state telecom company is asking for a subsidy for electricity. Because of course,
00:30:36.240in China, the government and the business are kind of one, but it doesn't make any sense.
00:30:41.480And that's why they warned that the cost cannot be justified.
00:30:46.860In fact, a Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology concluded a white paper which said that they couldn't justify the long-term benefits and rewards of 5G.
00:30:59.120So there's been a lot of hype, and I think it's really been a mirage.
00:31:04.780In China, three out of every four people polled said they didn't think they needed 5G phones.
00:31:13.940Wow. Hearing those details was fascinating in a kind of sick way, but that's really, yeah, I'm seeing it now, the infrastructure, the development, the cash flow.
00:31:31.800Yeah. Part of our problem is, frankly, the complexity of the technology, and it really is complicated.
00:31:37.640The complexity of technology makes it really easy for people to get confused very, very easily.
00:31:44.400And it's really, really important to keep focused on what we do know.
00:31:50.480And what we know is that we have wired broadband cables, which are the backbone of the internet.
00:31:57.360It's safer, it's faster, and it's more secure.
00:32:03.620Wireless is always going to have the problem of connectivity, security, and safety.
00:32:09.720You're not going to get rid of those problems.
00:32:11.400If you want, you can have faster speeds by putting it wired to and through the premises.
00:32:20.500You can have a wired cable that goes right to the premises.
00:32:24.200And several cities in the United States are starting to treat wired broadband as a public utility.
00:32:31.360And that means that the city is providing access. Recently in New York City, they gave a 500,000 people access to wired broadband so that they would not be on the other side of the digital divide.
00:32:49.640and wired broadband is going to be faster and more secure. Even the United States Government
00:32:56.260Accountability Office issued a report last month on 5G, and they concluded that it's been
00:33:03.860marketed as this great energy-saving technology, but that because of the tremendous increase in
00:33:11.260demand that comes about with 5G, that there will be no gain in real efficiency. In other words,
00:33:19.640that the increase in demand will swamp any increase in efficiency that might be created
00:33:25.360with it. That's a pretty important and damning fight. So when you look at the next stimulus
00:33:31.640package, which we know they're working on now and they should have it done, it should contain
00:33:37.580billions of dollars to build out municipal fiber optic broadband cable and not more wireless.
00:33:46.680because right now in Lake Tahoe region, in order to put up more wireless, they're cutting down
00:33:53.500trees, cutting down trees because they're inconvenient. And some of these are ancient
00:34:00.960forests. This is really unacceptable. Absolutely. Yeah. And I understand that
00:34:07.580Europe has covered the substantial body of science that talks about the potential hazards
00:34:12.580of wireless radiation on the body and environment, while our media here hasn't.
00:35:05.180Yes, it has transformed our lives and improved our ability to respond to emergencies.
00:35:10.540But if we have an overall push for municipal fiber optic broadband cable, this will substantially improve our public health.
00:35:21.100It will also allow investment in infrastructure and building what needs to be built here without endangering migrating animals, the honeybee, as well as human health.
00:35:34.960and there is an overwhelming amount of research on global 5g wireless networks and how they
00:35:46.480threaten ecological systems for example a review published in environmental international found
00:35:52.480that 70 of 113 studies showed that rf mefs affect birds insects and plants similarly it's been
00:36:02.240proven that electromagnetic pulses from wireless devices can disrupt migrating creatures' internal
00:36:08.000compass. And there is even research that shows how trees that are in close proximity to mobile
00:36:13.800phone-based stations suffer high levels of damage. And, you know, Debra, I wonder if in layman terms,
00:36:21.420you can share what you know about 5G's effect on the Earth and how it might permanently change
00:36:26.840the behavior and physiology of our more than human kin. I'm so glad that you're bringing
00:36:33.060attention to this. It's really, you know, it's a dark time of year, but I want to thank you for
00:36:37.740bringing light to this issue. And I hope that others in the media will follow your lead,
00:36:43.660because you are one of the few voices that's asking these very important questions,
00:36:48.420and I really appreciate it. What we know is that all migrating animals that have been studied so
00:36:55.480far, have a protein near the eye called the cryptochrome, crypto meaning hidden and chrome
00:37:01.320meaning color. And that cryptochrome is believed to be essential to migration. What we don't fully
00:37:09.220understand is exactly its role in perceiving the Earth's magnetic field. But no one can explain
00:37:19.020how the hummingbird or the butterfly gets to go thousands of miles during cloudy, dark nights
00:37:25.900and manages to migrate to the same place year after year. The explanation appears to
00:37:32.740be that the cryptochrome is what allows these migrating animals to sense changes in the Earth's
00:37:41.940magnetic field and work as a kind of inborn GPS. This cryptochrome, which has been identified in
00:37:50.040some birds, butterflies, and insects, can be disturbed by changes in the earth's magnetic
00:37:59.900field that are induced by electromagnetic radiation. That's a big deal. We also know
00:38:06.580from studies that have been done on trees, and these are on our website at ehtrust.org,
00:38:13.140that observing trees over periods of years, if you look at a tree and you look at the density
00:38:20.740of the crown closest to a cell phone antenna compared to the density of the crown of the same
00:38:28.060tree furthest away you see significant damage damage to to leaf growth and to the crown
00:38:38.000now that is a tree which takes years to grow actually one of the things that we're interested
00:38:44.780is inviting people to send us pictures of trees where they can see evidence of this kind of damage
00:38:50.960Because it takes looking carefully and observing where these antennas are, where the tree is.
00:38:58.820And some of the pictures, it almost looks like the tree is trying to flee away from the antenna.
00:41:49.140This is just horrifying and so important to hear.
00:41:55.120I really appreciate all the work that you've put into learning and sharing this information.
00:42:02.960Well, let me tell you some things that are less horrifying.
00:42:05.800We have studies that have been done with cell cultures, and we show that even though there is damage from cell phone radiation,
00:42:14.180If you have a diet that is full of green tea, garlic, and you get a good night's sleep, these things actually can reverse whatever damage might have been done by this kind of radiation.
00:42:29.680So what I want to say to all of your listeners is, even if you have in the past kept your phone in your pocket, the damage that might have happened can be fixed through some of the nutritional things that you know about that make sense for other reasons.
00:42:46.240and they include a diet that's high in sources of vitamin c and that includes green tea and other
00:42:56.480sources that are antioxidants that repair damage and we can actually show this experimentally in
00:43:02.760repairing damage that has been produced so it's not all doom and gloom and whatever damage might
00:43:11.160have occurred, one of the benefits we have is our DNA has repair enzymes. And those can be brought
00:43:20.560to bear when it comes to whatever damage might have occurred here as well. And always remember
00:43:27.100that distance is your friend. And that if you keep things off your body and limit your use,
00:43:35.760it's going to be beneficial to you and reduce any damage that you might have incurred.
00:43:43.440Well, that's great to hear because I was going to ask, what are the threats of 5G when it comes
00:43:50.180to the human body? And do these higher frequencies pose a different threat when it comes to our
00:43:56.120organs and immune systems? And of course, it seems like it does, but also that there are0.65
00:44:01.460things we can do to remedy this. But if there is any other pieces you want to add about how our
00:44:10.040human bodies are being affected, and what to look out for, I'd be happy to hear more of that.0.94
00:44:17.900Well, we certainly know that young women should not keep phones in their bra,
00:44:22.120because the breast is very sensitive to radiation. And there's information on that,
00:44:28.520again on our website as well. And that men who want to make healthy babies should get the phone
00:44:33.980out of their pockets. That's what the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic have told men
00:44:39.120trying to make babies for some time. And I think that generally we have to understand
00:44:45.560the technology can be life-saving, but it creates a sense that we're all living under an emergency
00:44:51.560all the time. And we don't have to be living like that anymore. And I think as 2020 comes to a close,
00:45:00.240many of us will be glad that we don't have to be constantly looking for the next terrible piece of
00:45:06.380news. And hopefully we'll be able to pull together with better news to come. Oh, yeah, I'm with you
00:45:13.800there. Now, I know we spoke about this briefly before, but I'm wondering if countries that do
00:45:21.720transition to 5G, what happens to 4G and 3G? Does 5G rely on the existing 4G infrastructure?
00:45:29.720And if so, does this contribute to a surplus of radiation?
00:45:33.860That's a really good question. And the answer is, we're not sure. But yes, 5G has to rely on 3G
00:45:40.580in 4G. Otherwise, all these devices would not work. It has to. And probably for the foreseeable
00:45:47.840future, it's going to be using 4G because the voice alone will require it. So right now,
00:45:55.200what's being marketed as 5G across the country is really taking advantage of the existing networks
00:46:01.880and just putting a little bit faster signal on top of it. But what's planned in the future
00:46:08.080is something much more vast that will require a million new antennas in the United States.
00:46:19.400Gosh, just imagining that and the infrastructure and like you were saying,
00:46:24.540the trees and just the pathways that will have to be cleared. And also, what it reminds me of is
00:46:31.280Whenever we see these antennas go up, not only are trees and plants cleared from the path, they're also sprayed with a lot of poisons to keep things from growing up in those pathways, in those easements that the antennas go on.
00:46:48.440So it's not just that the plants and trees are cleared, it's also poisoned so that plants don't continue to grow in that area.
00:46:55.840and uh yeah well devra as we begin to come to a close i'd like to ask you about the future of 5g
00:47:05.880and for many i think it feels like a futile project to resist it but i want to open this
00:47:12.320as a space to remind listeners that we can live slow lives and we actually deserve that we don't
00:47:19.940have to live in a world with the fastest transmission of data and we can function
00:47:53.580should have a renewed appreciation of what the breath really means.
00:47:59.900You know, of course, that forest bathing is a recommended medical prescription in Japan
00:48:07.340that people are told when they are stressed to go out into the forest.
00:48:12.900And they're written prescriptions to do that.
00:48:15.180So the idea that we need to slow it down and smell the roses has been around for quite some time.
00:48:25.120I think that when you start to look at the barriers to 5G that are emerging around the world, one of them is a shortage of workers, another is a shortage of equipment.
00:48:40.200But a more important one is that many more people in our culture today are saying, no, I don't want it. I don't need to be able to watch a movie on my wrist. I don't want to be able to have my dishwasher turned on by my cell phone.
00:48:58.560And so I think that we're getting a more thoughtful rebellion at this point about 5G. And it's going to require the industry to step forward and come up with safer technologies that are designed with human beings in mind.
00:49:16.400Right now, technologies are approved depending on whether or not they do not interfere with one another.
00:49:26.080In other words, your cell phone and your laptop are approved so that the signals don't interfere with each other.
00:49:34.000But they're not approved with the question of what do they do to the human heart or the human brain.
00:49:40.880So I know that there are more and more people within the industry that are asking this question.
00:49:46.400And I feel pretty confident that because there are so many from industry itself, we will
00:49:58.960And before we say goodbye, Debra, I'd like to just open the floor to you.
00:50:05.200And if there's any resources that you would like to share with us or just anything that
00:50:10.860we may not have covered in our time together that you'd like to share at this time, I would
00:50:16.220love to hear that. Thank you. If you go to our website, we have safety cards that you can print
00:50:23.180out or hand out to children and their parents about why and how to practice safe technology.
00:50:31.120We have resources on 5G and other aspects of this question, including information about air
00:50:38.020pollution and other environmental health hazards that are avoidable. And right now, we are in the
00:50:45.220fight of our lives because we have filed a lawsuit against the FCC. The FCC, the Federal
00:50:52.860Communications Commission, issued a report toward the end of last year, the end of this past year,
00:50:59.320that said, we believe that we can safely test phones and other devices with standards that are
00:51:08.48024 years old. Now, that sounds like a joke, doesn't it? 24 years ago, gas cost about a little
00:51:17.480more than a buck a gallon. There were no cell phones. There were very, very few devices at all.
00:51:24.960And the standards that were developed in the 20th century are really not relevant to what's going on
00:51:31.800in the 21st century when it comes to these devices. As I mentioned before, these devices
00:51:37.820were used mostly by medical and military people, mostly men. And no one ever dreamed that there
00:51:44.300would be more than a billion children regularly using these two-way microwave radios. So that's
00:51:51.320why we at Environmental Health Trust have mounted this lawsuit. And we have said, wait a minute,
00:51:56.420you cannot seriously maintain that it's safe for us to use these devices that only look at these
00:52:04.560old standards, and the old standards are only based on avoiding heat. They don't even take
00:52:11.420into account the fact that cell phone radiation can damage sperm and cause some people to get
00:52:17.080very, very sick who are very sensitive to this exposure. So we have a lawsuit before the FCC.
00:52:24.860Oral argument will be made on January 25th, and this case is hugely precedential.
00:52:33.000It requires a tremendous amount of resources, financial resources, of course.
00:52:39.620And we welcome any support that your listeners might be able to provide to us as we finalize our preparations for this lawsuit.
00:52:48.120well thank you so much for taking that on and for researching these hidden agendas that so many of
00:53:02.020us are completely unaware of and for being a watchdog and for trying to hold these people
00:53:10.060accountable who get away with so much it's really incredible work and yeah I'm totally blown away
00:53:19.200and definitely feel like I need to shift my lifestyle choices after this interview I knew
00:53:26.260was coming I knew that after this call that I was going to be making changes and it just makes
00:53:33.200sense like why wouldn't we why would we put ourself at risk we live in such a toxic world
00:53:37.940We don't need more assaults on our body or on the earth. There already are so many to deal with that for the assaults that we can say no to and shift and not even really that hard.
00:53:52.380I mean, so when we can make changes that are in our control that aren't that difficult, I really believe we need to do that, not just for ourselves personally, but for the entire project of 5G and smartphone, you know, the future of smartphones, because it doesn't, you know, when we decide to make changes, it impacts us, but it also impacts the industry at large.
00:54:15.560And I think we have to really remember those two things.