2006-03-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

The power industry released translations of the Soviet reports, which were prefaced by Howard Barnes, an engineer for AEP involved in the John Hopkins studies. The Soviet scientists had studied hundreds of linemen, compared to the 11 in the American study. And while the American study involved only physical examinations, the Soviets had performed psychological and neurological tests as well.

But Barnes, in his introduction, invoked an argument that’s all too familiar in the current GM debate. He pointed out that there were then 500,000 miles of high-voltage lines in the U.S., and there wasn’t a single report, not one confirmed case, of anyone being killed or made ill by the NIEMR from such lines, so they must be safe.

As in the case of GM food, that statement was based on there having been no studies on the effects of living near the power lines.

The story that unfolded makes riveting reading. Research findings were suppressed and falsified. Important scientific witnesses failed to turn up or were not contactable. Committees were stacked with industry-friendly scientists.

Marino, Becker and citizens won in the end, at tremendous personal costs to themselves. They prevented one of the two big power lines from being built, and the company that built the first announced it would not build another 765,000-volt line.

Most revealing in the entire episode was the way Schwan defended the indefensible orthodoxy. He denied all scientific evidence that went against his a priori calculation based on the ‘known laws of physics’ and the utterly false assumption that the living organism was to be regarded as no different from dead or inanimate matter.

As Marino wrote, "...Schwan seemed to view the studies [reporting non-thermal NIEMR effects] as weeds in the garden of known physical laws. Because the know laws did not predict the results of the studies, Schwan’s reaction was to denigrate them, rather than assume that there existed unknown laws, or unknown interpretation of known laws.."

Schwan was not alone, the scientific establishment had thrown its weight behind his position until it became untenable. But there has been little change in scientific outlook since.

Protecting your well-being when you cellphones

2005-12-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

Protecting your well-being
As a leading manufacturer of mobile phones, Sony Ericsson is committed to high safety standards in the design of its products.

All of our phone models are carefully designed and rigorously tested to comply with international safety standards and government health and safety regulations. These standards employ wide safety margins to give greatest protection to the public.

Extensive research over many years has not established any conclusive evidence linking adverse health effects with the use of mobile phones meeting those standards and regulations.

The radio wave exposure guidelines employ a unit of measurement known as the Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR. Tests for SAR are conducted using standardized methods with the phone transmitting at its highest certified power level in all used frequency bands. The differences in SAR values between phone models do not reflect a difference in safety.

Cellphone Health

Protecting your well-being when you cellphones