2017-12-05
Please refer to section "EMF action".
Electro-Hyper-Sensitivity: The State of Science
A European Parliament Workshop hosted by MEP Michele Rivasi (13th April 2023)
“Researches and publications of a dozen of scientists, from all over Europe”, were presented “at the European Parliament, with communication posters and debate on policy options.”
https://youtu.be/s1Kn7pGy3CI - Video audio/interpretation language: English
“What are the latest findings on EHS from the Science? How can we interpret these findings?" Do these "contribute to the current hypotheses and the scientific debate? What public health and inclusive policy options can be favoured to support EHS people and improve their quality of life? »
Explanatory hypotheses: “individual responses to EMF depending on individual genetic and epigenetic properties”,“functional impairment”,”neurological syndrome”, “stress-disrupted detoxification systems that are saturated by excessive oxidative stress.”
« Les recherches et les publications d’une douzaine de scientifiques, venant de toute l’Europe », ont été présentées « avec des affiches de communication et un débat sur les options politiques ».
- Audio vidéo/langue interprétation : Français
« Quelles sont les dernières découvertes scientifiques sur l’EHS ? Comment pouvons-nous interpréter ces résultats ? Ces recherches peuvent-elles mettre à jour et contribuer au débat scientifique et aux hypothèses actuelles ? Quelles options de santé publique et de politique inclusive peuvent être privilégiées pour soutenir les personnes EHS et améliorer leur qualité de vie ? »
Parmi les hypothèses courantes : « réponses individuelles aux CEM dépendant des propriétés génétiques et épigénétiques », « déficience fonctionnelle » , « syndrome neurologique », « systèmes de désintoxication perturbés par le stress qui sont saturés par un stress oxydatif excessif ».
Reference : https://www.michele-rivasi.eu/politique/atelier-hypersensibilite-electromagnetique-letat-de-la-science
"Man-made Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs),
Voltage-Gated Ion Channel (VGIC) dysfunction in cell membranes,
Oxidative Stress,
DNA damage and related pathologies."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Kn7pGy3CI&t=3571s*
Transcript
"One characteristic of all types of wireless communication electromagnetic fields is that they combine both high and low frequencies. They have RF or microwave carrier waves which are modulated and pulsed at ELFs (extremely low frequencies). And they also have random variability by their nature, which is even lower than the ELF, it is ULF in most cases. One characteristic of all man-made electromagnetic fields is that they are totally polarized and coherent. And this is a significant difference from most, if not from all actually, natural electromagnetic fields. So we cannot confuse natural electromagnetic fields with anthropogenic electromagnetic fields anymore. They are of different nature.
We live within a natural electromagnetic environment. We have the terrestrial electric and magnetic fields (pointing to slide: on the left is our home Earth). They are static basically and locally polarized; I'm not saying totally polarized, I'm saying locally polarized. And similarly, we have the cell membrane electric field, which is also static and it is also locally polarized. And both fields, terrestrial and cell membrane, when they undergo changes of about 20 to 30 percent of their normal intensities, then we have problems. We have problems during magnetic storms in human population, which take place every 10 or 11 years, for a few weeks or days. And during these magnetic storms there are changes, variations in the geoelectric and geomagnetic fields in the order of 20 percent of their normal intensities. And then we have the cell membrane electric field that whenever it undergoes changes of 30 percent in the normal membrane voltage, then the voltage-gated ion channels open or close. So we have initiation of health and biological effects in both cases, when the static and polarized fields, they undergo change variations of about 20 to 30 percent of their normal intensities. This is a very important observation, I think, and we must concentrate on this, in order to explain more the biological effects of electromagnetic fields.
Next slide. On the right we see a polarized field, a totally polarized field. It emits waves that oscillate on a single plane, while an unpolarized electromagnetic field emits waves that oscillate in every possible plane. So it's a big difference. And moreover the man-made fields apart from totally polarized, they are totally coherent. That means all the waves emitted by a source by a man-made source are in phase between them. They take simultaneously the highest and the lowest values of them. I'm sorry, the polarization this huge difference between man-made and natural fields is the cause, is the answer to why we have problems with a cell phone which has an intensity of 0.1 millivolts per square centimeter, when it's close to our head. And and we don't have problems with solar radiation which is a hundred times stronger. The answer is that solar natural radiation is not polarized, while all anthropogenic fields are totally polarized. And what do the totally polarized fields do? Totally polarized fields can produce constructive interference and they can amplify their intensities at certain locations, which natural fields, non-polarized cannot do.
Moreover, polarized and coherent fields can force all charged particles to oscillate in parallel and in phase with them. And we are talking now about living tissue, we are talking about the free, the mobile ions which are in billions inside every single cell and tissue. And they are forced to oscillate in parallel and in phase with these fields. And this initiates biological effects.
Next slide. Here we see main sources of man-made electromagnetic pollution which are high voltage power lines and and wireless communication electromagnetic fields of all types: mobile telephony, Wi-Fi, cordless phones etc. The first is continuous waves, the high voltage power lines, continuous waves; the other are pulsed waves, as you can see, as you can see a sample from a mobile phone signal at the lower picture.
Next slide. Here we see the ELF, the low frequency pulsations of various types of wireless communication electromagnetic fields.
In the upper left we see the 217 Hertz pulsations of 2G mobile phones.
In the upper right we see the 100 Hertz pulsations of 3 and 4G mobile phones and base antennas.
In the lower left we see the 10 Hertz pulsations of Wi-Fi.
And in the lower right we see a very complicated signal, which is the final signal from a base antenna which communicates every moment with hundreds thousands of cell phones, having a signal like the upper right.
So if you join all these complicated signals you get a most complicated signal unpredictably varying its moment of course which is the signal of mobile for antenna.
Next slide please. Here we see DNA fragmentation from wireless communication EMFs. On the left, is the usual picture of unexposed tissue. These are eggs from fruit flies, of different developmental stages, S1 S2, S3, S4. And in the right picture, we see this characteristic fluorescence that denotes fragmented DNA.
Next slide please. And some people say you can have effects in animals but you do not, we do not know, if we have effects on humans. But cells are basically the same in all animals, including humans. They have the same structures, the same membranes, the same ions, the same organelles, the same everything, the same cellular functions. And since health effects initiate always at cellular level, we can expect the same effect to be in different animals. And that's why we see many basic effects, like oxidative stress or DNA damage in various animals and even in plants. Here we see human peripheral blood lymphocytes. The upper left is an unexposed cell; we see that the 46 chromosomes are intact. The upper right, it's exposed to an extreme dose of caffeine, about 300 times higher than the permitted caffeine dose. We see a gap, a smaller aberration, in one chromosome. Smaller aberrations are called gaps and bigger ones are called breaks. Breaks are bigger gaps, if I should say it simply. And in the lower left, we see a cell exposed to a cell phone from one centimeter distance. And we see a break with the fragment of of the chromosome displaced from its original position. And in the lower right picture from the microscope, we see a cell which was exposed to both, the high caffeine dose and the cell phone. And we see many more aberrations.
Next slide please. Some people still wonder whether we have or not effects from man-made fields. But this is simple to be answered. They can go in internet, in Google and type for example "mobile phones health effects" and they will get hundreds thousands of scientific studies. About 65 to 70 percent of them they saw effects. If we look more closely to the studies, we see that the studies that have used simulated signals with fixed amplitude and fixed frequency and fixed pulsations (that's the simulated signals), fifty of them find effects and fifty of them do not find effects. But if we look at studies that have used real-life signals, then more than 95 percent of them they do find effects. So we get a very strong indication that variability, apart from polarization and coherence and intensity and the existence of low frequencies of pulsations and that duration of exposure which are very important parameters, the variability of the signal is an extremely important additional parameter for the bioactivity.
Next slide please. We have ICNIRP recommendations that are adopted by governments to protect people from electromagnetic fields. They provide no protection. ICNIRP recommendations actually provide no protection. In this table we can see on the left different types of fields; in the second column, we see the ICNIRP limit for for each of these fields and in the third column we see the threshold intensities above which are recorded biological and health effects. And we can see that the threshold intensities for which biological and health effects are recorded are thousands of times and even millions of times, in some cases, lower than the recommended limits by ICNIRP.
Next slide please. If I could summarize the way effects take place, I would say man-made electromagnetic polarized electromagnetic exposure causes dysfunction of voltage-gated ion channels in cell membranes. This dysfunction alters the intracellular concentrations of critical ions such as calcium and potassium and sodium (...)"
Absence of EN audio for a segment before the end. Only corresponding FR interpretation is available: https://youtu.be/_NcIiUHgFPQ?feature=shared&t=4378
Translated from French interpretation:
"and protons and this disruption in the concentration of ions in cells triggers the production of reactive oxygen species from specific enzymes. These reactive oxygen species can also cause inflammation, EHS syndrome. And these reactive oxygen species can be transformed into much more powerful reactive oxygen species that are evidently found in the factors that cause DNA fragmentation and cause damage to cells. So when we have DNA damage, it is damage that is irreparable and cannot be reversed. This can cause cell death, it can cause degenerative diseases, it can also cause sterility, if it affects reproductive cells, it can also cause aging since the cells will have to use much more energy. On the other hand, the other irreparable damage to DNA is actually cellular mutation. And if you have a cell that has mutated and proliferates, this can lead to cancer or mutations in the offspring. You also have cellular senescence and again this can cause aging since the body has to use more energy.
Again, I could tell you more, but I'll leave it there for now. You can look at the following slides later because unfortunately I'm out of time. I would perhaps now like to discuss with you the mechanism that I propose and which is based on the mechanism of voltage-controlled ion channels. I would like to explain to you that the dysfunction of these VGIC channels could specifically produce effects."
End of translation from French interpretation.
Audio (EN) is available for the final remarks. Transcript is provided below.
Referring also to the "structure of the voltage-gated channels on cell membranes and how the dysfunction of those channels can cause all these effects that we are talking about. If I have more time later, maybe I will talk more about this. Thank you very much."
Response to question https://youtu.be/s1Kn7pGy3CI?feature=shared&t=4631
"Variability is an additional extremely important factor for the bioactivity. And all wireless communication electromagnetic fields are each moment unexpectedly varying, they are extremely varying; and this is by their nature. And with every new generation of wireless communication EMFs, the amount of transmitted information increases, so the variability of the signals increase as well. And the more people use the same antenna, the variability increases, we have more pulsations. And the unexpected variations of the signal, they become more and more with every new generation. So taking this consideration, we can reasonably expect that with every new generation we have more intense biological and health effects."
*Introduction by M. Rivasi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Kn7pGy3CI&t=3512s
Two additional subjects are examined: #HavanaSyndrome and the Moscow signal.
Yael Stein MD, is the co-author of the following review article on EHS.
Stein, Y., & Udasin, I. G. (2020). Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS, microwave syndrome) – Review of mechanisms. Environmental Research, 186, 109445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.109445
[EN] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Kn7pGy3CI&t=2160s
[FR] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NcIiUHgFPQ&t=2163s