Energy and Climate Change CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by A S Fitzgerald (SMR14)
Summary
Certain people display an adverse health reaction to pulsed microwave radio frequency signals at levels well below what are, at present, deemed to be safe levels.
To date, people can decide whether or not to use wi-fi, DECT cordless telephones and other devices emitting pulsed microwave radio frequency signals.
The public at large is unaware that devices employing pulsed microwave radio frequency signals can give rise to health problems.
Roll-out of smart meters will be first UK-wide application employing wi-fi signals in every home and business premises where the UK Government is actively supporting their implementation.
Exposing the entire UK population to pulsed microwave radio frequency signals could prove to be a costly exercise in terms of the health impact on the population.
1. Definition
1.1 A smart meter is a device that measures the usage of gas or electricity in place of an analogue meter. It is “smart” because it operates in real time mode and can:
(i)
(ii)
1.2 Item ii above will provide staff cost savings as meter readers are likely to become redundant, and if a consumer is made aware of the usage at any point then any excess usage above a norm may persuade the consumer to save power by turning off unused appliances, lights, etc.
1.3 I do not plan to challenge the concept of smart meters. I am not concerned that power companies may be able to spy on me by knowing what power I am consuming at any moment or when I am in the house or absent for a long period, although I can certainly understand that some people regard this latter point as a burglars’ charter.
2. Wireless Solution
2.1 My concern is that certain types of smart meter will be utilising wireless technology to relay information to the power company. How this is achieved has yet to be publicly announced but it could involve district receivers picking up the wireless signals from each property in an area. We also don’t know whether smart meters will be sending signals continuously or only intermittently, and if intermittently at what intervals. One concern is that the frequency of data capture could change over time and what starts off as an intermittent signal could be altered to provide continuous monitoring as the power company’s own management systems are developed and become more sophisticated over time.
2,2 This has already happened in Canada. Bluewater Power installed new smart meters in 2011 and the biggest change has been the amount of information collected. “We used to get meter readings every 60 days, now it’s every hour,” said McMichael-Dennis. “The amount of data we’re dealing with has grown exponentially.”
Reference: http://www.petroliatopic.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3451686
3. Non-Wireless Option—Italian Style
3.1 Capturing usage data and submitting it to the power company does not have to use wireless technology. Indeed, Italy has a very successful system whereby the meters are fully wired using broadband over power lines which allows for two-way communications using those same power lines. It is the earliest, and still largest, example of a smart grid conceived of by Enel S.p.A. of Italy, which installed 27 million wired smart meters over a five year period. Completed in 2005, the Telegestore project was highly unusual in the utility world because the company designed and manufactured their own meters, acted as their own system integrator and developed their own system software.
3.2 The Telegestore project is widely regarded as the first commercial scale use of smart grid technology to the home, and delivers annual savings of 500 million euro at a project cost of 2.1 billion euro.
3.3 The Italian smart meter system has experienced none of the controversy and costly challenges associated with resistance to wireless smart meters and grids.
3.4 This is also true for Idaho, which has all-wired smart meters using power lines. Regarding savings in costs—according to Idaho’s business plan, a wired smart meter costs approximately $200, while others—employing wireless solutions—cost approximately $500 each. By using power lines already in place, there is no extra cost for the creation of a new communications infrastructure.
4. What is wrong with a wireless smart meter?
4.1 All wireless devices use pulsed microwave radiofrequency signals for their operation, and therein lies the problem. Pulsed microwave radiofrequency signals generate electromagnetic fields and the radiation from these fields has a detrimental effect on health.
4.2 Although smart meters have yet to be installed in the UK in any numbers, we already have experience of other technologies utilising these signals and the adverse health effects that some suffer. Equipment using wireless technology includes Wi-Fi and its derivatives of WiLAN and WiMAX; digital electronic cordless telephones (DECT), common in homes and offices today; portable data terminals (PDTs), as used to make payments by credit/debit cards in shops, bars and restaurants; and even baby monitors.
5. What are the health problems?
5.1 People suffering from an intolerance to electromagnetic fields display a range of debilitating conditions including headaches, tinnitus, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, insomnia and palpitations. This list is far from exhaustive.
6. Why don’t more people suffer from an intolerance to electromagnetic fields considering just how much Wi-Fi and other electromagnetic field generating equipment is in daily use?
6.1 For the same reason that some people suffer from a nut or pollen allergy while others, even in the same family, suffer no ill effects. The human body is a complex structure and medical experts cannot yet explain why some people react in different ways to external stimuli and others don’t.
6.2 What is becoming clear from the raft of research that is being conducted world wide is that an intolerance to electromagnetic fields is increasing and it seems to be cumulative, ie the human body may be able to withstand a certain level of electromagnetic field radiation, but once an individual’s own threshold level has been exceeded then the body will react very quickly when that body is exposed to any level of electromagnetic field radiation however small. Again, different people will display different—or no—reactions to the same source of electromagnetic field radiation.
6.3 So although the answer to the question is that at present the numbers may be small—often quoted at up to 7% of the population—over time and with an increasing exposure to these fields the general health of the nation will start to deteriorate and produce what could prove to be a huge burden on the NHS. This could be avoided if action were taken now to reduce exposure to electromagnetic field radiation.
6.4 A second reason that the numbers suffering from electromagnetic field intolerance are so small is because general practitioners in the UK receive no training whatsoever in the condition and so it goes unrecognised and unreported. Those suffering from some of the effects listed above are frequently diagnosed as being depressed (not surprising given that one may have a number of ailments for which no one can identify the cause) and are put on tranquillisers and other anti-depressants.
6.5 Anecdotal reports suggest that there is a huge number of people in the UK with the symptoms of electrosensitivity but they have yet to be formally recognised as such and continue to suffer in ignorance. As more and more technologies generating electromagnetic fields are allowed to be implemented, so the numbers affected will increase as people breach their natural threshold levels.
6.6 While electrosensitivity is a condition not recognised by the UK medical profession, other counties take a far more enlightened stance and in Sweden, for example, electrosensitivity is regarded as a handicap and those with the condition receive all the necessary support—in the workplace and at home—that that word entails.
7. What do official bodies say about Electomagnetic Fields?
7.1 On 27 May 2011 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed Resolution 1815 entitled The potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and their effect on the environment. Amongst its recommendations to member states (which includes the UK) were:
8.1.1
8.1.3
8.2.4
8.3.1
[Note: all the bolding above is mine.]
7.1.1
7.2 Just four days later on 31 May 2011, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer published a statement:
“classifying radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of cancer, associated with wireless phone use.”
7.2.1
7.3 The UK’s Health Protection Agency which is charged with safeguarding the nation’s health takes a very middle-of-the-road approach. In respect of Wi-Fi, for example, it states that:
“There is no consistent evidence to date that exposure to radiofrequency signals from Wi-Fi adversely affect [sic] the health of the general population.”
7.3.1
“There is some evidence to date that exposure to radiofrequency signals from Wi-Fi adversely affects the health of some of the population.”
7.3.2
7.3.3
7.3.4
7.4 The quoted authority for setting exposure levels is the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, commonly referred to as ICNIRP.
7.4.1
“reconsider the scientific basis for the present standards on exposure to electromagnetic fields set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, which have serious limitations, and apply ALARA principles, covering both thermal effects and the athermic or biological effects of electromagnetic emissions or radiation.”
7.4.2
“It appears that these European and national organisations or international bodies have based their thinking on the threshold values and recommendations advocated by the ICNIRP when that private association was set up near Munich at the beginning of the 1990s.”
“It is most curious, to say the least, that the applicable official threshold values for limiting the health impact of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and high frequency waves were drawn up and proposed to international political institutions (WHO, European Commission, governments) by the ICNIRP, an NGO whose origin and structure are none too clear and which is furthermore suspected of having rather close links with the industries whose expansion is shaped by recommendations for maximum threshold values for the different frequencies of electromagnetic fields.”
7.4.3
8. So what is wrong with the ICNIRP threshold levels?
8.1 In the early 1990s the only electromagnetic field generating device in common usage was the mobile phone. The other technologies came about approximately 10 years ago.
8.2 The great fear in the early days of the mobile phone was that when held close to the head, the heating effect could somehow “fry one’s brain”—to use the term in use at the time. ICNIRP showed that in order to generate a sufficient amount of heating to cause a rise in temperature to dangerous levels on the side of the head next to the mobile phone then a certain level of power would be required. That became the internationally accepted standard—anything below that level was therefore deemed “safe”. And that level has been applied not just to mobile phones but to all wireless devices that generate electromagnetic fields.
8.3 Significantly the ICNIRP level was based on a six-minute telephone call. Today Wi-Fi and DECT telephones are in use 24/7 so the cumulative affect of all these devices is far more potent than one six minute telephone call.
8.4 Twenty years on and we now know that it is not the heating effects that are so dangerous but it is the athermic or biological effects that are so worrying and are the cause of the health problems being experienced today. The intervening 20 years have seen papers published from all over the world pointing out the dangers of electromagnetic field radiation on both animals and humans, but ICNIRP has not budged, and not one Government or regulatory authority—with the exception of the COE’s Parliamentary Assembly—has challenged their findings .
8.5 To illustrate the stranglehold that ICNIRP still plays in this respect I will quote from Hansard of 29 November 2011, Column 903W. Guto Bebb asked “what recent steps has he [the Minister] taken to alleviate concerns of people who experience non-thermal health effects of exposure to electromagnetic microwave radiation”.
8.6 Charles Hendry, the Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, replied as follows: “We have continued to engage with a wide range of stakeholders in the development of the smart meters programme. For example, the consultation on the technical specification of smart meters was sent to a wide variety of stakeholders for their consideration, including those that have an interest in health issues. The draft technical specification includes reference to the fact that, to be compliant, a smart meter must comply with the internationally agreed guidelines set out by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.”
8.7 So for smart meters that are planned to be rolled out nationally by 2019 the Government is content to rely on inappropriate, questionable and, dare I say, discredited threshold levels that, by then, will be almost 30 years old. That cannot be defensible.
9. What should be done about a wireless smart meter roll-out?
9.1 Whether one decides to use a mobile phone, have a Wi-Fi network installed in one’s home or office, use a cordless home phone or a baby monitor is an individual’s own decision and if one so wishes one can live in a house with low or no electromagnetic field generating devices.
9.2 Over time the public will acquire a greater knowledge of the health problems caused by radiation from electromagnetic fields. Indeed the first seeds of this have already been sown in CoE Resolution 1815, viz:
8.1.3
8.3.1
9.3 Everyone from Government to the power industry must be made aware of the very real health concerns posed by the smart meter roll-out and of electromagnetic field radiation generally although whether the CoE Resolution is acted upon in the near future remains in doubt. From experience already gleaned from the US there is a tendency to avoid, or even hide, the problems of electromagnetic field radiation and to deny its existence.
9.4 The following item broke on 27 January last year in Illinois:
“Documents released to a Naperville Smart Meter Awareness member in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act disclosed a coordinated effort between city officials and a government contractor to stifle the voice of Naperville residents. Another Freedom of Information Act request uncovered an e-mail exchange between West Monroe Partners and a Department of Energy official discussing a plot to ‘insert speakers’ into city council meetings for the purpose of countering citizens ‘airing their grievances’ about smart meters during a public forum of the City Council.”
Reference:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120127005467/en/Naperville-Smart-Meter-Awareness-Calls-City-Naperville
9.5 Actions of this type, where city officials are colluding with the energy suppliers in an attempt to influence decision-makers on the merits of smart meters while belittling those with a genuine grievance against the smart meter programme, lead one to conclude that there must be something to hide.
9.6 Returning to the UK, the Government-sponsored compulsory installation of an electromagnetic field-creating device in one’s own home would be quite unacceptable but the Energy Minister in late January 2012 announced that the installation of a smart meter in one’s home will not be obligatory.
9.7 Many meter installations in older properties are located under the stairs and this would be a central position in many homes causing an electromagnetic field which would be difficult to avoid. Consider also a block of apartments where the meters for all the flats are located in one service cupboard serving the entire block—the electromagnetic field generated in the vicinity of the service cupboard would make living in an adjacent flat intolerable.
9.8 I don’t believe that these issues were considered by the industry or legislators in the rush to press ahead with smart meters which were seen as being “green” and an aid to reducing power consumption.
10. What is happening elsewhere in respect of smart meters?
10.1 The US is well ahead of the UK with its smart meter programme. However, sufficient health issues have occurred wherever smart meters have been installed that there is growing public anger at the smart meter programme resulting in controversy and costly challenges.
10.2 The health concerns are now being taken seriously as the following three notable and very recent reports indicate.
10.2.1
PG&E offers opt-out from smart meters
After a long battle with protesters, California utility company Pacific Gas and Electric has offered a substantial concession to smart meter opponents, allowing them to keep traditional analogue electricity meters at an extra charge, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle reports that a small but determined group of residents have raised strong complaints about the new smart meters on the basis that emissions from the devices’ wireless transmitters can cause a variety of ill health effects, ranging from headaches to insomnia.
Similar claims have been made against the emissions from cell phones and laptops, but smart meters have become a common touchstone because utilities have begun pushing their installation in an attempt to develop a more responsive smart grid.
After being ordered to develop an opt-out program by the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E had initially proposed installing digital meters without the transmitters. When these still drew criticism, the utility acceded and offered to allow traditional analogue meters for a cost of $270 up front and another $14 per month.
10.2.2
American Academy of Environmental Medicine calls for a halt to wireless smart meters.
“The Board of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine opposes the installation of wireless ‘smart meters’ in homes and schools based on a scientific assessment of the current medical literature (references available on request). Chronic exposure to wireless radiofrequency radiation is a preventable environmental hazard that is sufficiently well documented to warrant immediate preventative public health action.”
“As representatives of physician specialists in the field of environmental medicine, we have an obligation to urge precaution when sufficient scientific and medical evidence suggests health risks which can potentially affect large populations. The literature raises serious concern regarding the levels of radio frequency (RF—3 KHz—300 GHz) or extremely low frequency (ELF—o- 300 Hz) exposures produced by ‘smart meters’ to warrant an immediate and complete moratorium on their use and deployment until further study can be performed. The board of the American Board of Environmental Medicine wishes to point out that existing FCC guidelines for RF safety that have been used to justify installation of ‘smart meters’ only look at thermal tissue damage and are obsolete, since many modern studies show metabolic and genomic damage from RF and ELF exposures below the level of intensity which heats tissues. The FCC guidelines are therefore inadequate for use in establishing public health standards. More modern literature shows medically and biologically significant effects of RF and ELF at lower energy densities. These effects accumulate over time, which is an important consideration given the chronic nature of exposure from ‘smart meters’. The current medical literature raises credible questions about genetic and cellular effects, hormonal effects, male fertility, blood/brain barrier damage and increased risk of certain types of cancers from RF or ELF levels similar to those emitted from ‘smart meters’. Children are placed at particular risk for altered brain development, and impaired learning and behaviour. Further EMF/RF adds synergistic effects to the damage observed from a range of toxic chemicals. Given the widespread, chronic and essentially inescapable ELF/RF exposure of everyone living near a ‘smart meter’, the Board of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine finds it unacceptable from a public health standpoint to implement this technology until these serious medical concerns are resolved. We consider a moratorium on installation of wireless ‘smart meters’ to be an issue of the highest importance.”
“The Board of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine also wishes to note that the US NIEHS National Toxicology Program in 1999 cited radiofrequency radiation as a potential carcinogen. Existing safety limits for pulsed RF were termed ‘not protective of public health’ by the Radiofrequency Interagency Working Group (a federal interagency working group including the FDA, FCC, OSHA, the EPA and others). Emissions given off by ‘smart meters’ have been classified by the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Possible Human Carcinogen.”
“Hence, we call for:
An immediate moratorium on ‘smart meter’ installation until these serious public health issues are resolved. Continuing with their installation would be extremely irresponsible.
Modify the revised proposed decision to include hearings on health impact in the second proceedings, along with cost evaluation and community wide opt-out.
Provide immediate relief to those requesting it and restore the analogue meters.
Members of the Board: American Academy of Environmental Medicine.”
10.2.3
Santa Cruz County imposes Moratorium on smart meter roll-out.
Relevant sections from the ordnance:
“WHEREAS, significant health questions have been raised concerning the increased electromagnetic frequency radiation (EMF) emitted by the wireless technology in Smart Meters, which will be in every house, apartment and business, thereby adding additional human-made EMF to our environment around the clock to the already existing EMF from utility poles, individual meters and telephone poles; and
WHEREAS, FCC safety standards do not exist for chronic long-term exposure to EMF or from multiple sources, and reported adverse health effects from electromagnetic pollution include sleep disorders, irritability, short term memory loss, headaches, anxiety, nausea, DNA breaks, abnormal cell growth, cancer, premature ageing, etc. Because of untested technology, international scientists, environmental agencies, advocacy groups and doctors are calling for the use of caution in wireless technologies; and
… … … …”
10.3 Surprisingly, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, Dr Perry Kendall, is on record (30 January 2012) as stating that “While there are clearly some biological effects from electromagnetic frequency radiation and more work does need to be done, at the moment, we are not convinced there are harms from this exposure that would merit public health interventions.”
Reference:
http://vancouver.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/morningfile/2012/morningfile-no-parking-new-local-brewery-and-termination-vancouve
10.4 That is a most telling statement—he is actually admitting that there are biological effects from electromagnetic frequency radiation which is in stark contrast to the UK’s Health Protection Agency’s view.. However, even with that acknowledgement he plans to do nothing to halt B.C.’s smart meter programme.
11. Is there anything else to consider?
11.1 Two years ago a court in Brescia, Italy, judged that the brain tumour of an employee from an insurance company was caused by his use of a cordless (DECT) and/or mobile phone in the workplace. The company had to pay court costs and a disability pension. As a result, Italian employees are being advised to insist on a written declaration regarding the use of telecommunications equipment (ie employing pulsed microwave radio frequency signals), stating that the employer takes all responsibility for medium or long-term consequences of their use. There was also a similar case reported from Madrid.
Reference:
http://wifiinschools.org.uk/resources/wireless+technologies+and+young+people+Jan2011.pdf
11.2 Going down the road of installing wireless smart meters which use pulsed microwave radio frequency signals in the UK could prove to be a hugely expensive mistake if people become ill in sufficient numbers. Who would be liable for the compensation—the utility companies or the Government which encouraged them to go down that road?
11.3 There would also be a huge cost in having to replace all wireless smart meters when they are proved to be injurious to health (as, in time, they no doubt will).
12. What about the precautionary principle?
12.1 In science there is something known as the precautionary principle which simply means that if something cannot be proved to be safe, it must not be presumed to be safe and that one should take the necessary steps in case—at a later date—that thing is found to be unsafe.
12.2 Wireless technologies are a good example of where the precautionary principle should be applied. In the Cold War, experiments were conducted (not in the UK I hasten to say) with irradiating an enemy with electromagnetic fields and were found to be highly effective in incapacitating humans. Strange therefore that in peacetime the Government and industry are happy to irradiate the public through uncontrolled proliferation of wireless devices, with the smart meter proposal proving to be the most pervasive to date.
12.3 Even our HPA recommends a degree of precaution but simply advocates monitoring the situation. With respect, monitoring anything is not following the precautionary principle.
13. So what is the answer?
13.1 Any plans to install wireless smart meters in homes and offices the length and breadth of the country must be scrapped and smart meters that do not use pulsed microwave radio frequency signals for their operation be installed as the safe alternative.
14. What about allowing the public to “opt out”?
14.1 At the end of January 2012 the UK Government conceded that people can opt out of the smart meter programme. This is good news but is does not go far enough. It does not solve the problem of electromagnetic field radiation. By definition a wireless smart meter will be pushing out signals to be picked up by a central collection device. Even if a householder opts out of having a smart meter there is no way that he can opt out of having his neighbours’ smart meters irradiating his property . The effect might be reduced but it will not be eliminated, so the option of being able to opt out is not the right solution.
15. And what about blocks of flats and HMOs?
15.1 Reference has already been made to banks of meters serving a block of flats. The amount of radiation generated by multiple smart meters sited in one location would be a huge problem and is one that has probably not been considered by those advocating the smart meter roll-out.
15.2 Staying with analogue meters would mean that one of the main advantages of the smart meter programme—ie the ability to read meters remotely—would be lost. This is a further reason for ensuring that the UK smart meter programme uses a system, like the Italian one mentioned at the outset to this paper, that does not require any wireless technology for its operation.
16. So the conclusions are what exactly?
16.1 Smart meters will continue to be promoted by the Government and industry as an essential tool in reducing unnecessary power consumption and as a means of monitoring and controlling usage.
16.2 The roll-out will be a costly exercise but over time the power companies expect to recoup their investment through staff reductions (meter readers) and a reduced power requirement.
16.3 The public at large are unaware of the potential health dangers posed by electromagnetic field radiation.
16.4 The health dangers are real and are impacting people’s health now. This will increase as more and more wireless devices are employed.
16.5 For any Government to expose the entire population of a country to irradiation through a Government-sponsored project is indefensible and does not meet even the most basic tenets of Human Rights Legislation. Under the Right to Respect for Private and Family Life the government or any other public body cannot interfere with anyone’s personal life without lawful excuse. I would argue that encouraging others (ie the power industry) to irradiate the occupants of a house in their own home would be interfering with the occupants’ personal life if, as will be the case, it impacts on their health.
16.6 Evidence from the US where the smart meter roll-out is far in advance of anything in the UK shows that wireless smart meters are already impacting on people’s health and there are now instances of smart meter roll-outs being halted on health grounds.
16.7 The UK Government should follow the precautionary principle and require power companies to implement a smart meter programme that does not employ wireless devices for their operation.
16.8 Wired solutions are safe; wireless solutions are not.
16.9 The UK Government needs to make a bold and decisive decision and that is to recognise the health concerns that do exist from all types of wireless technologies and to comply with the recommendations made in Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe.
Note:
References have been kept to a minimum but have always been provided where a named individual is being quoted. All other documents mentioned can be found on the Internet using any search engine.
February 2013