1.  Planetary electromagnetic pollution: it is time to assess its impact.
 
Dr Priyanka (Pri)  Bandara (ORSAA) and Prof. David O Carpenter (Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany, Rensselaer, NY, USA) have written a commentary on electromagnetic pollution (download below) which unlike tobacco smoking is not visible to the naked eye. This has become a public issue around the globe as the start of the 5G (and additional 4G LTE) antenna rollout is now becoming visible on street poles outside people's homes, in some cases meters away from bedrooms. This new addition to the streetscape is being done sometimes without property owners or occupiers being advised, or if advised, buried amongst the junk mail in our letterboxes as non-personal letters “to the homeowner”.
2. Perception of Risk - Property values with nearby base stations and EMR-5G antennas have been reviewed by owners in New Zealand.
Fighting for Fair NZ Published on Aug 26, 2019
NZ telco 2degrees claims that cell phone towers do not devalue property prices! Is this true? Or just industry propaganda designed to make you feel better about the fact that 2degrees are going to install a mobile phone base station just meters from your bedroom? In this video the available research tells us about cell phone towers and property devaluation and put their claim to the test. A short video - Debunking 2degrees - Cell Phone Towers and Property Devaluation claims  
 
Other references.
Rajapaksa 2017, Affusso 2017, Filippova 2011,
Freybote 2015, Jackson 2010,
  
3.     5G - There are a number of stages.
 
This IEEE video  (6 minutes) is a good summary of how 5G will progress.
 
Once you accept the first stage you will ultimately get all future rollout stages. There is no discussion of bio-effects and how this will affect your health. ARPANSA and Telcos tell us it’s just radio or “new radio” and that 20 Gigabits per second is just an extension from what we already know is safe. That is simply not correct - the signals and pulses are very complex and vary wildly in intensity so some spots may be quite different from average readings over time. These polarised RF waves can constructively and destructively interfere and as a result can create hotspots  (in the far field). When you hold a mobile phone to your head you are in the near field (the photon mathematical model doesn’t apply) and the interaction with biological tissue is much more complicated as variables of interaction increase. In fact, at these high data rates we may enter in to a new form of wave propagation called the brillouin precursor which means the potentially of much deeper penetration into the body and agreements like "Its just absorbed in the skin" rhetoric seem a little like hubris in the lack of research.
 
The current standard is set on heating of tissue for short periods (ignoring bioeffects that are not related to heating) and as shown below even meeting the flawed heating-based short-term exposure standard may not occur. If you regularly hold a phone to your head over 30 minutes per day ORSAA advises a precautionary approach: use hands free or with corded headphones while not holding the phone in close proximity to your body.
 
Unfortunately, scientists have not performed anywhere near enough research to give any firm guarantees and assurances about safety. In fact, what we know to date actually challenges safety claims and strongly suggests we should be advising consumers to take a precautionary approach when using this technology. Wireless technology is not risk free.
 
4. Phones don’t meet the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) standard. What does this mean?
 
The Specific Absorption rate (SAR) is a measure of the amount of power (energy per second) deposited in tissue units (Watts/kg) and can generate confusion. In Australia, that standard is 2 W/kg and in the USA it’s 1.6 W/kg averaged over 1 gm of tissue for a 6 minute exposure.  Okay, this is where it gets really confusing because there is no universal consistency in levels or approaches, we average SAR over 1 gm of tissue while in Europe it's 10 gm of tissue.  See letter (download below) to the FCC from Marc Azari and Devra Davis in March 2018.
 
To quote from the attached letter “A mobile phone compliant with the ICNIRP standard of 2.0 W/kg SAR in 10 g of tissue may lead to a 2.5 to 3 times excess above the FCC standard of 1.6 W/kg in 1 g of tissue (i.e., 4-5 W/kg in a cube of 1g of tissue).”  Gandhi, Lloyd and Davis 2012.
Bottom line: Manufacturers should be warning people that their short-term heating standard (SAR rating) maybe breached when used in close proximity to the body, especially against the head.
 
What does this mean?
 
See Commentary : FCC needs to update its cellphone tests for radiofrequency radiation. By Devra  Davis in the Chicago Tribune.
 
Apple and Samsung appear to be now involved in a class action over handset RF emissions.
 
This evidence means the current risk factors are incorrectly represented and being actively downplayed. More than ever we need to tell people who use phones for long periods up to their ear to change their habits. The at-risk group are those who do this for more than 30 minutes per day, which is still a lot of people today including some children and adolescents.
 
Texting is safer than a phone to the head but the Baby Safe Project, performed in conjunction with some researchers at Yale University, recommended that pregnant women not text over their abdomens; see Baby Safe Project.   
 
5.   ORSAA Advisor speaks to NZ Planet radio.
 
Sue Grey (ORSAA advisor) talks to NZ Planet FM about man-made radiofrequency radiation. This is an hour-long episode.
 
6. ORSAA Advisor publishes on Children’s Health.
 
Prof Yuri Grigoriev - Russian National Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (representing Russian Federation at the UN agencies) has published a chapter in a new book.
 
Chapter 10.  A Longitudinal Study of Psychophysiological
Indicators in Pupils Users of Mobile Communications in Russia (2006–2017) Children Are in the Group of Risk
By Yury G. Grigoriev and Natalia I. Khorseva.
 
Prof. Yuri Grigoriev has been very concerned over the last two decades (2002) that RF mobile phones have effects on the central nervous system of children and adolescents. Therefore, as part of the recommendation by the RUSSIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON NON-IONIZING RADIATION PROTECTION (RNCNIRP), Russia set a scientifically based limit 100 times lower than the ICNIRP
 
To quote Grigoriev  “The establishment of a threshold level on pathological effects makes the assumption that in an organism compensative or adaptive reactions will be in effect. We strongly disagree with this assumption!  People very rarely have contact with ACUTE exposures in everyday life. All populations in the world have daily contact with low levels of RF-EMF and are chronically exposed!  Unfortunately there are no publications that present ways of extrapolating from the various existing standards recommendations to properly assess real environmental conditions for the population. There are currently no proposals on how to estimate danger by using existing International standards recommendations: from acute influences to chronic exposure, and from thermal levels to non-thermal levels. “
 
7. Autonomous Cars – Plans for 5G?
 
While autonomous vehicles would need to be able to operate independently of outside assistance, especially in the city, they would need to communicate with information and directive sources within a given environment, whatever the communications protocol – 5G or other. However, that does not mean that automated vehicles will depend on or even use 5G communications. See below for what IT professional Kent Fitch in Canberra has to say on this issue:
 
“…there is no way that a reliable autonomous vehicle will use information not already "on board" for driving/navigation because that would make them very fragile and unable to operate in area with poor or no reception. All the current front-runners in producing autonomous systems have the same basic model: a very large "back-end" system to generate models and/or neural networks, which are then downloaded into the car's own computer and which then runs effectively "off line". Even with 5G, the latency is too high and the data rates are too low to use computing not on-board for making driving decisions. All the front-runners use local sensors (cameras, radar, sonar, and must use lidar) and vast "on-board" computing resources (Tesla's recent autonomy presentation went into how and why in great detail: Video presentation is long (1h30) and very technical in content. As that presentation discusses, even GPS is not relied upon - it is too coarse, frequently inaccurate or unavailable and worst of all, pre-generated maps get out of date instantly and cannot be used for driving decisions (lanes get closed, things fall off the back of trucks, trees fall over, detours get put in place). Some people think vehicle-to-vehicle communications will be useful for optimising flows, but some think that is inherently the wrong approach (as transmissions will fail, and a large set of road uses will not transmit, so you have to solve the problem with sensors anyway).
 
On the other hand, it is certain that autonomous cars will use the wireless networks for "admin" purposes, such as reporting their current location and receiving pickup requests, but these transfers will be relatively small in volume and not subject to "real-time" requirements, and will be relatively low bandwidth users (and certainly 3G or 4G has plenty of bandwidth for this, and having much greater range than 5G, they are going to be around for a long while). I have seen presentations from both Telstra and Huawei spruiking 5G for autonomous cars, but they fail to make a coherent argument as for "why", except one Huawei presentation I saw said 5G was necessary for remote driving: in this case, they had operators in some control room driving and controlling a back-hoe - hmm.. what could go wrong with that! … ” Kent Fitch, 29Jun19

 Dr Karl - Misleading and Wrong Information

​We have seen lots of “Fake News” from various media and online sources over the last few years. Now the Australian trusted public radio station the ABC has created “Fake Information”.  Dr Karl, the ABCs trusted science communicator, has made several recent pronouncements on ABC radio station JJJ. Dr Karl has claimed that concerns that are being raised about an untested 5G rollout are ‘hysteria’.  part 1 and part 2.
 
Dr Karl’s talks begin with a clear and correct explanation of the EMF spectrum, but then goes on to make incorrect and misleading statements. He declares that only the very high non-ionising frequencies can cause cancer. This statement has been falsified by the recent NTP study.
 
One of our members, Dr Richard Cullen, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, with many years of experience in IT has evaluated Dr Karl’s recent pronouncements.  We have edited transcripts below. 
  
From his analysis of the transcripts, Richard has found that the following articles of the ABC’s Code of Practice have been breached:  2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, and 5.4
 
Questions: Who is being advantaged by the spread of such misinformation? Why would the ABC be supporting this industry and risking human health to achieve that outcome?
 
A quick look into the science of lies reveals several different tactics at play here.

• Disinformation is intentionally false or misleading information that is spread in a calculated way to deceive target audiences
• A lie of influence occurs when the liar is shown to be such a great person that they are unlikely to be suspected of lying
• One of the top 10 ways to tell lies is to ‘Tell the truth, misleadingly”.

Fortunately, the majority of Australians and ABC listeners are well educated and have a good sense about what is the truth and what is not. I suggest all Australians who are appalled with this spread of misinformation by the ABC put in an official letter of complaint. Consultations are generally open for four to six weeks so we have about a week to register the complaint with the  ACMA
  
ORSAA has previously written to Channel 10 on the False comment by Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl) on ‘The Project’ Risks Health of Australians and breaches the commercial television industry code of practice (Accuracy and Fairness (Section 3.3); see letter below. Project 10's reply letter is also included below for your interest. Within the letter the Project 10 regulatory officer pointed out Dr Karl was invited on the program to talk about his book. The EMR comment might have been done off subject topic but was done for a reason and was anything but a throw-away line.  The ARPANSA (ICNIRP) thermal acute heating standard is not really applicable to RF-EMR that we are all exposed to on a 24/7 daily basis, this is why other countries in the world have selected a more protective standard for their citizens. There is a reason why 26,000 scientists around the world signed a petition to oppose 5G. A balanced and accurate view of the science is all we are calling for at ORSAA, that we take a precautionary approach especially when so much is now known about non-thermal effects of this radiation and its long-term effects on insects, birds and human life on this planet. We are being irradiated without consent and 5G takes this exposure to a new high.
The ICNIRP standard  is anything but a balanced view of the evidence and is the product of a closed club of scientists who believe that thermal effects are the only health effects of consequence so concepts that we have for low dose ionising radiation exposure like "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" (ALARA)  are completely absent.
 
Conclusions:  
 
Is Dr Karl just a showman who is prepared to distort the evidence to entertain and the facts don’t really matter?
On other subjects unfamiliar to me, one has to ask the question, “Is anything Dr Karl says factual?”    
 
It would appear that trusted ‘experts’ are being used by vested interests to mislead the public. The ABC appears to be compromised on this issue of EMF research and health.
 
A much deeper problem in the selection of experts.
 
The Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) as a source of information on 5G
 
As stated on their website: 
 
The Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) supports the accurate reporting of science in the media and has occupied this critical space at the front-line since 2005.
The not-for-profit Centre works with around 1,600 journalists and 5,000 scientists and has no agenda other than to support the accurate reporting of science in the media for the benefit of the Australian public.
As an independent service for journalists, we help media outlets cover some of the biggest stories in the news - from climate, energy and natural disasters to diet, health, technology and space.
 
It is emphasised here that the AusSMC is doing an impressive job of providing expert advice on a wide range of vital issues today and is providing an essential service with the ABC as a top foundation supporter. In this regard, it stands to reason that an ABC presenter, such as Dr. Karl, would rely on the scientific advice from the relevant expert at the AusSMC.
 
However, one issue of concern is the possibility of undue scientific advice bias if a financial supporter of the AusSMC is also an active supporter of an industry that is in question over possible hazards from its activities. The issue of possible financial bias was recognised by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors when they state (in part):
 
Financial relationships … are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself.
 
In relation to the source of Dr. Karl’s viewpoint over 5G technology, it is of concern that one of the supporters of the AusSMC is the telecommunications industry trade association, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) which is actively promoting the rollout of 5G in Australia.
  
For more on the possibility of inherent bias on the business model of Science Media Centres see 
 
“The UK’s Science Media Centre model of science communication An uncensored history"

 It has come to our attention that ARPANSA has made a number of statements relating to misinformation about Australia’s 5G network on their website, our assessment you can download below. One needs to question who is actually providing misinformation? First, we have a sub-standard technical report (TRS-164) where ARPANSA failed to do a proper assessment of the science and didn’t even use their own database of papers to review the range of bio-effects that ORSAA has identified. This was followed by a measurement report for NSW education on typical RF power density levels in classrooms. The measurement survey was conducted in classrooms in the absence of students or a classroom full of active computers with Wi-Fi enabled. More recently, ARPANSA has released an ecological report that showed no increase in brain cancers but had omitted the over 59 age group, which is of course the group likely to have used mobile phones the longest. In both the UK and Denmark this age group saw a large rise in brain cancers. Could ARPANSA be “cherry picking" their data in order to get a desired outcome that supports their outdated and irrelevant RF standards?
The presentation, given at "The International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) Workshop on 5G, EMF & Health, Poland on December 5, 2017" concluded that with increased human exposure levels from 5G antennas, EMF exposure compliance in some nations will be difficult. To quote: “In countries with EMF limits significantly below the international science-based ICNIRP limits the roll-out of 5G networks will be a major problem”

A campaign to educate the public on 5G was further supplemented by an ABC employee, Dr Karl, who is also delivering misinformation on public radio. Industry and Government must be getting desperate if they have to rely on media personalities to deal with mounting public concern on 5G. Dr Karl rolled out the overused statement that an RF photon does not have sufficient energy to break covalent bonds or dislodge electrons from the outer shell of the atom and so therefore cannot damage DNA. This might sound like good physics but is poor biology. RF radiation, as documented in over 200 peer reviewed scientific papers, causes oxidative stress which in turn can most definitely cause DNA damage but you don’t necessarily need DNA damage to cause cancer. We all know that chronic inflammation, immune and autoimmune disease can also cause cancer, RF exposure has been linked to immune system effects. 
  
Besides the health issue associated with 5G, there are also a number of issues related to security and surveillance that also need consideration. 
James Corbett’s documentary is a good summary. 
 
Another concern that has been expressed relates to the amount of power that will be required to drive these “smart” cities
In Australia we are already experiencing  energy guarantee problems. Estimates suggest 5G will potentially increase the load by a factor of four.
Although we all appreciate the convenience that wireless technology brings the rollout of 5G massive multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) technology is occurring with complete disregard to potential health impacts this technology is likely to bring to not only humans but all life. Users are asking what will be the health impact and getting no answers. 
​​Industry argues with MIMO technology the more personalised the exposure will become and statistical modelling shows by-stander exposure will be less. However, as the BIPT report 2017 shows with increased bandwidth and data rates the higher the antenna power required. In a crowded situation unless the beams are pin-point accurate to the connected user  bystanders will be exposed. With almost no real-time long-term monitoring taking place before and after installations this is just another throw away statement.  We should be encouraging mandatory real-time monitoring in a number of frequency bands so the public can have confidence in these sort of statements of reassurance. Currently EME reports are based on simplistic calculations for maximum power output of a base station. 
  
It seems with each new rollout of this technology we lose a little of  what it takes to be human  and continue to have complete disregard for the environment. I note that some schools have banned smart phones on campus so that students spend more time interacting with one another, that is, being more social and caring humans.  
 
Make no mistake this is just the beginning and the plan for 6G is being dreamed up right now.  A Vision of 6G Wireless Systems: Applications, Trends, Technologies, and Open Research Problems.   
  
 Regards,
 
 Vic Leach (Newsletter editor and Database Administrator)
    

Press enquiry: Computer Weekly | Investigate Europe.
We were asked specify questions (see below) and this was followed up with  a Skype interview from the UK. The final press release is by Investigate Europe.

The dubious handling of the radiation
The translation of this page is attached from German radio broadcast. Google Chrome will automatically translate this German Page into English  but there are some sentences that don’t translate well.  I have attached a more accurate translation of this page below.

Professor Emeritus Martin Pall has devoted his working lifetime to understanding the biochemistry behind many diseases that are not well understood by medicine but have a common aetiology, being chronic inflammatory conditions as a result of cells of the body being unable to deal with oxidative stress. 
 
His feedback to a letter from ARPANSA sent to a member of the public in response to concerns around 5G safety is very technical in many places but is also very critical of ARPANSA’s lack of understanding of the science underlying the bio-effects of RF-EMF radiation and its relationship with many adverse health effects.
 
His conclusions is as follows:
 
“Summary: 

• With 100% consistency, ARPANSA avoids all of the strongest available science in this area.
• With 100% consistency, ARPANSA has produced a stunningly biased document, whose positions are repeatedly and consistently contradicted by the strongest science and by large numbers of independent scientists.
• With 100% consistency, ARPANSA has failed to protect the health and safety of the people of Australia.
• With 100% consistency, ARPANSA has protected the economic interests of the telecommunications industry. “

​ORSAA members have been very critical of the ARPANSA TRS-164 report. ARPANSA had assembled a large number of papers (1354) but then failed to use them in their review of the science from 2000-2012.
 
At the Wollongong NSW ARPS conference in 2017, two     papers were presented:
 

1. Bandara, P. and Weller, S. (2017). Biological effects of low-intensity radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation – time for a paradigm shift in regulation of public exposure. Radiation Protection in Australasia, 34 (2), 2-6.
2. Leach, V. and Weller, S. (2017). Radio frequency exposure risk assessment and communication: Critique of ARPANSA TR-164 report. Do we have a problem? Radiation Protection in Australasia, 34 (2), 9-18.

 
In response, ARPANSA justified their position with a letter to the editor of the ARPS Journal (the journal of the Australasian Radiation Protection Society):  
Karipidis, K. and Tinker, R. (2018).  Letter to the Editor, Radiation Protection in Australasia, 35(1), 29-30, download below.
 
ORSAA authors have since responded with a letter to the Journal Editor. Download the full letter below.  
 
Bandara, P, Weller, S. and Leach, V. (2018). Health Risks of Wireless Technologies, Radiation Protection in Australasia, 35(2), 22-26, download below.
 
Conclusion (from the Bandara and Leach response):
 
ARPANSA has ignored a large evidence base that challenges their position.  The scientific evidence we have collated, presented and made publicly available demonstrates that there are biological/health effects occurring at exposures well below the ARPANSA standard.  Therefore, ARPANSA’s claim that there is “no substantiated evidence that RF exposure at levels below the limits of the ARPANSA Standard causes harm to humans” is misleading.  A risk management approach should be adopted urgently for RF-EMR with ALARA as the mainstay of this plan. Wireless technology is not risk-free as implied by ARPANSA’s claim of “no established evidence of harm”. Australians need to be informed of the risks so that they can make informed decisions when it comes to the use of wireless technology, particularly with regards to more vulnerable groups such as children.
   

​We would like to inform you that ORSAA has submitted formal comments to International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) on the draft “GUIDELINES FOR LIMITING EXPOSURE TO TIME-VARYING ELECTRIC, MAGNETIC AND ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS (100 kHz TO 300 GHz)”. Please refer to ORSAA comments at the bottom of page.
 
The draft RF Guideline documents were released on the 11 July 2018 and public consultation ended on the 9 October 2018. We understand that ICNIRP had received over 100 responses. ICNIRP also indicated that they will not generate individual replies so we anticipate the whole exercise will be a “whitewash” without any substantial changes to the proposed limits. We made extensive use of the ORSAA database in formulating our response.
 
After publishing a recent paper entitled “A novel database of bio-effects from non-ionizing radiation” the EMF portal research group sent a letter to the editor critically reviewing the ORSAA database on 16 Oct 2018. We have added this letter to the editor to the ORSSA database as NESS Paper ID: 3228 and cross-linked to our paper ID: 3088
ORSAA authors will be responding with our own letter to the editor shortly. Our papers were placed in a peer-reviewed journal of Reviews on Environmental Health (REVEH).

USA Federal agencies clash on what the NTP study outcome means.
 
Prof. Lennart Hardell (ORSAA advisor) and Michael Carlberg have also made comments on the US NTP report
From the above report:“In conclusion, we believe there is clear evidence that RF-EMF radiation is a multi-site carcinogen. The epidemiological and animal experiments show sufficient agreement (converging evidence) that based on the Preamble to the IARC Monographs, RF radiation should be classified as carcinogenic to humans, Group 1.”

(It is official - Australia is now in the Gold Medal position for cancer according to the World Cancer Research Fund (Source: GLOBOCAN 2018 database is accessible at http://gco.iarc.fr/, as part of IARC’s WHO Global Cancer Observatory.)
 
These are age-standardized mortality rates.  This is a weighted average of the age-specific mortality rates per 100,000 persons, where the weights are the proportions of persons in the corresponding age groups.
 
It’s not all about skin cancer as Ireland is in third place. True Australia has one of the highest rates of longevity but other factors are also important. The recent UK conference on child cancer discussed other important long-term exposure factors. Available are live streaming video for each day so you can listen to the talks if you did not attend. This excellent conference talked a lot about environmental factors and prevention being important. Dietary factors have a major part to play in prevention and cure. The talk by Prof Thomas Seyfried (Boston College)   on treating cancer primarily as a metabolic disease was a highlight. Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe one of our ORSAA advisors gave an interesting talk also available on the live steaming video for Day 2, fast forward to  7 hours, 6 minutes 
 
There used to be just one mobile tower in every suburb, now with the advent of 5G there could be one on every street lamp post as shown in a recent media report.
 
Council rejects construction of telecommunication tower at Wilson Creek, Mullumbimby, NSW on the basis of siting, environmental impacts, health and amenity impacts, electro magnetic radiation, visual impacts, proximity to power lines and surrounding residential properties. For more detail visit Environment and Community Safe From Radiation ( ECSFR) web site
 
From Dr. Priyanka (Pri) Bandara who is on our ORSAA Executive Management Committee and is well published in this research area. She states:   
"The only independent scientific organisation investigating the health risks of wireless radiation (microwave radiofrequency EMR) in our region, www.orsaa.org has presented the empirical scientific evidence showing harm at currently permitted levels of exposure. Scientists at ORSAA have built the world's largest categorised database of peer-reviewed scientific publications on RF-EMR. A snapshot of our database (12 February 2018), showed that most studies (n=1283, 67.1%) out of 1913 studies (in vitro/in vivo experimental studies on human/animal/plant systems and population studies) reported statistically significant biological effects while 24.4% reported no effect and 8.5% uncertain effects. I have personally presented the irrefutable evidence that currently permitted level RF exposure causes oxidative stress in living cells and would contribute to chronic diseases such as cancer. These findings are published: Bandara P, Weller S. Biological Effects of Low-intensity Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation – Time for a Paradigm Shift in Regulation of Public Exposure. Radiation Protection in Australasia 2017; 34: 2-6. This evidence indicates that ARPANSA judgement is flawed on RF-EMR and the health of Australians is at risk. In the meantime, the latest data from the WHO shows that Australia has the world's highest cancer rate - yes, Gold medal out of 185 countries - What a shame! As a society, we have to move towards safer wired technology reducing our wireless use if we want to be serious about chronic disease prevention. Some countries have banned WiFi in schools, yet, we're pushing it more and more on vulnerable children. I have highlighted some of the concerning evidence related to WiFi in a scientific letter.
A study with a long observation period (1996-2006) in Brazil found a marked increase in cancer death rate near mobile phone base stations (MPBS). University academics and local government authorities studied 7191 cancer deaths. It took 1 km for the observed cancer death rate to come down to the expected cancer death rate. Based on their findings, the investigators claimed current ICNIRP public exposure guidelines that Australian ARPANSA standards are based on, are not protective and urged immediate changes. The EMR levels varied between 0.4 – 12.4 V/m (4.2 x 10-4 – 0.4 W/m2) in this study, only a small fraction of the allowed levels by the ARPANSA standards and very common in Australian locations and Australian homes/schools near wireless transmitters. (Dode A.C. et al., Science of the Total Environment 2011; 409:3649–3665). There are similar studies from elsewhere showing increased cancer near these RF transmitters. Indian academic researchers recently reported increased DNA damage and oxidative stress in healthy young people living near mobile towers ( Zothansiama et al. Electromagnetic biology and medicine. 2017;36(3):295-305.; Gulati S, et al., Mol Cell Biochem. 2018;440(1-2):1-9).
Australia has not conducted a single study like this to investigate if there is a problem. And the latest data from the WHO shows that Australia has the world's highest cancer rate - out of 185 countries. This is a serious public health issue. See what a senior oncologist (who has done extensive research on mobile phone use and brain cancer) from Sweden has to say about the questionable way the WHO is handling this issue"

News Items on attached documents below are as follows:
1. Mullumbimby NSW Australia Community Event;
2. Hobart’s Smart City Strategy perhaps not too Smart;
3. ORSAA letter to the  editor on a recent Guardian newspaper article.

I hope you will find the talks at the Mullumbimby event interesting and we owe a special thanks to the community group “Environment and Communities Safe from Radiation”  for getting this event up and running. A great team of people who organised this event at short notice.

We also owe a thanks to Mr Steven Lyons (filmmaker & volunteer) on making the two 35 minute talks watchable

Talk : Mr Victor Leach’s  

Talk : Dr Russell Cooper’s   
  
 The talk by lawyer Mr Raymond Brromhall was very long and a shorten production was not produced but you can watch the full live streaming video at the at the “Environment and Communities Safe from Radiation” website  
​

Dear Readers,
 
 It has been a while since our last newsletter but do not take this as an indicator that we have been sitting back taking a break! Apart from keeping our database up-to-date with the latest research, which is a job in itself, we have been very busy writing papers, preparing and giving presentations. Mr Victor (Vic) Leach (ORSAA and ARPS Member) recently attended and presented a paper at the 5th Asian & Oceanic IRPA Regional Congress on Radiation Protection (AOCRP-5). The title of the paper was: “Why the Precautionary Approach is needed for Non-Ionising Radiation Devices”
  
Vic co-authored the paper with Adjunct Associate Professor David Bromwich who has had a background in assisting organisations and industry in risk managing new technologies, especially where there is a level of uncertainty in the science in relation to adverse health effects. David’s research into the use, and often misuse, of gloves for protection against handling hazardous materials sees him as one of a few world experts in this area and has been used as a legal expert on a number of occasions. David also has a background in radiation protection where he worked as regulator of the uranium mining industry during the 1980’s and was a past active ARPS member helping organize the first NT ARPS conference in 1982.
 
The presentation, notes and paper, in advance of publication, are attached for your interest.
 
Our presentation, together with the presentation delivered by Adjunct Prof Dariusz Leszczynski, were the only conference papers that urged caution with respect to new emerging RF-EMF technologies. Precaution is recommended particularly with the advent of the new higher frequency 5G technologies, as this is likely to mean a substantial increase in RF-EMF environmental background levels. There is a need for more research on non-thermal biological effects, particularly in relation to human hematological and immune responses, as the largest organ of the body, namely skin will be the target organ along with its extensive vascular network.
 
Mr Steven (Steve) Weller (ORSAA Treasurer) attended an Electromagnetic Energy Reference Group (EMERG) Meeting hosted by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA). EMERG convenes bi-annually and Steve participates in these meetings as a community representative. In the most recent EMERG meeting held in May, Steve presented to a mixed audience of government and industry representatives on two very important topics that focused on the need for a robust EMF risk management philosophy and also future research needs. The two presentations along with an informative preamble were published as a blog on Dariusz’s website Between a Rock and a Hard Place (BRHP). 
 
All authors urge, in the interim, a precautionary approach should be adopted and the public to be advised of the potential risks identified in the scientific literature as they are being exposed to this pervasive form of unseen radiation, 24/7.
 
We are also proud to announce the recent acceptance for publication a paper detailing the ORSAA database in the scientific journal, De Gruyter, entitled “ A novel database of bio-effects from non-ionizing radiation”.
We need your help. ORSAA has recently kicked of a campaign to raise funds with the goal to raise awareness of the science and the implications of man-made Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) on human health. 
The next stage of development planned for the ORSAA database, which will include easy to use reporting functions, requires a skilled database programmer. The funds raised in this campaign will be used to fund this major upgrade. The goal is to make the database easier to use and to facilitate deeper insights into the large volumes of research data contained therein.
You can help us by making a donation to this fund raising campaign   
We thank you for your generosity.

The ORSAA team