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The Truth Behind EMF Safety Limits | Dr. Kent Chamberlin

On this episode of The Wave Forward, Dr. Kent Chamberlin discusses the harmful effects of wireless radiation and the ongoing legal and regulatory challenges associated with EMF safety. He explores various aspects of wireless radiation exposure, the scientific findings, and the role of the Environmental Health Trust in raising awareness and providing resources to educate the public on ways to avoid the harmful effects of EMFs.

Who is Dr. Kent Chamberlin?

Dr. Chamberlin is the Past-Chair and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. In his more than forty years in academia, he has performed research for over twenty-five sponsors, including the National Science Foundation. He has received two Fulbright awards, including the prestigious Fulbright Distinguished Chair. He has also served as an Associate Editor for the Institute for Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and he regularly performs reviews for them and other technical and scientific publications.


Dr. Chamberlin served on the New Hampshire State Commission that was convened through legislation to explore the impacts of wireless radiation. Since serving on the commission, he has been active in carrying out the recommendations of the commission by working with legislators and community groups around the world. Dr.Chamberlin serves as the Vice-Chair for the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, which is an international group of renown scientists with expertise in radiation and biological effects. He engaged last Summer in a speaking tour in Europe where he presented the findings of the commission to groups that included the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

Episode Overview on EMF Safety

Legal Battle Against the FCC

In August of 2021, the DC District Court of Appeals ruled against the FCC, questioning the adequacy of their safety regulations concerning wireless radiation. Despite this legal victory, the lack of a compliance deadline has resulted in little regulatory change as of 2024.


Public Awareness and Health Implications

There is a significant need to increase public understanding of the real dangers associated with wireless radiation. Dr. Kent highlights the importance of recognizing these risks, particularly in children, and taking personal steps to mitigate exposure.


New Hampshire Commission Findings

Dr. Kent served on the New Hampshire Commission that concluded wireless radiation is harmful. This commission issued 15 recommendations, including safe zones in public buildings and setbacks for cell towers. The commission’s majority report highlighted the need for greater protective measures despite pushback from telecom industry representatives


Biological Effects

Studies show reduced birth weights in animals exposed to radiation during pregnancy, as well as declines in sperm viability due to radiation. The long-term effects on human health, particularly in children and future generations, remain a concern.


Role of Environmental Health Trust

The Environmental Health Trust focuses on educating the public about the dangers of electromagnetic pollution. Dr. Kent emphasizes the importance of accessing reliable information, and he supports the idea of people conducting their own research using credible sources.


Reducing Exposure at Home

Practical steps to reduce exposure include using Wi-Fi calling, which significantly lowers the radiation emitted by phones compared to connecting directly to cell towers. Dr. Kent explains the technical differences in radiation levels between Wi-Fi and cellular connections.


Dr. Kent emphasizes the critical need for public awareness and proactive measures to mitigate health risks associated with EMFs. By recognizing the problem and implementing safer technologies, we can significantly reduce radiation exposure, ensuring a healthier environment for our future generations.

Podcast Transcription

00:00 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, one thing I might want to be really clear about is we don't need any additional studies to know the harms of wireless radiation. It's there, it's significant, it's been proved decisively many times, and so that's kind of what the industry says. Well, more research is needed, and of course we're keeping that research from happening.


00:22 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


00:22 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

The only reason we need more research is to answer some of the detailed questions.


00:27 - Michaela (Host)

Right.


00:27 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

We know it's harmful, but now what can we do to make it less harmful?


00:32 - Michaela (Host)

Welcome to the Wave Forward, the podcast that dives deep into how technology shapes our health and well-being. From digital wellness to tech innovation, to the effects of electromagnetic fields, we cover the environmental, social and physical implications of technology. Ready to navigate the digital landscape with confidence, Set your dial to discovery and tune in. You're listening to the Wave Forward, hey everybody. Thanks so much for joining the podcast. I am here with Dr Kent Chamberlain. Thank you so much for joining Dr Kent.


01:01 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

My pleasure.


01:02 - Michaela (Host)

I know that you weren't actively pursuing the life of educating people about EMF, so give me a little bit of insight on what were you doing before and how this happened.


01:11 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, I was a chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Hampshire and at the time I thought wireless radiation was completely well not completely harmless, but mostly harmless. I would get asked about it a fair amount presentations for parents and things like that and what I would tell people is yeah, you don't want to hold your phone right next to your head, hold it away a little bit, and maybe not 24-7, but it's basically innocuous. I said nothing about not putting it on your body. So again, my basic understanding, my basic belief, was that wireless radiation was harmless. And I felt this way because of our trade publication, the IEEE Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It's our trade group, and so they came out periodically with articles saying, oh, it's harmless, it's harmless. So I've had this embedded in me, imbued over my entire career. And so when I was asked to join this commission and I'll be talking about the commission during our talk today I thought, well, this isn't going to last very long. There's no problem with wireless radiation, so we're going to read the literature and we're going to just be done. There's no problem with wireless radiation, so we're going to read the literature and we're going to just be done, but that's not what I found.


02:29

What I found is that and what we found as a commission and I'll be saying more about the commission itself but we found out that it was harmful. So I can talk about the commission, because I think it's important that people know how we came to the conclusion and who we were that made that that came to that conclusion. I should also, in the starting off here is point out that I'm not being paid by anyone for being here today, nor have I been paid for any of the previous presentations that I've given. I've given them around. Well, actually did a European tour last summer, presented at the London Royal Society of Medicine.


03:06

A lot of people are interested in this topic, but the key point here is that I'm not getting paid to be here. And if you hear a message from people in industry, for example, they'll tell you that wireless radiation is absolutely harmless, and the reason they'll tell you this is well, it would cost them a lot, cut down on their profits. They'd still have great profits, but it would cut down on them if they had more reasonable limits. And we'll talk about that too, where the limits came from and what it is that the commission found out. That led it to its conclusions.


03:41 - Michaela (Host)

Okay. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about what is the commission and who is it that actually contacted you to be part of this.


03:49 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, this was done through the chancellor of the system. But the reason the commission was formed in the first place is that legislators and, by the way, legislators are often at times asked to deal with thousands of pieces of legislation bills, to deal with thousands of pieces of legislation bills every legislative cycle, so they don't have time to dive into every issue, particularly complex ones like cell phone radiation. So these legislators were being told by their constituents hey, we're being harmed by wireless radiation, by cell tower radiation, and here's some science to prove it. And yet these same legislators were being told by industry no, wireless radiation is absolutely harmless and you need to put in more infrastructure in your state to remain competitive. So what's a poor legislator do?


04:40

Well, they formed, they wrote the legislation and that's what it takes. It's not a small thing to come up with a commission. You have to write legislation, you have to promote it within the legislature both houses of the legislature and then get it voted on and signed by the governor. But that's the process that went through, and so the whole point was to bring together what some people have referred to as a dream team that had the right expertise to draw the conclusions regarding the harms of wireless radiation. Now, in the beginning they wanted to focus more on 5G and I'll talk more about that later but we ended up saying and finding out that it's not just 5G, it's not just cell towers, it's all wireless radiation devices, and I'll talk about that, also about what is a wireless radiation device.


05:29 - Michaela (Host)

You didn't apply for this or anything like that. Oh no, no, no Like, did someone reach out to you, yeah?


05:34 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

No, a little bit of arm twisting went on, but that's fine. What did you do? Yeah, but it's an impartial commission in the sense that none of us were paid, none of us were affiliated with the cell phone industry, except for the company representatives. We had people representing the cell phone industry and actually they were not very knowledgeable, they weren't scientists, but we did have people with expertise in medicine. We had two medical doctors on board toxicology, epidemiology, biostatistics, physics, you name it. We had the expertise to answer the questions being posed to us. And what were those questions? Well, what were the main ones?


06:16

And I think this swayed a lot of legislators in voting for this legislation. So one of the things was if this wireless radiation is harmless, why won't any insurance companies insure against it? I'm talking about Lloyd's of London. So they won't insure somebody for the harms caused by wireless radiation. They know it's something that's likely to come up later on, but that's the type of question and it was built into the legislation that we were asked to address and address specifically.


06:48

So one thing that we did is we did a literature search. You know what's in the peer-reviewed literature, and to do that we wanted to make sure that the literature that we looked through was valid. Now I'm going to be the first person to say that not all peer-reviewed publications are truthful, contain accurate information. I know that from being a department chair, from serving on college-wide promotion and tenure committees, and also as being I don't know if I mentioned this earlier that I was the associate and associate editor for a major publication. This is an IEEE transaction on antennas and propagation, and I was an associate editor for three years, so I learned a lot about assessing the quality of journals.


07:37 - Michaela (Host)

I feel like that's a really good point that you came in with a very deep understanding of how to analyze research, because a lot of people don't know how to do that.


07:46 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I agree, and that was one of the functions that I performed. So I also not didn't only trust myself, but I brought in the college librarian with a PhD in library sciences and she and I worked together to identify the quality of journals, which I think we did. I had thought going in that I would know how to do it and I know how to do it better now. And one thing that was claimed and will be claimed.


08:13

So if anybody out there listens to presentations given by the cell phone industry about the harms of wireless radiation, one of their claims is that the only articles showing harm from wireless radiation are those that are cherry-picked from fringe journals. All I can say is very clearly that there are articles showing harm from top-tier journals and the articles that show harm are in the majority and, like 91% of the articles that address the issue of oxidative stress and I can say more about that in a moment 91% of the articles that looked at that. Blueberries and taking vitamin C which is why we take those is to lower our free radical load, free radicals, oxidative stress very similar.


09:12 - Michaela (Host)

So you said 91%. So like how there was like over 250, right Over 250 studies that you're looking at to get that 91%. It's not just like oh, there were five studies.


09:23 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

I'm glad you're raising that issue. Yes, exactly so. 91% of a large number of articles.


09:30 - Michaela (Host)

That's amazing. Yeah, I wonder what the other 9%, how the data looks on those.


09:36 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, you know, and what we found is that when we looked at the findings from 2010, a lot of them were industry articles, industry-funded research they showed oh, there's not much. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be cynical, but in that case, the industry-funded studies about only a fifth of them showed a problem. But the fact that even a fifth would show an issue isn't something that you should ignore, particularly when you're exposing people and children 24-7 to this harmful radiation.


10:11 - Michaela (Host)

Without consent, really.


10:14 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, that is the issue. As a matter of fact, consent came into play in the New Hampshire Commission, and that is in determining where you can and can't, or should or shouldn't locate cell towers. We felt like it would be that that the risk from wireless radiation is something that citizens themselves should control. Just like if you're driving, you can control your degree of safety by how you drive, whether or not you wear your seat belt. I mean, I know it's by how you drive, whether or not you wear your seatbelt. I mean, I know it's by law, but you're under control of so many things and we wanted to keep it that way for cell phone radiation also. And that is, if you put a tower next to somebody's house, a cell tower, they can't control it, they can't turn it off.


11:00 - Michaela (Host)

Is it that they truly don't have to have any consent? Or is there something written that when you purchase a cell phone you are consenting to? You know what I mean. Like I wonder how that is. And when you purchase a phone, you know you sign all those documents. I wonder if there's something in there that's like you agreed.


11:19 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Or taking this giant experiment no. Well, I'm glad you put it in terms of an experiment, because that's indeed what it is. Yeah, no, if you, but that's your choice. And so I want people to know that are listening to this that if you use a cell phone and if you, or if you live near a cell tower or you have a wifi router, you are exposing yourself, and that's your choice.


11:41 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


11:41 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

But what if you choose not to? And there are some people who cannot choose not to. It's called electromagnetic hypersensitivity and it's a growing number of people Perhaps 5% of the population have this. I'm not even sure what to call it a syndrome, because if they're exposed to wireless radiation, they get headaches, nausea. If they're exposed to wireless radiation, they get headaches, nausea, some of them heart palpitations, heart effect, I mean. The list goes on and on. And it's real. This isn't something that's in people's heads. Lots of studies have been done that show this is a real effect. So I'm thinking about individuals like that.


12:20 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


12:20 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

The fact that we are all affected by wireless radiation, but some of us have these acute effects that causes very severe problems. In other words, a person that's severe, and I've experienced these people myself. I know them. If you walk into a room, they can tell you if your cell phone is turned on or not.


12:40 - Michaela (Host)

Actually, if you guys have listened to the last episode of the podcast that's live right now with Mike Bender, he tells his whole story. He had Lyme disease and then he was in a home that had black mold in the plenum of the air conditioning vent which, like activated his Lyme, and then he was like he could tell when his wife's phone was on in her pocket.


13:03 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

It's real and she'd be like no, it's off, it's off.


13:04 - Michaela (Host)

And he'd be like no, it's on, check your pocket.


13:07 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, I'm glad you brought that up because it supports the fact you know from what I've seen and what the research supports.


13:17 - Michaela (Host)

Right, I love that you're here saying that, because you know what we just recorded was someone's personal story. But to have someone come in and be like, no, the research actually is like indicative of this, that this is a real thing, it's not just in your mind.


13:31 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

That's absolutely right. So it is supported and we have lots and lots of evidence to support that. But for people like that, I mean they don't have a choice, they can't be near radiation and I know people who have been living very nice lives, enjoying, you know, living in the home that they always wanted, and then a cell tower gets put in and they have to move. It's real. You'll hear numbers from you know just a few percent, like 5%, up to like 20% reduction in property values when the cell tower goes up property values when the cell tower goes up. So if you're not concerned about the health issues, do be concerned about your property values if the cell tower goes up near you.


14:10 - Michaela (Host)

Good friends of mine actually were able to stop a cell tower from going up with this exact model, and the other part of what they were disputing was that they had put all over their website because they have a retreat center, so they had put all over their website that they were a low EMF facility and so when they went to go, I don't know where they went, I don't know if they had to go to the courthouse or wherever, but when they went to go fight it, they were like this is actually going to not just affect our real estate but it's going to affect our personal business that we have here because we are known for low EMF. And they were able to stop the cell tower from going up. So I feel like this is a really great segue into the FCC, because I remember in our last conversation and I did not know this that you had said somewhere and I couldn't remember if it was in the FCC regulations or if it was something else where they basically said you cannot fight cell towers with health.


15:01 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Yeah, this is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Health yeah, this is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. And there was heavy lobbying from the wireless industry. Because when you hear what I'm about to say, you're going to say, how could that possibly happen? Well, money buys things. And so when you look at the spending by the telecommunications industry leading up to that legislation that I'm about to talk about, up to that legislation that I'm about to talk about, their donations tripled in the years leading up to it. So what they wanted and what they got was something put into the legislation that said you can't use health or the environment to fight a cell tower. I mean, to me as a citizen, this is absolutely crazy. Well, of course you'd want to consider that, but they got it built into the legislation section 704 of that of the tca telecommunications act and it has allowed the telecom industry to put in towers in places where people weren't fighting it tooth and nail, because they understood the people understood the the harms of wireless radiation and thing you know. So.


16:05 - Michaela (Host)

So wild and not to get all conspiracy, but it's like, okay, so does that mean?


16:10 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

they knew oh, they, they knew. And because the harms of wireless radiation have been known for a long time, yeah, a long, long time, in the 40s, 50s, I mean. It's been known and so, going into understanding that your, your business model is to roll out these towers, you can't sell cell phones and you can't, you know, uh, you know sell your people subscriptions to having a cell phone unless you have the infrastructure in place. So and then they, they must have known, or they did know.


16:46 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, like hey, this is going to be an issue. We're going to have to address this before we get. It will be an issue, so how?


16:49 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

do we cut this off in the past? Well, you will pay off our politicians to put legislation in the legislation that they can't fight it on health.


16:58 - Michaela (Host)

That's your job. When you're coming in and you want to make a multi-billion dollar company, your job is to know and address what the foreseeable problems will be. Before you, you know, deploy that business. Before you, you know, throw loads and loads of money into that business. So it makes so much sense that back in the night, is it 1990s?


17:19 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

right.


17:19 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, Like right, when technology was really starting to kind of become part of the forefront of everything, they obviously I mean I'll stop there.


17:32 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Same reaction that I am. You know, when I first heard about this you know that they couldn't use health as a problem I was just dumbfounded. It took me a while to believe it. And what's going on with the FCC that would allow them to do this? And then and this I'm speaking of me personally and also in the commission. You can imagine some of the conversations we had about that. How could they do that? And we've figured that out, and I'll mention the idea of agency capture, and that's something we found out about. I should also point out that some of the people on the commission were legislators themselves and were pretty savvy. They had been legislators for a long time and so they brought us, or introduced, the idea of agency capture, and that's exactly what's going on with the FCC, and this isn't some conspiracy theory. This is the Harvard Center for Ethics has, and I hope we can publish the slides from this.


18:28

Yes, for sure, yeah, I can, because I have links in my slides and that people can go to click on the links and it'll bring them to the sites that I'm talking about. But the Harvard Center for Ethics came out with a call, a report on captured agency, how the FCC is controlled by the industries it presumably regulates. So that's what's going on. Right, there is that people who run the FCC were formerly people who ran the telecom industries and they kind of go in and out of this revolving door. So that's what's going on. That's why it's going on. Yeah, and it's hard to wrap your head.


19:05 - Michaela (Host)

I mean, I understand why it's difficult to wrap your head around that level of deception. It comes out eventually. It's not like, oh, this is happening and we don't know it's happening. It's like, no, there are records and records and records of lawsuits and lawsuits and lawsuits and billions of dollars that had to have been paid from all of these different things that we were told were safe and then ended up being harmful. So, yes, it's hard to wrap your head around, but when you really understand that it actually probably was pretty easy to know that EMFs were harmful and keep it pretty tight and under wraps and create the story of it's not, it's fine and honestly, I don't even personally think that they create the story of it's perfectly safe.


20:02

I just think they don't address it at all. Like when you're looking at you know, a verizon ad or a telecommunication ad, they're just telling you how fast the speed is going to be. There's no address, there's no addressing. Okay, what does this mean? I see the commercial of it flying and through the windows and through the house and coming at you. Know what does that mean for me? What does that mean for?


20:23 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

my body.


20:24 - Michaela (Host)

They't address that. It's not like they're saying, it's perfectly safe. They're just also not addressing is it harmful?


20:29 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

But they will say it's perfectly safe. And I hear them repeat it again and again. And when I go in to present to communities, they want to hear from me and they want to hear from the telecom industry. And the telecom industry will flat out lie and they'll make the statement that wireless radiation is perfectly harmless. People that claim that they have electromagnetic hypersensitivity well, it's totally psychosomatic. It's all in their heads and it's not.


20:55 - Michaela (Host)

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20:59

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21:12

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22:03 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

When you go and you look at what these sites like the National Cancer Institute and WHO, what they actually have to say is they kind of have some weasel words, what I call weasel words, you know, claiming that there's not sufficient evidence to connect it to cancer or whatever. But it's really weasel words and it doesn't say it's safe at all. But hearing all that and then finding out the epidemiology the fact that if people live closer to a cell tower, their chances of dying of cancer increase period, the closer you live to a cell tower, the more likely you are to die from cancer.


22:40 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, I have a question about that.


22:42 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Yes.


22:43 - Michaela (Host)

So if you live directly under a cell tower, are you more protected than living like here? If you, live here would it go over and down. So you don't want to live under a cell tower. I'm just curious at what point, because does it go over before it goes down, or is it? Do you know?


23:06 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So the answer is that you have what's called a lobe. You're going to project the energy where you want it, so you're not going to have an antenna that sends the signal everywhere. You want to focus that energy, very much like a flashlight. In fact, light is electromagnetic energy, so you could think of a flashlight as being like an antenna, so it focuses the light in a particular location. And that's what cell antennas do. They do focus the energy where their clients are going to be, where the users are going to be. And so, to answer your question, it can be less as you're right underneath the tower and as you move away the signal strength will increase, but still the radiation right under the tower is going to be significant.


23:52 - Michaela (Host)

Right, that's more like you know, like dirty electricity right Kind of coming off the tower itself.


24:00 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, no, that dirty electricity is a different phenomenon. Okay, not something we looked at, although I have myself myself and I don't want to go into much detail about that right now.


24:10 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, we won't.


24:11 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Partly because we don't have the information about the relative risk of different frequencies, of different modulation types and of low frequency magnetic fields like what you get from your house current Okay and of low frequency magnetic fields, like what you get from your house current. So we don't have enough information about it. Because industry has kept the agencies that would be responsible for dealing with that. They've kept them defunded, and the example is the Environmental Protection Agency Around 1996, they had been allotted money by Congress to perform studies to answer the questions that I just you know addressed Things like dirty electricity, things like you know, modulating frequency and all that. But they were defunded so they could no longer perform the research to answer questions.


25:00 - Michaela (Host)

Okay so really quick before you continue. I feel like this is such a good point because so many people who say, well, there's not enough studies and not enough studies. You have to understand that studies can only happen if there's money to fund those studies. Telecommunication companies are not going to want to fund those studies with people who come in unbiasedly and like are actually looking for the truth, you know and and getting the fine, like getting the finances you need to do a study like that is pretty significant.


25:28 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, one thing I might want to be really clear about is we don't need any additional studies to know the harms of wireless radiation. It's there, it's significant, it's been proved decisively many times, and so that's kind of what the industry says. Well, more research is needed and of course we're keeping that research from happening. The only reason we need more research is to answer some of the detailed questions. We know it's harmful, but now what can we do to make it less harmful? We can answer those questions, but industry doesn't want the research to happen because it will reinforce the understanding that wireless radiation is harmful and we need to be addressing it.


26:11

So it's pretty similar to what happened with tobacco. And if you look at some of the early ads for tobacco and the claims made by the tobacco industry about the safety, I don't know if you might have that slide that shows that the tobacco industry was advertising that smoking cigarettes does not cause cancer. And of course, when you think about it, does it cause cancer? Well, you know, five out of six people who smoke don't die or don't get lung cancer. So have we proven, you know that it doesn't cause cancer, you know it's. So it's kind of like this sleight of hand that people will do that in the industry to kind of keep us off the trail. Okay, I like that.


26:57 - Michaela (Host)

So we know that there's enough. We know there's enough research to to say it is, it is absolutely harmful. But we still need more research to determine the best ways of going about all of it basically and like the best safety measures to put into place. But we already have. The foundational research is there, we know. Now we just need to do more and expand beyond it.


27:25 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Bingo.


27:25 - Michaela (Host)

Exactly.


27:26 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And we need to start protecting our kids yesterday, because kids are the most vulnerable, and that's the point I really want to reinforce.


27:35 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, okay, so we. I want to have a whole conversation on that next time.


27:39 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

I really do. We can bring in who are experts, okay.


27:43 - Michaela (Host)

So let's address the FCC. I we went on in so many different directions but I really feel like it was good to have a good foundation of like where you came from, how you came into this, what is going on in the world with EMF currently, what research is there? And now let's address the really big dispute, the really big question which you know anytime we try to have this conversation. The immediate dispute that I personally see in my own life is that, oh well, it's FCC regulated and why would they allow?


28:18 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

this to get this far, if you know what I mean. So what is the FCC and what does it do? Okay, Well, the first thing I want to address, which relates to what you're asking, is what are the FCC guidelines? If a cell tower company goes into any neighborhood, they're going to say, well, we're well within FCC standards. So what does that mean? Well, we're only 1% of FCC standards. Well, let me tell you where those standards came from, because that had a big impact on us in the commission.


28:47

Turns out that these, the studies to determine the guidelines for exposure, were set in the 1980s and they were based upon short-term behavioral studies on eight rats and five monkeys. Eight rats, five monkeys, Very small population to begin with, and in fact, yeah, and the fact that these studies lasted less than an hour is significant because we're all exposed 24-7. So, in other words, the studies that were performed to determine the exposure guidelines couldn't take into account and didn't take into account long-term effects Wow, 24-7,5 that we're exposed to. And their assumption was that it was only the heating effect. Now, heating from microwaves we all know that you put something in the microwave oven and it gets radiated and it warms up. Those are heating effects and absolutely they are dangerous. But what is also dangerous are the long-term low-level effects that are now well established. If you're around a cell tower it's going to cause oxidative stress which can lead to a host of illnesses. But their assumption was that it was only the heating effects that would be a problem.


30:05

Now here's the study. So they took these rats and monkeys, they put them in cages and the animals had been trained to push a lever to get food. Yeah, it's not uncommon and it's an easy thing for animals to learn rats and monkeys. And so they food deprived the rats and monkeys before the test, before the experiment started, and then they started exposing those rats and monkeys to greater and greater amounts of radiation, and they stopped only when the rats and monkeys could no longer perform the simple task of pushing the lever for more food. So that's why it's called a behavioral study. It didn't look at long-term effects at all. It just said when this animal gets so hot from exposure that it can't perform a simple task, well, what's going to be the threshold dose?


30:55 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


30:55 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Some of the monkeys had burns on their faces from that very high level of radiation. But they the people running the experiment defined that as the threshold dose for radiation, that very high level at which the animals could no longer function. And then they put in what they called a safety factor of 50 to apply to the general public. In other words, the general public could be exposed to that very high dose of radiation. You know, even though and then you know, by the fact that they divided by 50, they didn't have any rationale for divide for that using 50 as what they called the safety factor. It was totally arbitrary. You know, anybody familiar with epidemiology or setting safety limits know that you have targets about relative risk and things like that and you don't use a single outcome on which to base that relative risk. But this was done in a completely crude manner and I have the documentation for where that comes from and it's in the slides that we'll be distributing. Don't need to go into too much detail about why the industry fights so hard to maintain those ridiculous and'll call you that's. You can quote me that's. The limits are indeed ridiculous, because I think about what that would mean.


32:15

I think it would change for people to understand what's going on. It would change their relationship with their cell phone. I still have mine, I use it, I love it. But there are a lot of things that you can do to make radiation or make what these phones do a lot safer. For example, I use airplane mode a lot.


32:33

I turn the antennas off when I have it on my body, you know when I don't want to get too far afield. But there's a lot that can be done and you can do a better job of sighting cell towers. You know you don't need a strong signal to get a very good reception. You know to get four or five bars you only need like a billionth of the FCC standards, a very tiny signal for robust communication. People don't realize that Now the cheapest way to provide a big coverage area is to go to the center of a populated population area and put in your antenna, turn up the power to the maximum allowable and you're going to get great coverage and people you know way away from the tower are going to get fine reception but you're going to provide huge radiation to the people near the antenna.


33:31 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, so with the rate, okay With the, with the limits, were they taking it? I mean obviously not with with the way that study was, but like the current regulations, which the current regulations haven't changed at all since then, Right Since 1996.


33:47 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

That's right.


33:48 - Michaela (Host)

So what have they taken in account at all? The kind of compounding effects of like okay, the average person has a smart watch on a cell phone, has probably two kids in their car with a cell phone, has a smart, has a smart fridge, has her wi-fi like the wi-fi plugged in. Has a smart tv like are we taking in account all of these devices working together?


34:13 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Michaela, you're asking the million dollar question and the answer is that it's summative, it's cumulative. The more radiation sources you have around you, the more of an impact it's going to have on you personally. And how have things changed since 1996? Yeah a lot, particularly the electromagnetic landscape Right.


34:35 - Michaela (Host)

We are so profoundly different and there are so many more studies have come out since 1996.


34:41 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Oh, we know so much more now we don't know. We need to know more, and there should be funding allotted to answer questions like the effect of satellite systems like Starlink. Is that even a good idea? Yeah, in some countries they exercise what's called the precautionary principle. If you're introducing a technology that could potentially be harmful, it's incumbent upon the leaders of that country to to make sure that the research is sufficient to show that there isn't harm. That hasn't been done in this country. We don't believe in the precautionary principle we're trying.


35:17

We're a try and find out that's exactly right if it has the potential to make somebody some money and usually not the people who really need the money right, it has the art, but the potential, well, let's go forward with it and really that is what we're doing. We're unquestioningly. You know we can do it, so let's do it.


35:36 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, so I think you addressed this a little bit before. But like, what is the incentive for the FCC to not look at the like, to not change the regulations? Like, why is how is the FCC not completely separate entity than, like, what the telecommunication companies would want? How is, how are those two things working?


35:57 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So there is no incentive for them. Okay, so, and I think a lot of your listeners will know that a lot of government is not receptive to people. Now, right there, you know, there's studies showing, you know, showing that what people want, based on surveys, compared to what actually happens through the legislature, the federal government, they don't align at all. People's priorities are not enacted into legislation and vice versa. It's to benefit industry and so that's what happens, and I have sympathy for legislators.


36:35

If you're in as a senator, state or federal senator, how do you keep in office? How do you get elected? Well, you're going to spend roughly 90% of your time going out and dialing for dollars, as it were, 90% of your time going out dialing for dollars, as it were. And so anything that takes away from that, like protecting people, you're not going to do. And I'm not saying it's a flaw in the political system that needs to be addressed, because the senators, first of all, don't have time to learn about the issue. It takes a while to learn about it and the fact that if they go against the cell telecom industry, which is arguably the highest profit industry on this planet, wow, so you don't want to, you want to mess with these guys because if they'll start put, they'll dump money into your opponent. So politically it's at the upper level.


37:26 - Michaela (Host)

At the federal level, there's really not much when you really think about it, because, like, there's just like an imbalance of power, like the legislate, like the legislation is fighting for money, fighting for support, fighting for all these things, and you're gonna have to do whatever these people who have the power and the money and you know, want you to do in order to be able to continue on. So, yeah, that's that is really interesting, and that division of power is very unbalanced, like we. You know, the foundational pieces that are supposed to be protecting this country are are not self-sufficient. They're reliant on outside sources.


38:08 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

That's right Without those outside sources although I'd love to see no money in politics I know that's a bit naive to say, but that is we need to go in that direction. There was a Citizens United I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it was legislation that opened up the dates for throwing money into the political system by outside, and so when that came into place, there was a huge increase in the amount of funding given from well, political PACs and all that towards politicians and, of course, at that point, if you're a politician, you want to stay being a politician. You got to just play along. Yeah, that's unfortunate. It's something that we need to change, and that was where a a revolution of sorts is has the potential to actually happen if we can make change in the funding of the political system yeah, not to get political, but you kind of have to in order to be able to address what's really going on.


39:08 - Michaela (Host)

Right, right Okay so tell me a little bit about the Children's Health Defense and that lawsuit that happened, because you know you can sit here and say all day there's research, there's research, but when you actually are like, okay, wait a second. No, the FCC actually lost a lawsuit about this. So can we talk a little bit?


39:29 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

about that. It was the Environmental Health Trust and the Children's Health Defense.


39:33 - Michaela (Host)

Okay.


39:33 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

In combination their suit. They had separate suits but they were combined because they were so similar. Yeah, basically saying you know, along the lines of the questions that you've been asking is I can't say it on the podcast, but what's going on, folks? Right, this is crazy. You have these rules and we provided them with 11,000 pages of documentation about the science behind wireless radiation exposure and harm. And so the conclusion and this was back in August 13th, 2021. And the court, the DC District Court of Appeals, looked at the information and said okay, fcc, you have some explaining to do. Why are you not addressing some very important issues like the environment and like health? And the FCC didn't give an adequate answer. So they lost in court. Now, that's the win. The win.


40:34

But the fact that they did not put a deadline.


40:38 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


40:39 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

That win kind of it took a lot of the win away, because if they had to comply by a certain date, well, they would have to have complied by that certain date, but when you don't have a deadline in there nothing has happened. So here we are in 2024, and nothing really.


40:56 - Michaela (Host)

They can literally just say oh well, we're just waiting on the results of the 60-year study as soon as we know Along those lines right.


41:06 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So the win is there, it's documented and it leaves an opening for follow on legislation.


41:13 - Michaela (Host)

You know, the important part of the win is for people to understand that this is real and that it's been recognized and like, I mean, I think that is the most valuable aspect of the win is giving people the open door of like, acknowledgement and understanding that this is a real thing. And now, yes, okay, we, we understand. This is real, it's been acknowledged, this is real. But you know, obviously the systems that are in place are not. The health is not, is not the most important thing. Um and so now the health has to become the most important thing to us, like taking the power back of in own homes, in our own environment, and doing what we can to ensure a safe environment, because it is not taboo, it is not tinfoil hat, it is not. You know what it has been. You know this topic has been, you know, put out as it's, it's a very real thing and and and if you just even did a little bit of digging, you'd find the information pretty quickly that is leading you towards like, oh, this is significant, right, michaela?


42:18

Especially in children.


42:19 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

yeah, oh yeah, especially in children. Yeah, started doing this. Remember I served on the commission. We found our, got a result, you know, made our finding and I, you know, decided. You know this is a problem.


42:33

People need to know about it because they're not going to hear it. Well, a number of reasons. They're not going to be told about the harms from the wireless industry industry certainly not. And they're not going to hear about it from news outlets. Because who are some of the major advertisers on the news outlets? You know it's going to be telecom and who owns a lot of the outlets. So they're not going to hear it for them. So I feel personally responsible for letting people know. And in the beginning I got some accusations about my foil hat and all that, but over time that has gone away. So now people are increasingly aware of it. I haven't been called a foil hatter in years. Now People just want to say, well, what's the truth and what can we do to protect ourselves? And I'm ready to answer that question because we did a deep dive into that as well.


43:22 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, so really quick how many people were part of the commission and what was the conclusion? How many people were part of the commission and what was the conclusion? And I mean I know you already kind of touched on that, but let's, let's wrap that piece of it up really quick. So how many people were were part of this?


43:39 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

so we had a majority report. The way it works in new hampshire is if you have a commission and anybody disagrees, they can write a minority report if they disagree with the majority. So we had three people affiliated with the telecom industry on the commission and they had their own report. Didn't say much except we don't like what they came up with. And then of the scientists the 10, we came up with a majority report that said, yes, wireless radiation is harmful, and we had 15 recommendations and they covered things like having safe spaces within public buildings, about setbacks for cell towers, and that setback that we came up with was 1,640 feet, which is 500 meters 500 meters.


44:25 - Michaela (Host)

Someone just asked me that yesterday.


44:28 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And I can go through excruciating detail about how we came up with that number. Okay, but that is what we came up with and, frankly, if you are that far from a cell tower, I don't think you need to worry about it very much unless you're electromagnetically hypersensitive. So we also had issues about protecting kids and not having cell towers near schools, and that is a favored place for telecom to put. Cell towers is on schools for a variety of reasons that I don't necessarily have to go into right now, but that's really disturbing to hear about. And as parents have gotten more savvy about the harms of radiation, they've become more politically active. I mean, you don't mess with somebody's kids.


45:15

So when parents would happen it's a pattern that we've gone through a number of times they look up and they see a tower going up on their kid's school or they hear about it. They start looking on the internet and oftentimes they come up with my name and so they contact me. I give a presentation and to give them the information very similar to what I'm giving you now, and they then become ballistic, as they should. Kids are growing. This is an experiment. We don't know what happens when you expose a human body to this type of radiation 24 seven.


45:50 - Michaela (Host)

You know, obviously the research is there that shows it's harmful. But what's the research on? Like second generation, like I think that we're really going to know when our babies have babies, because our babies from utero are being exposed and like those, I didn't know. I did not know I am a woman and did not know this that we develop all of our eggs throughout our lifetime that we're going to have in 20 weeks of being in utero.


46:19

And so if you're being exposed to these outside frequencies all the day, every single day, how is that impacting? Well, actually we have answers.


46:31 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

It affects the birth weight of. I mean, we're talking about animals and so in the animal studies the animals that were exposed during pregnancy had smaller babies than those who weren't exposed. I mean, we know these things and we also know about sperm being affected. If you take a sperm and you put it into two test tubes and you expose one to radiation and don't expose the other, you'll see significant and measurable differences in motility and viability. So we know these things and so, as you hear about the decline in sperm count in this country and in most countries right now it's I it could be easily attributable to exposure. You know, or do people carry their cell phones? You know young men in their, in their pockets?


47:18 - Michaela (Host)

yeah yeah, that's finally kind of being acknowledged in the forefront on all these big, big podcasts like joe rogan and andrew huberman, and you know it's kind of that particular. They still don't address the full issue, but they will acknowledge that particular study.


47:39 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, I think it just takes a while for people. People are unwilling to make that big step about the harm, Although that's something that the New Hampshire Commission has helped facilitate is helping people to take that at first, that very important step.


47:52 - Michaela (Host)

The other thing I really wanted to talk about was the Environmental Health Trust, because you're now the president of the Environmental Health Trust Talk a little bit about, because I know so deeply about what that is, because I get so much of my information from it. But I have gone to talk about it and people are like what is that? So will you tell a little bit about what the Environmental Health Trust does?


48:10 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, I could start off by talking how I became familiar with it. So I, you know, got asked to be on this commission, and so the first thing I, you know, did the library search that I mentioned earlier, the literature search and then I started going to the internet. Okay, what sources of information are there? And what was the best source that I found? Well, it was the Environmental Health Trust website. So that's where I got a lot of the information, and I contacted the Environmental Health Trust, I got Theodora Scarrato and she was willing to work with me and provided information, and she's still there helping me, providing me with information.


48:46

So what we see ourselves as being is very much educational what are the harms? And you can't fight a harm unless you know what it is. And in the beginning it was dealt with chemical toxins, but over time it evolved into dealing with this electromagnetic toxin. It is, it's electropollution and it's growing, and so that has been kind of adopted as being a driving force is figuring out the helping with the research, helping to facilitate research into this arena and then letting people know about it. What I'm doing right now, you know there are probably people that are going to be listening to this podcast, who have no idea about the harms.


49:27 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


49:28 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And I don't blame them and, frankly, I can't blame industry because, like I said before I came into this, before I served on the commission, I thought it was harmless.


49:38 - Michaela (Host)

Right and the answers were there. You just weren't looking for them.


49:42 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

I wasn't Right, so I hope that anybody hearing this podcast who didn't think there was a problem, do your own research. You'll see it it's. You don't have to dig very long and very deep to come up with the fact that it's harmful.


49:56 - Michaela (Host)

Do you think we could do an episode kind of breaking down how you do your own research?


50:04

Because just a little bit of like. Here's a study that came to be that EMS weren't harmful and here's a study that came to be you know what I mean and kind of breaking down the metrics that were used and the analysis that had occurred and why, how to, how to identify. Because I mean, we love, I'm all for doing your own research, but, like, don't be doing your own research via Instagram. Science Like you need to understand, right, like you need to have a basic understanding of how to read an abstract and how to read you know what the, the actual like analysis that was used or the metrics that were used. So I'm still, like I rely heavily on my husband, because my husband, um, he has an environmental science degree, so that's kind of his background. He's a lab analyst for the city of Waco and so he does a lot of that for me and breaks it down for me. But I would love to have your insights on just a basic understanding of like. How do you do your own work, like, how?


51:01 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

It's pretty boring yeah.


51:03 - Michaela (Host)

I know, but I think it's good.


51:04 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Like I said, I did some of my work with a PhD in library sciences. How do you determine if something's junk science or not?


51:13 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, so to be continued on that, because we're definitely going to get it.


51:17 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

No, that needs to be its own episode.


51:20 - Michaela (Host)

I'm ready.


51:20 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

We sure could, I'd bring Theodora Scarrato into that as well.


51:24 - Michaela (Host)

That'd be great.


51:24 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Really good at it, so to be continued.


51:28 - Michaela (Host)

Yes, okay, so Environmental Health really good at it. So, to be continued, yes, okay, so environmental health trust. How do people get in contact with them? How do, how do people get educated and connected there?


51:42 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So I I'm really glad you brought that up. It's time to put on my different hat. My advertising hat is simply go to environmental health, trust and and look around and we encourage people to join to get the newsletter because you can get it sent to you. You know, I think we all don't like places that market aggressively and we don't do that, and we're thinking about coming up with a membership program because, while we don't want to be too aggressive in reaching out, we also need input. We need money to do the things that we do. So I'd encourage you to become a member and if you can support us financially we've had good support in the past. I'm happy.


52:22

But that is the main thing is just get on the site and then communicate with us. We're very reachable and if you have a tower going in near you and that's where we oftentimes get calls too, and that is people see trucks going out because the companies don't announce Oftentimes they only announce to the degree they have to that they're going to put in a facility. So oftentimes people only find out too late they're going to put in a facility, so oftentimes people only find out too late. And the way the legislation works is that there's what's called a shock clock and that is once they put in their application for a tower, for a permit, the clock starts and the town only has so long to respond and if they don't respond within that time period, the permit is so is there any way to know when someone's put in that permit, to know that?


53:17 - Michaela (Host)

is there anywhere to look where you'd be able to find that someone has a permit to put a cell tower up, like my neighbor? You know what I mean, or no?


53:26 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, I would think that there would be a place, a way of knowing, but as I've looked at some of these installations that have been done, only the abutters are sometimes notified, and or only people within a certain radius.


53:41 - Michaela (Host)

Okay.


53:42 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And sometimes you know there are people there. Actually, I don't want to get into the politics of the process, but there is money that's involved, because and there's actually I could even spend a lot of time talking about the business incentive for the industry. What are they trying to accomplish? Why are they pushing these facilities so much? I know the answer, the commission knew the answer and I could tell you about it, but it would take a while.


54:08 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


54:08 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So I'm hopeful also that for you, as a podcaster, we're presenting this information right now and people are going to hear it and they may say, ah, I don't need to hear any more about that, or they may have questions, and if they do, you and I can assemble those questions together and I can address them directly.


54:27 - Michaela (Host)

Yes, please, even in right in the podcast apps now, like in Spotify. If you're listening to this on Spotify, you can drop a question right in there that I can take to Dr Kent and kind of plan another episode with him, because I am all I was like once I really had a conversation with you. I'm like oh my gosh, you're the perfect person. I needed you in my life.


54:47 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Well, it was kind of like the perfect situation. My background you know electromagnetics I you know I'm a radio frequency engineer. I've done a lot of towers siting myself, not wire cell towers, but for I've worked for the Navy, the Air Force, the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications. So I've done work for a lot of people in the same interrelated issue, you know, for different types of communication. So, and then after serving on the commission, I have expertise in the other aspects of wireless radiation, the health effects, and so I have turned out to be a, just by happenstance, a good person to represent and answer questions about it.


55:30 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, that's so cool. That's so cool. Did anybody else that was part of that commission have that same reaction and wanting to partake more in what's happening in the world of EMF? Or did you take it on?


55:45 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Another aspect of this you may have noticed in my introduction I'm emeritus, so I'm no longer teaching. I'm still a faculty member, but I'm no longer teaching or have commitments at the university. And so people knew that. And then people on the commission knew that, and so when requests came in for somebody to represent the findings of the commission, everybody pointed to me yes, I see, this guy's perfect Well you also?


56:14 - Michaela (Host)

have that background in being able to communicate your findings, and I think well.


56:19 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

I think that's important because it you know, people see this as being complex. You know, and you mentioned electromagnetics their eyes tend to glaze over my students did, at least and then it becomes the challenge of explaining it, because the the salient issues here are not complicated. You don't need to know math to know that exposure is is problem and we can even get into and, if people are interested, we could talk about how to measure exposure, how to protect yourself at home. There are lots of things you can do. And then, yeah, industry can do and, as I mentioned, I can do and, as I mentioned, I'm a radio frequency engineer and I've done, you know, design work relating to things like cell phones.


56:59

And when we engineers were told to design these things and to design cell towers, we were never told to reduce radiation. We were simply told, well, make the data rates fast. We were simply told, well, make the data rates fast and robust and make them small, low power consumption, but never to reduce radiation. And there is a lot we can do. I've written a paper, was co-author on a paper where we talk about solutions.


57:27 - Michaela (Host)

And I don't want to go into those details right now. So you're saying that as part of that job, it was never addressed to lower EMF?


57:36 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

No, why would you if you thought it was completely harmless?


57:39 - Michaela (Host)

And why would you, if the regulations are so insignificant? You know they're.


57:42 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

You just nailed it, okay, and so it just changes the whole paradigm. If you admit that wireless radiation is harmful, it's a game changer and that's why they don't want to go. They, the telecom industry, don't want to go there. So you repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth, and that's what's going on right now. But there is a lot that can be done. But you have to admit there's a problem. There are low power routers, wireless, you know, wi-fi within the home. That lowers your radiation exposure by like 90%. Also, there's Wi-Fi calling, where you can use your Wi-Fi at home. You know, just hook your phone up to Wi-Fi, turn on Wi-Fi calling, and we can talk about how to do that. It's not hard, and so whenever I'm at home I'm using Wi-Fi calling and I'm getting there's substantially less radiation from this phone when it's in Wi-Fi mode Because it's not having. I'll give you some numbers.


58:39 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, that's interesting, I didn't know that.


58:41 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Most people don't.


58:43 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.


58:43 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

There are lots of things like that.


58:45 - Michaela (Host)

So it's better to be so. It'd be better to have your phone on airplane mode and then connected to Wi-Fi.


58:52 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And your phone works perfect. Matter of fact, it works for me. It works better than if I'm hooked up to the cell, because then you're just getting the signal directly from Wi-Fi rather than.


59:02 - Michaela (Host)

Why is that why?


59:03 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Here are two things. One, to talk to a cell tower. Cell towers are oftentimes far from your house. I don't even know where our local cell tower is that I'm communicating with on this Right, but the in fact, that fact alone says that I'm probably this phone's using the higher power. The way it works, the way your phone works, is if you're far away it uses a higher power, and if you're closer to the cell tower it uses a lower power. That higher power is about three watts. Now I'm saying it like that because to me that's significant. This is a three watt microwave transmitter and that ain't small. So this is three watts, but when I'm using wifi it's about a hundred milliwatts or a 10th watt.


59:46 - Michaela (Host)

Okay.


59:46 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So there's a factor of 30 there. I got you. I'm using a much lower power transmitter when I'm in Wi-Fi mode.


59:53 - Michaela (Host)

You said so three watts if it's not connected to Wi-Fi, and then what was it if it is connected?


01:00:00 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

About 0.1 watt.


01:00:02 - Michaela (Host)

Wow.


01:00:04 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Yeah, so that's a huge difference. Yeah, there are just lots of things and I have to do that manually. Now, when I come home, you know, I turn it into airplane mode and to make sure that I'm connected to Wi-Fi and it's perfect.


01:00:20 - Michaela (Host)

It works perfectly, ok. I have an amateur question what is the difference between, like, ok, you know, the gigahertz thing, the gigahertz and hertz and all of that, and watts?


01:00:33 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

the gigahertz and hertz and, and and all of that and watts. Okay, now actually I'm. I'm the right person, okay, perfect. So you're asking two separate issues. One is frequency, and so it's kind of like are you old enough to remember the tune in the dial radios?


01:00:46 - Michaela (Host)

yes, I mean, I still have one in my office, okay, well, in that case, what you're doing is you're changing frequency by turning the dial.


01:00:54 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Okay so you're looking at different frequencies, so that's frequency, and the second thing you're asking about is power.


01:01:03 - Michaela (Host)

Okay.


01:01:04 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

And so what relates to power, how powerful is the radiation source? So what I just mentioned here is that when I'm into communicating with the cell tower, I'm using what can be a three watt transmitter.


01:01:18 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, so if the watts are higher, is it likely that the frequency would it doesn't have anything.


01:01:24 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

It's completely independent of frequency. Watts is power and the frequency. The one thing we don't know about frequencies are which ones are the most harmful, and it would take a detailed study and an expensive study to answer that question.


01:01:38 - Michaela (Host)

Give us a little hope.


01:01:41 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

All right, here is the hope.


01:01:43 - Michaela (Host)

Let's end with a little hope, guys.


01:01:44 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

There is hope, absolutely, and that is once we acknowledge there's a problem from wireless radiation. There is so much we can do to lessen it. I mentioned earlier on that you don't need a strong signal to have robust communication. So let's cite cell towers, particularly new cell towers in locations where no single people, you know, no people in populated areas, get overly exposed. You can put the antennas other places, so you have very low radiation and that's what I have. I'm really lucky. I have robust communication but very low exposure. That can be achieved, and I'm saying that as a radio frequency engineer.


01:02:26

There are things that we can implement and design. We engineers created these phones. We can create safer ones, and so things like the lower power routers. I could go into the technical detail, but we can significantly lower the radiation from the wireless access points and this is particularly important in your kids' schools. Take the routers, those wireless access points, out of the classroom. Put them in the halls where kids are for a shorter period of time. Right now we have kids sitting and spending the day under a router getting huge exposures, and I've gone in and I've made those measurements before. So there's so much we can do. It's simply acknowledging that there's a problem and then we can address that problem. And the other one I got to mention is using wired connections. I'm using a wired connection now. I could say a lot more about it, but it's a wired connection that I put in in the 1990s when the internet first came out using Ethernet. It's a name that some of you may remember.


01:03:30 - Michaela (Host)

I've been Googling it lately trying to figure out, because I'm about to move and I'm like, okay, how do I go about this? Who do I call?


01:03:36 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

It's okay, I put it in myself.


01:03:39 - Michaela (Host)

Okay.


01:03:40 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

So if you use wired connection, then you're going to not have any exposure at all from it, or almost no exposure at all. So, wired connections, the use of fiber optics some places do that very effectively, like Chattanooga, tennessee, of all places they are using. They're called the Gig City and they used, they went in with fiber optics instead of things not being camable, not being hackable. So there are lots of things and we could even spend a whole show talking about it. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah because I want you to break down.


01:04:21 - Michaela (Host)

Maybe the next time too we can break down, kind of like, how wireless works. You know, if you were to live in like a suburban area, what's actually happening, the security issues, and then like oh my gosh, I'm ready.


01:04:34 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Yeah, we'll get ready, I'm ready.


01:04:36 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, all right guys, thank you so much. I really really appreciate you being here, dr Kent, and please, everyone go check out the environmental health trust. We actually get a lot of our information from them and I didn't even know when I got on my first call with Dr Kent that he was the president of the Environmental Health Trust. I had contacted him for other reasons because I saw that he was a big part of this conversation and so it was really cool to be able to be like oh okay, make that connection and so please go support what they do. We really heavily rely on all the information and we really try to showcase the different things that they're doing as far as like public initiatives and stuff like that. So please, please, help and support. And then also, you can get a breakdown of this episode at wave.aristech.com and post any of your questions in the comments of the podcast, because thankfully I have recruited this man for multiple episodes. We will come and answer, answer more, more questions. So thank you so much.


01:05:35 - Dr. Kent (Guest)

Thank you for this opportunity, Michaela. 

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