NACST Opposes SB.649

“A nation that does not protect its children has no future.”

Toril Jelter, MD, FAAP ¹

July 25, 2017

The Honorable Lorena Fletcher Gonzalez
Chair, Assembly Appropriations Committee
State Capitol, Room 2114
Sacramento, California 95814

Re: SB 649 (Hueso): Wireless Telecommunications Facilities As Amended 7/18/17 — OPPOSE

Dear Assembly Member Gonzalez:

The National Association For Children and Safe Technology (NACST) works to educate the public and support public health policy to protect the safety, health, and well being of children and youth from Radio-frequency / Microwave (RF/MW) Radiation exposure originating from wireless technology and infrastructure. NACST opposes CA SB649 legislation based on health and agricultural science, with human and animal physical injuries and impairments, violation of federal and state laws, and violation of the powers of local government.

It is essential that you vote NO on CA SB649 Wireless telecommunications facilities. This bill is an unnecessary taking of public funds and property values, alongside losses of public health and safety, and human and agricultural productivity. California has strong interest in protecting its economic base and residents’ and visitors’ freedom from physical injury and impairment. The 4G/5G Distributed Antenna System (DAS) would result in scientifically established hazardous radiation exposure with often immediate and therefore provable adverse effects, particularly immediate neurological and cardiologic effects.

CA SB.649 involves telecoms installing powerful microwave radiation antennas, misleadingly called “small cells” to conceal their radiation power and concentration, on light poles and utility poles in the public right of way for 5G. Poles may be only 15-20 feet from homes and offices. Thousands of these antennas and large power supplies would be placed on residential blocks and farms, deploying Radio-Frequency/Microwave (RF/MW) radiation, penetrating homes and bodies 24/7/365 forever.

Pulse-modulated RF/MW radiation, particularly this close to homes, offices and farm animals, is a “hazard”, as acknowledged by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and FCC in 1991 in the guideline-setting process.

Although proponents claim a financial bonanza from DAS 5G deployment, there is no evidence to support it. In fact, the Russians refused 5G as badly engineered (as also US engineers have admitted) and instead provided fiber optics, which works much better, to all homes and apartments in large cities. Furthermore, cell phones are a mature industry: everyone who wants a cell phone already has one, including California’s children and youth.

Health and agricultural science, and physical injury/impairments to human, animals, insects

The Chair of the original FCC guideline Committee himself (John Osepchuk) acknowledges >20,000 scientific studies, with immediate, short-term and/or long-term adverse effects from RF/MW radiation.

5G RF/MW radiation has a 20-inch wave that penetrates the body deeply and is particularly harmful to babies and children. Four wavelengths, each 2-4 inches, are optimally absorbed by the human brain, heart, liver, thyroid, kidneys, and reproductive organs, impairing their functions. Effects include headaches, insomnia, tinnitus, heart arrhythmia, suppressed melatonin production (essential for sleep, productivity and the immune system), DNA damage and much more. The final ten simultaneous wavelengths of 1/10 to 1⁄2 inch target the eyes, ears and skin, and fall within the resonance of pollinating insects’ antennae, producing bee colony collapse. The U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Toxicology Program’s 16-year, $25 million study concluded in 2016 that cell phone RF/MW radiation causes cancer of the brain (glioma) and the heart (schwannoma). 5G radiation is even worse.

Incredibly, no monitoring of actual radiation emissions from 5G antennas in homes or public places is planned in SB.649. The relevant FCC guideline was based in fraud from the start and has not been updated since 1996 to reflect current scientific knowledge. It does not protect against biological harm, and is based on a false absorption model of a doll head filled with water! It utterly fails to protect children whose brains are still developing and whose skulls are thinner than an adult skull. Studies show RF/MW radiation even less potent than 5G is harmful to every human, animal, insect and plant.

Proponents misrepresent the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA) as preempting all state and local regulation of wireless facilities. State and local governances are preempted only from regulating the “placement, construction, and modification” of wireless facilities based on their “environmental effects”. Preemption includes neither health effects nor health science. Nor is regulation of operations preempted on any basis. State and local governments remain authorized and obligated to regulate every activity not preempted by TCA, and on every basis not preempted.

Violation of federal laws

Allowance of any 5G wireless facilities would not only violate TCA, it would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Federal Fair Housing Act. These laws guarantee equal access for all, but 5G would make public places and federal housing, not to mention all housing, uninhabitable for already injured, impaired and/or electromagnetically sensitive (EMS) persons. SB.649 says that it requires compliance with ADA, but given 5G’s multiple simultaneous wavelengths, its intensities, and its 15-degree, near-maser (direct-energy weapon) arc of radiation concentration, compliance is impossible.

Massive industry liability shift to the State of California

In the July 19, 2017 letter from attorney Harry Lehmann to Jennifer Galehouse, Deputy Chief Consultant, Assembly Appropriations Committee, Lehmann makes the point that SB.649 is an Appropriations matter. Furthermore, the letter documents incorrect data given by the Telecom industry in testimony and analysis of the shifting of the massive Industry liability to the State of California. Please see Mr. Lehmann’s letter here: https://ehtrust.org/law-letter-small-cell-bill-will-shift-liability-reasonably-result-bankruptcy-california-sb649

The State of California must protect health, safety, agriculture and its own economy. CA SB649 would sacrifice it all, with resulting chronic health problems and loss of productivity by some degree to all Californians, right where they live and work, and the permanent loss of agricultural pollinators.

Time is running out for all Californians and demands that you, as our elected officials, oppose SB.649.

Sincerely,

Diane Hickey, California resident, Co-founder
National Association For Children and Safe Technology
http://www.nacst.org

¹Sept. 2013 letter to FCC requesting reassessment of radio frequency exposure limits and policies

cc:

• California Department of Public Health
  • Karen Smith, MD, MPH, Director and State Public Health Officer
  • Mark Starr, Deputy Director, Center for Environmental Health
  • Ali Bay, Deputy Director, Office of Public Affairs
  • Steve Woods, Division Chief, Division of Food, Drug & Radiation Safety
• California Department of Food and Agriculture
  • Karen Ross, Secretary
  • Jim Houston, Undersecretary
  • Annette Jones, Director, Division of Animal Health and Food Safety Services
• California Environmental Protection Agency
  • Linda Adams, Acting Secretary
  • Deborah Raphael, Director, Department of Toxic Substances Control
  • George Alexeeff, PhD, Acting Director, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
• Martin Blank, Ph.D, Spokesperson, EMF Scientist Appeal
• Mary Beth Brangan, Co-director, Ecological Options
• Susan Clarke, Founder, Environmental Health Advocacy League (ENHALE)
• Carolyn Coleman, Executive Director, League of California Cities
• Devra Davis, Ph.D., Founder and President, Environmental Health Trust
• Josh Del Sol, Director, Take Back Your Power
• Victoria Dunkley, MD
• Lennart Hardell, MD, Ph.D.
• Zen Honeycutt, Founder, Moms Across America
• Toril Jelter, MD
• Olle Johansson, Ph.D.
• Harry Lehmann
• Ellen Marks, Director, California Brain Tumor Association
• Joel Moscowitz, Ph.D., Center For Family and Community Health, UC Berkeley
• Martin Pall, Ph.D.
• Ron Powell, Ph.D.
• Cindy Russell, MD
• Zonya Townsend, President, California Nurses For Ethical Standards
• Center For Electrosmog Prevention
• Center for Safer Wireless
• Consumers For Safer Cellphones
• Electromagnetic Safety Alliance
• Empower Family California
• Scientists For Wired Technology
• Southern Californians Against Smart Meters (SCASM)
• Wireless Radiation Alert Network