Tragically, Small Cell Towers are about Life and Death
To: All Members of Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Boards
November 6, 2017
Please know that the proposed installation of small cell towers throughout Montgomery County would be a health tragedy for our County. These towers are sources of high levels of radiofrequency radiation that will be placed right in front of homes and businesses without their consent -- not to mention their INFORMED CONSENT.
If you are wondering what you would be consenting to, if you WERE asked, I have written up a short Informed Consent Agreement which is attached. If presented with this agreement, would you sign it?
Need to catch up on small cell towers?
If you are not certain that you understand about small cell towers, and the associate Fifth Generation (5G) of cellular technology that is destined for these towers, please see this web site for an introduction:
http://whatis5g.info/If you want to read a superb article about small cell towers, just published in "The Hill", please click HERE or enter the following web site into your browser:
http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/357591-public-health-is-littered-with-examples-where-economic-interests-trumped
This article was written Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H. who has had a distinguished career of public service in support of public health. Dr. Davis was a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was named a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007.If you want to know more about the impact of wireless technologies, including small cell towers, on health, please see the following web site, created by Dr. Davis who is the founder of the Environmental Health Trust:
https://ehtrust.org/Health concerns of County residents fall on deaf ears
Unfortunately, we are being told by our County officials that our health concerns carry no weight in determining whether or not small cell towers will be installed in our County. The reason our officials cite is a provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that contains an "environmental effects" exclusion that is frequently interpreted as a "health effects" exclusion:
“No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission's regulations concerning such emissions.”Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission permits the irradiation of the public with such high levels of radiofrequency radiation that the public is not protected from harm.
(In the above quotation, the "Commission" is the Federal Communications Commission.)
However, please consider the following implication of this supposed health exclusion, and ask yourself is there isn't a way to fight back against such an unjust law.
Our laws are in conflict
The international biomedical research community has made it quite clear that radiofrequency radiation, and specifically cellular radiofrequency radiation, can harm people in an enormous number of ways. Most recently the National Institutes of Health linked cellular radiation to brain cancer (glioma) which is usually fatal, and to a nerve cancer (schwannoma) that can be fatal. That is, the scientific evidence suggests that we must treat radiofrequency radiation, and in particular cellular radiation, not only as dangerous to health generally, but also as a CARCINOGEN that is dangerous to life itself.
So, when a small cell tower is placed "up close and personal" to people, those people must be regarded as under "assault" by a carcinogen. And, there are laws against assault. Further, since that assault can result in death, those people must be considered as under "assault with a deadly weapon". That is also against the law. Furthermore, if any of those people die as the result of that assault, that is "murder". Murder is also against the law.
So, it seems fair to ask this question: Is the 1996 Telecommunications Act so powerful that it overrides the laws against assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder? I doubt very much that the authors of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, in their zeal to promote the rapid expansion of cellular technology without prior testing for safety, intended to convey a right to the telecommunications industry to assault, and even kill, people.
If County officials want to protect the public from harm, they need to rally their legal might to resist ALL EFFORTS to install small cell towers in the County, not just because that is the right thing to do, but also because such installation violates multiple existing laws that are reasonably believed to be preeminent.
I would be proud to see Montgomery County take the lead in making this argument against the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which has proved to be an unjust law.
If you don't believe that cellular radiation is harmful
If you have trouble believing that cellular radiation is harmful, consider these questions:
- On which sources of information are you relying for assurances of safety? Do those sources have extensive backgrounds in the biological effects of radiofrequency radiation? Are those sources free from vested interests in cellular communications or other wireless technologies?
- Are those sources more authoritative on health issues than the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization? That organization linked radiofrequency radiation, and in particular cellular radiation, to cancer back in 2011?
- Are those sources more authoritative on health issues than the National Toxicology Program (NTP) at the National Institutes of Health? The NTP confirmed the link of radiofrequency radiation, and in particular cellular radiation, to cancer in 2016 and to DNA damage more broadly in 2017? And further findings are due for release in 2018. These findings are the result of the largest study ($25 million) that the NTP has ever conducted of any toxin.
- Have you read some of the scientific research literature that connects radiofrequency radiation to biological effects and that has been funded by impartial sources?
If you would like small cell towers stopped, you must speak up to County officials, and quickly, because the small-cell-tower juggernaut is moving fast. Below, I provide a list of cognizant County officials, their position titles, and their email addresses. Thereafter, I provide a list of the email addresses alone for easy copying and pasting into your email program. A single message to all of the officials at one time will let them know how you feel.
Ike Leggett - Montgomery County Executive: ocemail@montgomerycountymd.gov
Eric Coffman - Chief, Energy and Sustainability, Montgomery County: eric.coffman@montgomerycountymd.gov
Eric Friedman - Director. Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection: eric.friedman@montgomerycountymd.gov
Lisa Brennan - Associate County Attorney General, Montgomery County: lisa.brennan@montgomerycountymd.gov
Roger Berliner - President, Montgomery County Council: councilmember.berliner@montgomerycountymd.gov
Hans Riemer - Vice President, Montgomery County Council: councilmember.riemer@montgomerycountymd.gov
Marc Elrich - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.elrich@montgomerycountymd.gov
George Leventhal - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.leventhal@montgomerycountymd.gov
Craig Rice - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.rice@montgomerycountymd.gov
Nancy Floreen - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.floreen@montgomerycountymd.gov
Nancy Navarro - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.navarro@montgomerycountymd.gov
Sidney Katz - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.katz@montgomerycountymd.gov
Tom Hucker - Montgomery County Councilmember: councilmember.hucker@montgomerycountymd.gov
Mistuko Herrera - Montgomery County Department of Technology Services: mitsuko.herrera@montgomerycountymd.gov
ocemail@montgomerycountymd.gov
eric.coffman@montgomerycountymd.gov
eric.friedman@montgomerycountymd.gov
lisa.brennan@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.berliner@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.riemer@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.elrich@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.leventhal@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.rice@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.floreen@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.navarro@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.katz@montgomerycountymd.gov
councilmember.hucker@montgomerycountymd.gov
mitsuko.herrera@montgomerycountymd.gov
Who am I?
I have been a resident of Montgomery County since 1979. I am a retired U.S. Government career scientist (Ph.D., Applied Physics, Harvard University, 1975). During my Government career, I worked for the Executive Office of the President of the United States, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. For those organizations, respectively, I addressed Federal research and development program evaluation, energy policy research, and measurement development in support of the electronics and electrical-equipment industries and the biomedical research community. I currently interact with other scientists and with physicians around the world on the impact of electromagnetic fields on human health.
Share this message with anyone you wish.
Let us opt for a healthy future for our families and our friends in Montgomery County.
Regards,
Ronald M. Powell, Ph.D.
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