Devra Davis is the widely respected research scientist who has been been calling attention to the dangers of EMF's for decades. As the founder of The Environmental Health Trust, she has sued the FCC for failing to update its safety standards since 1996 and focused on sharing her long-held conviction that EMF's affect our biology. Her book "Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation" was published in 2010, barely three years after the launch of the first smartphone and it remains one of the most important books on the subject. Now, Devra has updated Disconnect with over 100 pages of new updated information, based on new and updated research.
In this conversation, we talk about the book and what we can all do to best protect our families from the very threat represented by electromagnetic fields--the information carrying radio waves that power our digital devices.
Here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/Disconnect-scientists-solutions-safer-technology/dp/0988359189
Website: https://ehtrust.org/
The continually updated EMF Guide from Tech Wellness: https://techwellness.com/blogs/expertise/emf-meaning-expert-guide-what-is-effects-on-body
EMF Protection Solutions from Tech Wellness: https://techwellness.com/collections/best-emf-protection
Here is the transcript of our discussion. Be Well!
TWT24-DEVRA POD TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST: [00:00:00] Hey there, welcome to Thriving with Technology, the science led podcast that's here to help you achieve mindful living in a digital world. And I'm your host. I'm August Brice from TechWellness. com. This show is designed to give you a practical approach on how to navigate the important tech toxins in our world.
We have real life stories, experiences, and non fear based facts about cybersecurity and EMFs, your online privacy, [00:00:30] internet overuse. What leads to addiction, blue light on so much more. So thank you. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show.
We're happy you're joining us for a very special edition of thriving with technology today. August sits down with Dr. Devra Davis, one of the first and most respected educators and [00:01:00] researchers in the EMF space. And you could say in public health in general for our generation. In fact, if you can remember the days when smoking was allowed on airplanes, you have Dr.
Davis to thank that that is just a very distant memory. Dr. Davis has authored more than 200 peer reviewed publications and written several important books on cancer, environmental pollution, and her newest, which is an update of a title first published in 2010, Disconnect, a scientist's solutions for safer [00:01:30] technology.
Dr. Davis is the founder of the Environmental Health Trust, one of the leading forces in EMF research, education, and advocacy, working to reform the laws that govern our exposure to EMF. There's a lot of wisdom in this episode. You won't want to miss a minute. Here's August. Okay. Devra Davis. Hello. Hello, August.
What an honor. I cannot thank you enough for being with me today. I am so excited to [00:02:00] share the new book. I'm excited to talk about everything that's happened since the original Disconnect was published. And of course, everyone knows I'm a huge fan of the Environmental Health Trust. If you subscribe to my newsletter or if you're on my Instagram channel or Facebook, you know that I'm consistently.
sharing links to the Environmental Health Trust because of the amazing work that they are doing. And they are led by Devra Davis. Thank you so much, [00:02:30] August. I really appreciate all that you're doing. Thank you. Well, we've both been in this space for so long. I first discovered that I was sensitive to EMF in about 1992.
And I know that your first book was published in 2010, but I was following your work before then you were publishing, you were doing research. You've led so much important research. And you know, Devra, I see myself as the [00:03:00] reporter and the communicator, and I see you as the educator and the scientist and together getting this information out.
Is wildly important and even more important today. I fully agree with you and I want to tell you, uh, I haven't been doing this alone. Uh, we've had an executive director, Theodora Scorato, and we're now bringing in, uh, three new people and reorganizing the Environmental Health Trust. Oh! I'm going to be stepping out as president, and [00:03:30] in my place will be Kent Chamberlain, who is professor and chairman emeritus of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of New Hampshire.
And we will have a vice president for and general counsel, Joe Sandry, who is rather experienced with, um, Going toe to toe with the FCC and winning, as he helped us win our lawsuit that we can talk about in just a moment. Yes. And we'll have a new vice president for science and clinical affairs, who is a [00:04:00] diagnostic radiologist with three decades of experience as a senior radiologist and member of the American College of Radiology, Rob Brown.
And we will of course have Theodora Scorato, who has been absolutely critical to what I've been doing over the past decade. She will become vice president for policy outreach and education. Uh, and we're going to have a great new expanded team, but I want to say it takes a [00:04:30] village. And August, you've been a really critical part of that village for us.
Oh, thank you, Devra. Thank you. It's always my honor to tell people about the Environmental Health Trust and especially your work. And you know, we've had Theodora on the podcast before, but this is such a big deal because of the book and congratulations on the expansion. Of environmental health trust. I know all the people that you're talking about and to have someone who was really central in the industry now on your team.[00:05:00]
I can't wait to see what happens next. It can only be bigger, better, amazing. And so important for. Really the entire world. Thank you for doing this. Well, it's mutual August. It really is. Okay. So, you know, Devra, I have to tell everyone, and I explained this a little bit in the interview, but every time I get on a plane, I do think about you.
And I think, wow, if Devra, Hadn't done what Devra does, I might be [00:05:30] sitting next to someone and not just worrying about the secondhand Wi Fi radiation, but also worrying about the secondhand smoke. Can you tell us a little bit about why that change, why there's no smoke in airplanes? Well, in 1983, I was a young executive director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the U.
S. National Academy of Sciences. It's a And, uh, Senator Hayakawa from Hawaii wondered why he kept getting colds whenever he flew on [00:06:00] airplanes. Long flights. Many of your listeners may be shocked to know that smoking was allowed on airplanes. And he wondered about what that meant for his breathing. We, at the National Academy of Sciences, um, I organized a team, put together the first study that actually concluded that smoking was not a good idea for the plane.
Thank you for listening. because it gummed up the electronics, by the way. And by the way, it also affected the respiratory [00:06:30] tract of flight attendants and anyone else. What I did personally, and I tell this in my, uh, second book, which was called the secret history of the war on cancer. I took a small machine that looked frankly, like a bomb onto the, onto a long transatlantic flight.
And I went, in the smoking section and the non smoking section throughout the flight. By the end of the flight, I had a little congestion, as I have right now, [00:07:00] because I was able to show that by the end of the flight, even though there was a smoking section and a non smoking section, that the quality of the air in both sections was identical, that the level of ultra fine particulates, smaller, 50 times smaller than a human hair in the air was uniform, and that there was effectively no non smoking section.
And this study then was replicated by the National Academy of Sciences, [00:07:30] and it took us a while to get the report published because the pressure from the tobacco industry. Was quite, uh, impressive and I should state people don't realize this, but at the time of the U. S. National Cancer Institute was working on developing a safe cigarette with over 10 million dollars of funding from the tobacco industry.
I did not know that. There was a lot of close collaboration with the tobacco industry and [00:08:00] Harvard and Yale. They basically had funded major research programs at some of the top schools in the world. And they were regarded as a, and they were in fact serious in their support. In fact, in the disconnect book, I tell the story of how one scientist in Berlin, desperate for funding.
Became a major researcher for the tobacco industry in Germany. And when [00:08:30] he first reported that he thought that tobacco might actually cause cancer, they said, Hey, we'd like to give you another project to work on. We don't think you need to work on that anymore. , and they gave in the redirect, they gave in the project.
of studying cell phone radiation. And this was Franz Adelkofer. He studied cell phone radiation, a major multi laboratory, multi million dollar study for the European Union. And in 2002, he produced results. [00:09:00] Contrary to all of their expectations, including his own, he showed That cell phone radiation could in fact damage the brain cells in animals and could damage DNA.
He showed that. Right. So that result was world changing except that the industry made the mistake of challenging him, uh, publicly. They tried to discredit him and because he was so prominent [00:09:30] and frankly had the resources to do this, he sued them. And just before he died. Uh, two years ago, German courts ruled that he had been correct and ordered all of the scientists and all of the industry claims that had criticized him to recant the And to stop their criticism of his results.
Now, the U S national toxicology program has since confirmed what Adolf [00:10:00] Hofer showed, namely that cell phone radiation can damage DNA. DNA is in the nucleus of every living cell of every living thing, whether plant, insect, or animal. Mammals, and of course, humans, and our DNA can be damaged by cell phone radiation.
Now that doesn't mean that we're all doomed, because the important thing for people to understand, and I know you know this, is that no matter how [00:10:30] much damage you may have incurred from exposures to cell phone radiation and to other things, like sunlight, for example, You can repair that damage through good nutrition and exercise and prayer and things that promote health and well being, and of course, avoiding and reducing exposures to the extent possible.
Right. You're talking about our body's adaptive capacity, right? Indeed. [00:11:00] For, for, yes, we come up against a lot, however, we could do a lot better if we weren't up against this radiation, right? Indeed. Absolutely. Absolutely. No doubt about it. And you know, we have a community of about 200, 000 people and they're all in different stages of their journey.
Some are on health journeys, some just want to have a healthy, happy family and do the right thing for their children. And so I. I really love to break it [00:11:30] down into bite size, non fear based solutions that we can give people, but I want you to help us understand, just like you just did, more about the research.
Give us just a couple of the, of the big, important findings that you really want everyone to know about. Well, the first thing we need to understand is that every cell In the body and we have trillions of them has a membrane around it [00:12:00] and cell phone radiation has consistently been shown to weaken membranes, whether it's the membranes around are the neurons in our brain and the blood brain barrier.
Or those affecting the membranes around, um, sperm. All of these cells are affected. And the effect can be subtle, uh, and it's not uniformly fatal, obviously not. It's the [00:12:30] long term cumulative effect that we have to be concerned about. That's, that's what we have to pay attention to. The cumulative effects of the combined exposures to many different things in the environment we cannot control.
Uh, we need to know, we need to know That the weakening, the weakening of membranes means that it's more possible for other materials in the body, whether it's lead or [00:13:00] pesticides, we might be exposed to through the foods we eat. Uh, all of those things can get more deeply absorbed into a cell if the membranes are weaker.
So overall, our bodies are being weakened when they are exposed to cell phone radiation. And we understand that it's the overall exposure, like sunlight, you can think of it, you can liken it to a sunburn. The more sun you get, the more likely you are to [00:13:30] get sunburned if you were sunburned before. And so the cumulative effect is very important.
And I'm wondering if there's any research that can help us understand the difference between direct exposure, because we tell people, don't put it in your pocket, don't put it in your bra, try to keep it out of your hands. So that's direct exposure versus, versus the full body exposure, maybe from the phone, maybe from the Wi Fi.
How do our bodies actually get affected by the [00:14:00] radiation in the environment versus up against the skin? All right. Well, first of all, sunlight is, is it interesting because you need 20 minutes a day of sunlight in order to make enough vitamin D, which is a very beneficial part component for us. So, unlike sunlight, where you need a little bit for your health, you do not need a little bit of radiation [00:14:30] for anything.
All right. It's not, it has no known benefit. I want to be clear about that. Um, the good news I want to share is that colleagues of mine in Turkey, and I have produced several studies showing that omega 3 fatty acids. Melatonin, um, can help repair damage from radiation. And we've done this in studies in cell cultures where we take cell cultures of human cells and we add [00:15:00] to them a melatonin or basically a component of omega 3 fatty acids or fish oil.
And then we expose them to cell phone radiation. And when the cells have melatonin in them, Or the omega 3 fatty acids, they get less damage than when they do not. So it's always important to understand that it's not, again, that we're doomed, but that we can repair, uh, repair that damage. [00:15:30] What happens with radiation are a number of processes, one of which is it leads to the formation of reactive oxygen species.
And you can think of these kind of like Pac Man that go around gobbling up whatever it might be free and frankly destroying it. So you want to keep your reactive oxygen species to a low level and you want to make sure you consume antioxidants that will reduce them [00:16:00] and reduce the amount of damage, uh, that they can have.
Within the system as well. It's important, particularly as, as you know, we've talked about this in my TEDx talk as well. We want to protect children because their skulls are thinner. Their brains contain more fluid, the more fluid in something, whether it's in your microwave oven or. In your breast, the more fluid something contains, the more it [00:16:30] absorbs microwave radiation.
So I just want to backtrack for a second. When we talk about melatonin, omega threes, fatty acids, the things that you talked about a moment ago, you're not recommending that parents now give their kids melatonin. I think what you're saying is let's keep the healthy production intact. Absolutely. And let me be clear, let me be clear about that.
Sleeping in the dark with [00:17:00] no electronics at all in the bedroom is important for everybody, but particularly for children, there actually is a device that they sell nowadays for infants where you put a cover over the crib. Mm-Hmm. , um, that allows them to be in total darkness. And baby in total darkness is when we naturally produce melatonin from the pineal gland.
And melatonin is a natural hormone [00:17:30] that is an antioxidant. So it repairs damage that may have happened just as a consequence of being alive. Because we can't avoid all of the things in the world that can damage ourselves. But if we are healthy and we sleep in the dark. without any electronics in our bedrooms, uh, then we will make enough melatonin naturally.
The same thing, it's best to get the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, [00:18:00] etc., through, through your diet. It's best to get your omega 3 fatty acids through diet as well. Um, sometimes, however, uh, a supplement of melatonin at night can be very helpful, but those always should be Any decision about that should be made in consultation with pediatricians or doctors.
A hundred percent. I agree that we need to really, even as adults, we need to regulate our melatonin intake if we're taking it [00:18:30] exogenously because, uh, you know, you're not positive of the formulation and some people are actually sensitive to melatonin. Melatonin supplements, and it can actually change their own melatonin production.
So there's healthy, good, healthy living, so, so important. And part of good, healthy living is not just what we eat. It's also our EMF exposure and really regulating it. Correct. That's what I'm hearing from Devra. Yes, absolutely. Because, because honestly, you guys, the [00:19:00] effects can be devastating and Devra shares many stories.
On the Environmental Health Trust website and in her new book, which you must read, Deverdew. Do those stories stick with you? Which stories in particular stick with you? Well, there's some, there's some sad stories that of a, of a young man named Justin whose parents did not understand the damaging effect of EMFs, and he was a gamer at a young age, and he slept in his room with his [00:19:30] dog.
And his room was saturated, saturated with EMFs, and both he and his dog died of brain tumors. Very, very sad and unusual, and now the parents have become advocates so that other children will be spared that, that fate. Um, there's a young woman we lost this year, Tiffany, who developed a breast cancer when she was 21, right [00:20:00] under where she had stored her phone in her bra.
proudly from the time she was 12 or 13. And the breast tumors developed right under where the antenna of the phone had radiated her breast. She died after almost a decade of repeated surgeries to try to spare her. But she was first diagnosed, unfortunately, with advanced disease because [00:20:30] nobody believed a 21 year old boop!
cancer. That's an extraordinary, extraordinary. And she had no risk factors for the disease. She did not carry any of the genetic variants and put you at risk of the disease at all. So these are unfortunately warnings for the rest of us at the same time. I'm happy to report that there are some couples I've counseled.
Who were having difficulty getting pregnant and in one case when [00:21:00] the fellows stopped carrying his two phones in two pockets, um, they were able to get pregnant within three months, but no one had ever told him that a phone in the pocket. Could damage his firm. And that therein lies the rub. That's the issue.
You know, Canada, our largest trading partner and environmental health trust published this and our next door neighbor says that reducing EMF is part of their bio initiative 2030. [00:21:30] It's amazing. But meanwhile, our FDA, our FCC, uh, cell phone manufacturers tell us there's nothing to worry about. It's not a problem.
It's all about stronger, faster signals. So Devra, what's wrong with us? We need to do a better job of what you're doing. You are, you are really leading the way here. We need every parent, every grandparent to demand the right to buy safer [00:22:00] products. There's no reason. Why routers should be on 24 7. Frankly, there's no reason we actually need Wi Fi in our homes for the most part.
You can, as you and I are both wired with Ethernet cables, we are faster, we're safer from hacking, we're more secure, and it's healthier. So all of those things are a benefit and we need to do a better job of educating people. If you go to our , which is ehtrust. [00:22:30] org, our website includes practical advice about safe tech at home and what you can do to make a safer home environment.
And we're working with other Programs like TechSafe Schools, which I'm a scientific advisor to, and there's specific advice that we have on our website that is on theirs as well, how you can promote safer technology in schools. We know from a recent [00:23:00] fabulous book that has just been written, um, on the anxiety generation.
Right, the anxious generation. Yes, the anxious generation. Thank you. We know that what that is doing to our children is depriving them of play. And when, when the moment you give a child a smartphone, you have ended their childhood. I agree. I'm absolutely writing about that right now. And you know, you know, Devra, the interesting thing is you couple that.
You [00:23:30] layer on the electromagnetic fields and the physical damage that, you know, you look at the brains of children exposed to EMF and you look at the brains of children looking, looking at screens. Very similar. Uh. you know, findings of less gray matter and different places of hyperactivity. So we know that both of these things are working together to affect our children's brains.
And I am always floored because, you know, [00:24:00] I carry a meter with me wherever I go. I determine where I'm sitting at a restaurant. I determine where I'm going to go for a walk. I have that meter get me into a low radiation zone. so that my body can operate at its fullest. So I'm shocked when I go by school still to this day, uh, and see that the radiation is the highest level in the community because they've, they've got the tower either right across the street from the school or on the school [00:24:30] property.
They're making money from, you know, renting out a space for a cell phone tower. And plus every school is Completely run by wifi and kids are given their own laptops to use at school and then to take home. I mean, kids. I just, my body aches for children trying to survive in this soup of radiation. You're absolutely correct, and I [00:25:00] think that we can work together, uh, that's in fact what some of the new initiatives that we're going to be developing with the new team at Environmental Health Trust.
We, in the, in the new edition of the book that we just released, Disconnect, A Scientist's Solutions for Safer Technology, we discuss the fact. The way antennas are located in our schools would be illegal in Israel and Switzerland. Yes, in other high tech [00:25:30] countries, it is against the law to have antennas directly on schools.
And yet our schools, who are so desperate for money, Do not understand that they take the money for the antennas, but they're compromising the quality of the brains and bodies of the children as a result. So we've got to do, yes. Yes. To that point, I consult with moms and They, many of them have, you know, [00:26:00] they're torn because they don't want to be the nagging naysayer at their school.
They understand there's a huge issue and I point them to the, some of the posters that you have and the documents that you have and the letters that you have. Can you give us just one or two examples of schools that have been successful and parents who have been successful in having a cell tower removed?
Or relocated. Well, there are on our [00:26:30] website, there are many examples and they keep changing, you know, I mean, um, and unfortunately, um, it's a little bit like whack and old, um, Pittsfield, they, they successfully, um, have thought against, um, an antenna being constructed there. And there's efforts ongoing right now in, in Connecticut, it's in several school systems as well.
And I think that what we did with our lawsuit, I want to take a moment and just [00:27:00] explain that we filed a lawsuit against the FCC, a little bit like David and Goliath. Yes. In which we said, look, Your standards for testing phones and all of these devices were set now 27 years ago, using 20th century technology for 21st, to evaluate 21st century technology.
That makes no sense. That makes absolutely no sense. And so, in addition, we pointed out that there was growing [00:27:30] evidence of damaging effects on non human animals, namely pollinators. Without the honeybee, without the 2, 000 pollinating insects on which modern agriculture depends, we wouldn't have food production in around the world today.
And there is growing evidence, the modeled three dimensional image of the honeybee body is affected by 5G and by all of the wireless radiation. And we know [00:28:00] that the worldwide, there's a decline. In honeybee and other pollinating insects. And we know that neonicotinoid pesticides are a cause of that, but wireless radiation is another cause of it.
And we need to do a better job of understanding all of that. So in our lawsuit, we said, look, there's all of this data on effects on animals, on effects on children. And what are you doing about it? And the court ordered. the [00:28:30] FCC to go back and reconsider the science. The court said to the FCC, you have not considered all the record that we, Environmental Health Trust, and others have established.
Now, it's more than two years since the court issued that decision. And the FCC has done nothing. So what we need is what you can help us with here is we're creating, we're filing, in fact, next week, we are [00:29:00] filing a demand that the FCC respond to the court orders because they have not. They've just ignored it because there's such an arrogant agency.
They can ignore the fact that the court said, do this, fix it, stop using outdated technology to evaluate technology that is just being invented today. So why do you have to file again? Isn't the court, doesn't the court have power to do something on [00:29:30] its own? You know, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the answer to your question, it's a good question, um, but I think that the answer is this, the FCC is a huge agency, and they operate as an almost like a super constitutional, they basically ignore the law, and until they're going to be held accountable, nothing can happen.
Wow. Uh, you know, there's a couple of things I want to, first of all, congratulations [00:30:00] on the victory. Stunning. Important. Victory. Uh, we're behind you. Anything that we can do? Are you looking for letters? Are you looking for just spreading the awareness that the lawsuit happened and that the FCC isn't addressing it?
You know, I will ask the attorneys that are proceeding now, and in fact, our new general counsel, exactly what else could be supportive of what we're doing here, because I don't know, but I do know this. The only thing that's going to make a change is when we force the industry to [00:30:30] compete on safety. We want them to compete with giving us safer products.
Let me give you just one example. If you have a router in your home, it should go to sleep. As the default mode, it should only be working when you need it. We do not need these signals beaming. 24 seven. There's no way. Yes, and Devra, our, our most popular item is our Wi Fi kill switch. And we also sell the low power Wi Fi and we also sell a [00:31:00] Wi Fi Faraday box.
All really good solutions to lowering the EMF of my favorite. It's just snap it off whenever you're not using it, totally unnecessary to have it spewing that radiation. And I have not looked, nor do I endorse specific products, but I know that there is one from a, a low wifi router from the Netherlands, I think.
Yeah. And one made here in the United States. Oh, well, I'll take a look at that. Yes, we offer both. And I actually, the truth [00:31:30] is many people who buy the low EMF wifi that shuts off when it's not being used have issues because it powers some of their wireless things in their, their homes. Like there. They're, uh, security systems.
So this, the other one is just low, low enough so that we're not spewing as much of that toxic energy, but so enough power to not turn off those important things in people's homes. Meanwhile. [00:32:00] I'm just like you. I'm all about hardwiring. We focus on creating low EMF sanctuaries because that's where we can control the energy in our homes.
But I want to tell you right now that I have been speaking with Theodora about supplying the hardwiring to a school. I want to have a model school where we hardwire the school, we provide the, the, Adapters and dongles that we manufacture, the cabling that's EMF free that we [00:32:30] manufacture, that's grounded, um, and we can even, I know, I'm not even gonna say it, we're not gonna put any low Wi Fi routers in there, low power routers, we're not gonna have any routers, we're gonna be a completely wired school, and then we're gonna talk to people about how it feels and how it works.
Well, that sounds like a great idea. We, Theodore and I have talked about this for some time. We've had some progress with a few schools, and then what usually happens is they bring in a new IT guy who doesn't [00:33:00] understand what we're trying to do, and then we have to go back all over again. So it's, it's, it's a constant struggle and I'm really, I'm really delighted that you've been on the case now for quite a while.
Quite a while. Yes. Yes. We've been offering a hard, I think we offered our first adapter 10 years ago, uh, because, because I'm sensitive because this is my life. This is how I actually am required to live, to sleep in the canopy, you know, to have the paint. If [00:33:30] a, if a neighbor moves in, just the things that.
That I have to do to feel good. And fortunately, I can feel these things instantly. And so I am so with you for people and, and I was so excited. You guys have to read the book to find out that there are options for safer phones that have even been discussed for 20, 30 years. Yes, yes. And, and the technology exists, the patents [00:34:00] already are there.
We simply need what, what I call, we need girlcotts. A boycott means no. Okay? Boycott means we're not going to buy your wine if, if it's made by illegal, by people who are working without toilets and without healthcare. That's a boycott, right? A girl cot means we want the right to buy safer products. We wanna be able to buy safer things.
We want our schools to be safer for our [00:34:30] children. That means no lead in the drinking water. That means wiring the systems so that they, we want our kids to be computer citizens, but we don't want them to be e zombies. Exactly. I love that. I'm for it. Let's do it. And, you know, we have to talk about this because you do, you sort of mention it in the book because people are looking for solutions.
And since I've been in this space for so long, back in the nineties, seriously guys, people were [00:35:00] offering chips for your phones, shields, shielding cloths. I got my first shielding cloth in 2005. And interestingly, I, I. A girlfriend and I held it up against, we were about 15 feet from the microwave. Then we got closer and closer and closer to the microwave and then the microwave, it was just too much energy back on itself and we broke the microwave.
This was at my office. So I have been experimenting with shielding, partial shielding for a very long time. You mention it and I just need to [00:35:30] know, do you use partial shielding or harmonizers or chips or any of the gadgets that have come along? calling themselves EMF protection. I generally do not use any of them because I think the safest policy is distance is your friend and turning things off, frankly.
And I, I'm not in a position to evaluate whether they work as you know, very well. Some of them may work. Some of them may not. So I generally [00:36:00] try to reduce exposures, but with respect to a question you asked me before, I want to make sure we. We point this out in the new book as well. Several governments have banned Wi Fi for children, for young children.
In France, it's banned in kindergarten, it's restricted, uh, in high schools. Cell phones are illegal. For children in elementary and middle middle schools in France in Cyprus. They've removed [00:36:30] Wi Fi from elementary classrooms. Belgium has banned cell phones for for for young children and Israel has also banned them in what in nursery schools and restricted it in in elementary schools and a number of other areas help French Polynesia has also.
So there's a number of places around the world that. are moving toward to eliminate or reduce exposures and the European Parliament [00:37:00] a long time ago, I think it was 2011 called on the governments to take measures to reduce exposures, especially in the environment of children. So there's a huge worldwide call.
Um, in Spain. I'm working now with people in Argentina. Um, in the United States, we have made some progress. Um, certainly the Maryland State Children's Environmental Health, um, Council issued advice and of course, you know, about the New Hampshire [00:37:30] Commission on 5G. And that is something that Kent Chamberlain, our new president, has played a major role with.
And then, you've also, I'm sure, discussed what's going on in Petaluma. Yes. And I, I do want to say though, what you've just, all that information you gave us about other countries and maybe some of the things that we're doing in this country, these are simple, clear directives and solutions that are so easy to incorporate.
It's easy to say off. [00:38:00] It's easy to say no for our children's sake. Wouldn't you agree? Uh, yes, absolutely. And there are some schools that have taken the steps to implement some of the things that you provide. I went on your website like special plugs so that the wireless antennas are off, except when the teacher decides that they might need to use them and they teach students to turn off the wireless on their devices so that the students devices themselves have them off.
And there's [00:38:30] a list of schools on our website. of schools that have reduced or removed Wi Fi. And I don't, I'm not going to go through it, but some of them are Waldorf schools, of course. Of course. That's where, where we started at a Waldorf school. And, you know, I think that this is just great ammunition for parents who, who are interested and concerned, but not really exactly sure.
How to be a, you know, low key activist, and they don't really want to be, they just want, like you said, they want a girlcott. [00:39:00] They just want the safer solution because they love their children and their families and they want to give everybody the best opportunity for health and well being. And one thing that's really important for everybody is to disconnect from all of these devices at least one hour before bedtime in any form of screen.
That really is, is important. But the other thing I would, I would add is that distance is your friend. And when it comes to the laptops that are [00:39:30] assigned to children in schools, they don't call them laptops anymore. They call them tablets, Chromebooks. And the reason is they belong on tables. They do not belong on laps.
They should not be held on the body. And that basic hygiene is so important. They should be wired. Yeah. Yes. A hundred percent. And I do, I do want to mention at this point that when it comes to putting a device on your lap and [00:40:00] putting a quote unquote shield underneath it, you must remember two things. One, that you're only shielding the area that you're covering.
And if you look down, it's most likely the top of your legs. And then secondarily. Where is that energy going? I, I always, uh, use the metaphor of smoke because smoke doesn't get absorbed, neither does EMF radiation, it gets reflected. So where is it going? Is this radiation that's [00:40:30] coming from that thing on your lap?
Is it going to your thyroid, to your brain, to your eyes? And If it's so, is that okay? I don't, I don't think so. I think that the really great solution, and that's easy if you must still have wifi, is to connect a keyboard, a wired keyboard. There's these little ports and all of the devices that you can connect and then push that away.
Because distance is your friend. Yes. Push [00:41:00] that device away from you, get it further away from you. And of course your wired keyboard won't have radiation coming from it because it's wired. So anyway, yeah, I love these solutions. And I did want to get back to one question from your, your, uh, incredible research, direct exposure versus full body exposure.
Do we know how our bodies intake this invisible smoke if you, if you will, for that comparison, It's [00:41:30] happening and it's, you know, an inch away from us and it's, you know, across the room from us or it's next to us. Is that different from it actually touching our bodies? Is there a big difference? Well, the answer is we don't know for sure, but use your common sense.
You will be exposed. If you are getting general body exposure, [00:42:00] it's not a good thing. It should be avoided to the extent that you can. The direct exposure of something on your body is the one that you want to avoid first of all, but there is a cumulative effect over a lifetime that particularly for our children of thousands of hours of use and exposures as we are saturated in our general environment with many of these.
And because of that fact, it's really important to reduce exposure whenever you [00:42:30] can. And so there are a number of Schools like the Castle Hill High School that have taken steps to do this, but you're asking a question that we don't have the answer to. So the precautionary principle, right? You got it.
Bingo. Bingo. And we want to work with more and more parents like they have done in schools in Australia and all over the world. to explain that just like you would never dose your children with chemicals and [00:43:00] pesticides, you shouldn't be dosing them with an environment full of wireless radiation. And in addition to schools or separate from schools, how can we help make larger scale change?
outside of our homes. People look and ask that question. And what's your, what's your number one go to for that answer? Do they go to city council meetings? Do they start a blog of their own? Do they tell their neighbor? What's, what's the most important thing [00:43:30] Uh, tactic we want people to get educated, motivated and activated.
They get educated by looking at our website at trust on org by looking at what information you have developed, including. You have an incredible array of podcasts that I had not listened to all of them, but I know that all of the ones with Theodora are terrific and and and CeCe Doucette is also a [00:44:00] very knowledgeable educator as well.
And so get educated. And then share the education with your neighbors and friends, then get motivated because once people come together, they can organize at the local level, you start out with your school boards and with your local town council and create zones where there is reduced exposure and we want to move toward no exposure.
What I believe will be [00:44:30] the model, and this is my hope is just like we did with smoking. Longer would anybody dream of lighting a cigarette inside a school and smoking. And yet, 30, 40 years ago, that was okay. And teachers were allowed to take smoking breaks and had smoking rooms. That is no longer the case.
I believe we will have zones with no Wi Fi radiation and that we will [00:45:00] start out with creating them again for children and then for everybody else. And there are some models of that around the world. In Cyprus, they have no Wi Fi in the intensive care units. For newborns, and that's a start. That's hospitals.
As you know, our hospitals can be saturated hot beds. Absolutely. The same is true of airports. So I thought that we need to [00:45:30] start a move for low and no EMS zones. So that people like you can be more comfortable in public, you know. I agree. I think that, that we should share them on a website, you know, like Antenna Search.
It's now Antenna Search. Sadly, sadly, it still works, but it's kind of a joke because they're everywhere. Whereas they're not an antenna. Where is there a safe zone? And I'll give people just a hint, you know, typography. does affect EMF. And so if you can find a [00:46:00] particularly low guarded area, like a ravine, you'll find that your EMF exposure is less.
It's just physics. Um, so that's helpful, but I love that idea, Devra. I'll do anything to help push that forward. It's so important. We might start with that in August. We should revisit what we can do, but I think you start out with, we have to educate more people. That's why I took the time. to issue a new edition of the book.
There's 100 pages of new material, including, [00:46:30] by the way, when the book was first published in 2010, I said that I thought cell phones might cause cancer. Since then, the National Toxicology Program, the Ramazzini Institute, and Thousands of other studies have been produced, all showing that cell phone radiation can damage DNA and increase the risk of cancer in animals, and now we have more and more evidence in humans.
My position is this. [00:47:00] We study animals in order to predict effects in humans and try to prevent them from happening. We study animals to develop drugs and then use them and test them in people and continue to monitor them. If cell phones were drugs, They would be illegal because they've never been tested for safety before being used and now there's no monitoring and surveillance for effects of them.
So we need to start doing a better job of monitoring [00:47:30] what's going on in our schools. Why do we have this dramatic increase in In thyroid cancer in young people, in colorectal cancer in young people, in other cancers in young, and I mean young people, under age 30, we have a fourfold increase in colorectal cancer.
Since 2010, and I believe that the practice of keeping cell phones in the back pocket or in the, in the pocket is part of the reason why we have these unexplained [00:48:00] global epidemics Transcribed of cancers in people under the age of 30. Now, when I first wrote the book in 2010, I speculated about it. The new edition now says, look, what are we doing to our children and ourselves?
The evidence has become even stronger than when I wrote the book now, 14 years ago. Yes, undeniable. And I think that that's why I'm happy to bring attention to it. That's why we took the time to write the book and the end of the book has a lot of [00:48:30] great material that Theodora has put together, practical advice about what you can do to digital device best practices so that you can reduce your exposures.
So the military pilots, cancer study. Are you familiar with that? Yes. In that study, talking to your point about the incredible increase in colorectal cancer, in this study of military air crew and of ground crew, they found an [00:49:00] 87 percent higher rate of melanoma. Do you care to speculate as to why? There was an increase in melanoma in particular?
Melanoma is a tough one because we know, of course, that sunlight is a factor. When you're flying in an airplane, you don't get a lot of sunlight. This could very well reflect the incredible increase in exposure that takes place in the cockpit to microwave radiation, and that has dramatically increased recently.
[00:49:30] Um, we know that there are a number of different exposures that pilots get, including, by the way, to jet fuel on refueling, which often goes in the front of the plane as well, and they get the fumes, et cetera. I think that this is a worrisome finding that could very well reflect the combined effects. of the volatile exposures that they get to fuels.
But the thing that has changed recently is not fuels, because [00:50:00] pilots have been flying airplanes with fuels almost a hundred years now. But the exposure to the wireless radiation inside that cockpit has just mushroomed, mushroomed. And obviously should be examined as a factor here. I absolutely think it could be important.
And I do love that in phase B, they actually used the words, non ionizing radiation might be a link. They actually say that, [00:50:30] the military, the Pentagon study. So and then another thing I'm just curious if you had direction about with this particular study is I looked back and I saw that cockpits were outfitted with the millimeter wave antenna starting back before 2010.
Right. And, and to me personally, it feels. like the millimeter wave is affecting our skin more. I mean, that's [00:51:00] an interesting point. That's a very interesting point. Let's talk about that. The millimeter wave does affect the skin more because it gets just a little bit into the skin, but the skin is our largest organ and turns out to have an immunological function that has not been widely appreciated.
Think about this. You get sunlight, you send out inside and you feel better when you're out in the light. Okay. Everybody gets a certain feeling of relaxation. Yes. Right. Yes. That's [00:51:30] because that sunlight to your skin gives you a systemic effect of well being. And it is understood just a little bit of exposure into your skin has an effect throughout the body.
So it's not that it only affects the skin, but it is true that the effect is primarily into the skin. We know that babies that are born with jaundice, that are a little bit yellow, we treat them by covering their eyes and exposing their little bodies [00:52:00] to blue light because that blue light takes the blood that's circulating into the surface of their skins and Creates vitamin D synthesis in the liver of these newborns from the blue light into the skin blue light in the skin affects the blood of those babies so that it forms dihydroxy vitamin D in the liver and has a systemic effect on those babies.
So light just [00:52:30] getting a little bit into the skin of the newborn affects how much vitamin D they produce. And when they produce more vitamin D, it gets rid of the jaundice. So, we understand there's a correlation. A direct causal, not just correlation. We know that blue light in the skin of the newborn produces vitamin D in their bloodstream.
So, the millimeter wave affecting the skin is affecting us holistically. [00:53:00] Correct. And the whole layering on of all these different frequencies, it's a, it's a hot button for me. Because my body just. freaks out with this even more so. And I think that I would like to encourage you to take a look at the work of Rina Bray.
That's R I I N A B R A Y at the Toronto Women's Hospital. She, and of course you know, um, Sharon Goldberg. Sure. Yeah, because they [00:53:30] have been reported some success in helping people to modulate their response so that you can have less, less reaction to the EMFs and that's, I think, very important. You know, it costs a lot of money to be electro sensitive.
Right? It does. I know. I know. You're fortunate. No, no. I understand. But think about all the people that don't know that they're having reactions to electromagnetic fields and being treated with psychoactive drugs [00:54:00] and, and other things. Exactly. I love that you brought that up. And it's, this is also my concern with the partial shielding is that they believe that they're doing something good and they're getting this.
false sense of security and they're not doing anything actually to change exposure and sometimes they're increasing it. In fact, almost every demonstration I do, it's an increase. And I fully agree with you on that. That's why I say that I don't generally use any of these small little devices because they may reduce the amount coming out of the [00:54:30] back of the phone and then increase it every place else.
Yeah. It's, there's so much to do. Anyway. Yep. Thank you. I cannot, I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate this time. It's mutual. I want you to know that you really are a very critical part of what we need to do. And frankly, what we're hoping to do with the new team as the new team comes in place, and I'd like to introduce you to them.
If you haven't interviewed Kent Chamberlain, uh, or Rob Brown, you will really enjoy talking with them as well [00:55:00] because they have their own. Takes on things. Kent has developed modeling of the brain to show absorption, uh, as it moves through the brain. And Rob, of course, is a diagnostic radiologist can go toe to toe and explain why the myth that the only effect of microwaves is heat is wrong.
That's very important that people understand that. I would love to talk to Kent. I would love that. Devra, thank you so much. This has been a very enlightening conversation. [00:55:30] I'm so honored that you've been here and thank you for the continued work and congratulations to the Environmental Health Trust.
Well, thank you. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to Thriving with Technology, the tech wellness podcast. We hope you'll look for Dr. Davis's new book, Disconnect, a scientist's solutions for safer technology. If you found the information here valuable, we ask that you please share it with your community because it's important for [00:56:00] everyone to understand the truth around EMF and not just the hype.
Also, we sincerely appreciate every five star review because it helps us show up and spread the message more efficiently. Until next time then, be [00:56:30] [00:57:00] [00:57:30] [00:58:00] [00:58:30] well.
