Hi All,
This email includes very important information including reference to the FCC admission of non-thermal harms. I recommend reading it in full.
On Tuesday, 9/14/21, the Children’s Health Defense (under my direction) filed an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The case at issue concerns a 2008 Pennsylvania law, Act 129, which has been interpreted by the Public Utility Commission to mandate wireless smart meters on homes and deny disability accommodation to those suffering from exposure to pulsed radiofrequency (RF) radiation.The amicus brief ("brief") was joined by 80 safe-tech and environmental organizations, including the Building Biology Institute which was a lead amici.
The brief and the statements that were filed with it may be very helpful to anyone who is involved in efforts against smart meter mandates and requests for disability accommodation.
Click here to read my article and to share information about the amicus on social media.
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Statements Filed With the Brief
In our effort to steer the court in the right direction, we wanted to make sure it had a full picture of the evidence about smart meters and wireless harms, and we included the following statements prepared especially for the brief:
Physicians Statement - a statement by 57 physicians who combined have over 3,000 patients who suffer from electro-sensitivity or other RF-related impairments.
Scientists Statements - a statement by 19 EMF scientists who cumulatively have authored hundreds of papers about EMF effects and reviewed thousands more.
Building Biologist Institute Statement - a statement by engineer Larry Gust, the president of the Building Biology Institute, regarding the sickness from smart meters building biologists see daily in their work.
Engineer Report - a report by an engineer Erik Anderson, about the operation of smart meters.
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The Effect of CHD’s Win in Its Case Against the FCC
We used the recent win of the Children’s Health Defense in the lawsuit I led against the FCC. The rollout of smart meters is based on the assumption that smart meters are safe because they comply with the FCC guidelines. In August 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the FCC’s 2019 decision that its 1996 guidelines protect from 5G and wireless harms is capricious, arbitrary and not evidence-based. Thus, the guidelines cannot be considered an assurance of safety nor can the meters be regarded as safe.
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FCC’s admission of harm
The problem with smart meters - The expert engineer report explains the way smart meters operate and the RF emissions created by their operation. These meters create 3 sources of pulsed RF emissions (1) the emissions from the RF antennas that transmit the electric usage to the utility companies and communicate with other meters (2) RF frequencies from these antennas enter a house’s electric system (3) The AC/ DC conversion process done by the Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS) creates bursts of RF frequencies in the KHz-range. These frequencies also enter the electric wiring system, transforming the entire house into an antenna. This is relevant for the FCC admission.
FCC admission of non-thermal effects - The FCC’s 2019 order (that CHD challenged in its “guidelines case”), included an admission of non-thermal neurological effects for frequencies up to 10 MHz. On page 56 of the order, the FCC states that certain frequencies can cause: “[a]dverse neural stimulation effects…includ[ing] acute effects such as perception of tingling, shock, pain, or altered behavior due to excitation of tissue in the body’s peripheral nervous system.” The FCC also admitted that the effects are instantaneous and that averaging the exposures is inappropriate when it comes to these neurological effects. This admission strengthens our arguments in the smart meters case since the radio frequencies created by the SMPS are in the KHz range (i.e. the frequencies covered by the admission), and the symptoms reported by the FCC are similar to those suffered by people with electro-sensitivity from exposure to smart meters.
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Other Arguments
Act 129 does not mandate smart meters; it is an opt-in law - We argued that the PUC’s interpretation of the law is false. The statute which is an opt-in statute, cannot be read to contain a universal mandate; it clearly envisions customer consent.
Forcing a smart meter on affected people is disability discrimination - Regardless of the legislature’s word choice, the state cannot lawfully force a customer to accept a smart or digital meter when mandatory installation results in disability discrimination, exacerbates existing impairments or forces people to abandon their home. There must be effective accommodation.
Challenging the treating physician diagnosis is prohibited by disability laws - Neither the PUC nor the utility company can or should second-guess an attending physician’s finding of impairment and the need for RF exposure avoidance. That too is prohibited by disability laws.
It is unreasonable to force the injured to endure expensive litigation when the accommodation costs less than $100 - The impaired cannot be required to endure interminable and expensive proceedings that requires them to meet an irrelevant and almost impossible evidentiary burden when the accommodation itself costs less than $100. Disability laws flatly prohibit imposing this burden.
Digital meters cannot be regarded as reasonable accommodation - Digital meters contain SMPS that creates radio frequencies and therefore cannot be considered as reasonable accommodation.
Conclusion: Accommodation in the form of an analog meter is required if a customer presents a professional assessment of impairment and a need for RF avoidance.
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On a Personal Note
I want to capitalize on CHD’s win in the case against the FCC, the case that I led for CHD. However, as of this month I no longer work for CHD and in order to take effective action I will need to raise a significant amount of funds. We don’t have much time before the FCC & its co-conspirators will attempt to undermine the effects of this decision. Therefore I need your support. Until I register my organization, We Are The Evidence, as a non-profit, 5G Free California kindly agreed to accept donations on my behalf.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE
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The work on the amicus brief truly took a village, especially because of the work on the statements. I want to thank the Children's Health Defense and RFK Jr. for agreeing to let me lead this effort; to Scott McCollough, and to Lexi McKnight, Petra Brokken and Shannon Koenig for their dedication and hard work without which we couldn't have made it happen. Special thanks also to Ed Friedman.
Thank you,
Dafna
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