To the editor:
Re: Letter from Ross Anderson, Smart Meter Danger: Cumulative Long-term Exposure, Feb 25 Capital News.
Worse than ignorance, is misleading information. Anderson stated: “The truth is that radiation is radiation. The scientific evidence has now shown conclusively that wireless radiation is just as damaging as nuclear radiation.”
No.
Nuclear or atomic radiation consists of high speed particles—parts of atoms—which can burn, damage cells, break and damage DNA. It’s extremely dangerous, as every worker in an atomic plant knows. The particles shoot through the air but can be reduced and perhaps stopped by proper shielding.
So called ‘wireless’ radiation is really a series of electromagnetic waves produced whenever electricity in a circuit changes very rapidly. There is no flow of particles through the air, but of electromagnetic waves. Examples of this radiation are radio, radar, microwave, TV, X-ray, infrared heat, light, UV, cosmic, etc. Cellphones and now smart meters produce EM waves.
Damage to cells and DNA is also possible with high energy EM radiation, like X-rays, UV, but only at high exposure levels.
I understand smart meters do not approach dangerous levels, nor do people stand in front of them to absorb the brief pulses. People do stand in front of their kitchen microwaves and absorb EM waves in doing so.
Anderson mentions his sophisticated measuring devices. Why doesn’t he state the energy levels he measured from the smart meter, the microwave, the cellphone, etc? Let us judge the level of danger.
In the 1950s, I serviced military electronic equipment including radio transmitters and compasses, working next to radar units. To the best of my knowledge, I have no ill effects.
In the same building, other technicians used radioactive paint on glow-in-the-dark dials for aircraft. Some licked the paintbrushes to get a fine tip; soon several of them suffered radioactive burns on their lips and had medical treatment.
There’s a great difference between the different types of radiation; some are highly dangerous, others not so; to lump them together is misleading and, in my opinion, fear-mongering.
Arnold Labrentz,
Kelowna
