Editor:
Open letter to Tom Fletcher, in response to Green Party gets lost in the static.
I refer you to a study released by Kaiser Permanente.
It shows a direct relationship between pregnant mothers’ exposure to electromagnetic fields and asthma in children.
This is the first study to properly measure exposure with meters worn by mothers while pregnant. Previous studies relied on estimates of exposure which are notoriously inaccurate.
The study is well conducted with 13 years follow up. The increased children’s risk is very large, up to 3.5 times with 95 per cent confidence.
The range is a one-in-10 chance of asthma for the lowest exposure and a one in three chance for highest exposure in household environments.
The exposures are very small, less than experienced standing by a running food blender for a few days.
Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit health maintenance organization whose only agenda is keeping people healthy.
See here:
http://newsatjama.jama.com/2011/08/01/author-insights-magnetic-fields-may-increase-asthma-risks/
Tom Fletcher wrote:
“BC Hydro says four to six transmissions from a smart meter to a local hub each day amount to about a minute in total.“
The rate is several times per minute. If you are unlucky, they will install a collector meter on your house. It looks the same and collects transmissions from hundreds of meters. It forwards them to a connection point. The transmitter on the collector meter runs continuously. You cannot identify a collector meter visually.
Also, each meter contains about 800 milligrams of pure mercury. It is part of the anti-tamper system and is in a mercury tilt switch. If released, it will contaminate the surroundings.
If the contents of dozens of meters on an apartment were released it would be a major spill (think fire). A single smart meter contains the mercury of about 500 CFL bulbs and the mercury in all the meters being installed in B.C. is about one metric tonne.
That is the equivalent to half a billion CFL bulbs.
Mercury tilt switches have been banned in automobiles since 2003. BC hydro is bringing in these meters just before they are banned in Canada next year.
How environmentally responsible is that?
Regarding mercury see here:
https://www.itron.com/na/resourcesAndSupport/Documents/Radio-Based_Endpoint_Disposal_Manual.pdf.
Evan Williams
Williams Lake