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| Photo courtesy media monarchy |
The electromagnetic frequencies created by all fluorescent lights are asssociated with many health problems besides lupus.
UK experts have warned that CFL bulbs can trigger migraines, dizziness and loss of focus, as well as increased pain for those with lupus and can cause people with epilepsy to experience symptoms similar to the early stages of a fit.
CFL's operate at high frequency using an electronic switching ballast to chop up the 120 volts -- that's how they are able to use less energy when compared to an old-style incandescent bulb. A typical operating frequency for an electronic ballast would be in the region of 20kHz to 100kHz, a frequency range known to produce adverse effects on one's health.
Professor Magda Havas of Trent University, Ontario, one of the world's leading researchers on the biological effects of EMF, has written:
Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) produce radio wave frequencies. These frequencies radiate directly from the bulbs and [also] go on the electrical wiring in the home or school causing poor power quality or dirty electricity. The closer you sit to the bulb the greater your exposure. Because the high frequencies travel along the wire, you can be exposed in other rooms of your home as well as [in] the room that contains the CFL.
Not all CFL bulbs produce the same amount of dirty electricity. Some are worse than others. We have just completed testing of 40 different light bulbs including, incandescent, LED, halogen and fluorescent and hope to make the information available to the public within the next month so shoppers can decide which bulbs they want to buy based on energy efficiency, cost, and potential health impacts to their family.
The news on fluorescent lights is not good from a dirty electricity perspective. …. We have tested shielding material for the bulb and GS [Graham Stetzer] filters for the dirty electricity. Both work well but we don't believe this is the way to go. …. LEDs are the light of the future for both for energy efficiency and [because they create] no RF or dirty electricity.”
The best and safe lighting for your home and office
60-watt PAR16 narrow flood halogen bulb
Dr. Havas says that “electrical sensitivity (ES) or electrohypersensitivity (EHS) and is becoming a growing concern because of our increasing exposure to electromagnetic energy from electronic equipment and wireless devices.
As many as 3% of the population have full blown EHS and are unable to live is a modern electrical environment. Many complain that they cannot be in a room with fluorescent lights because they feel "unwell". These people have difficulty shopping in large department stores because of the lighting and often go with list in hand and spend as little time in the store as possible. Their cognitive functions diminish and some have difficulty recalling where they parked their car.
Putting lights on dimmer switches exacerbates the problem. The dimmer switch converts the electrical signal into high frequency transients that result in dirty electricity. Even clean incandescent lights will produce dirty electricity if a dimmer switch is used. Most CFL are incompatible with dimmers." [end of Havas quote]
Another world-renowned expert Dr. Olle Johansson, of the department of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, explains that since the beginning of the 1990's there has been a dramatic rise in the number of people affected by electro-hypersensitivity (EHS and points out that this coincides with the mass production and distribution of electronic devices, such as computers and cordless telephones, which use and generate radio waves.
In Sweden, which pioneered computer and cellular technology, EHS is recognised as a physical handicap (not a sickness), entitling to all services enabling hypersensitive people to live a normal life. Sweden has a population of 9 million. According to polls, up to 290 000 Swedes, or more than 3% of the population, have reported suffering symptoms of EHS when exposed to electromagnetic waves. Symptoms include: joint stiffness, chronic fatigue, headaches, tinnitus; respiratory, gastric, skin, sleep and memory problems and depressive tendencies.
Dr. Johansson explains that “The human body, whose cells, nerves and organs function with electrical impulse, have difficulty adapting to 60-Hertz cycles, let alone transient high frequencies that last milliseconds. We are dealing with amplitude-modulated or pulsed microwaves in the 2.45 Ghz range (or nearby), in a form that has only been around to any extent for the last 10-15 years. Compared to the natural background fields, in which living cells have developed during the last 3.8 billion years, these electromagnetic fields are actually very, very strong. It is thus wrong to believe that evolution has furnished us with a safety protection shielding layer against such WLAN (wireless local area network) signals. It has not.”
University of Berkeley engineer Martin Graham invented a meter that plugs into electrical wall outlets and measures dirty electricity riding on 60-Hz carrier current. He recommends installing filters when the reading is more than 50 G-S (Graham Stetzer) units. [See my own website, www.LifeEnergies.com, for information on the meter & filters invented by Graham & Stetzer.] and neutralizes high frequencies between 4 and 100 kHz and associated electro-magnetic fields. According to Mr. Stetzer, Kazakhstan is the first country to legally limit new building constructions to 50 G-S units or less. He bluntly advises electrically hypersensitive people to do away with compact florescent lamps, computers, dimmer switches and other devices that generate dirty electricity.
Canadian environmental science professor Magda Havas teaches the country's only university-level course on electromagnetic pollution. She says Graham-Stetzer filters can help alleviate EHS symptoms and even relieve diabetics: "We can take a person who is diabetic and put them in an [electrically] dirty environment, and their blood sugar levels rise,” she stated in the March issue of Toronto's Now magazine. “We then put them into a clean environment, and within half an hour their blood sugar levels are lower. It becomes a barometer."
In 2003, Dr. Havas headed a six-week study in a Toronto area private school: Three weeks with filters plugged into the school's walls and three without. Teachers and students were unaware of both EHS phenomenon and the study's focus. Not less than 55 per cent of teachers reported feeling greater satisfaction, less fatigue and less irritability, and suffering fewer headaches and other pain while the filters were in place. Surprisingly, 60 per cent even reported improved student behaviour, particularly elementary students who were more concentrated and less disruptive. These findings prompt Dr. Havas to estimate that 50% of the population is more or less electrically hypersensitive, compared to other studies that indicate a few cases per million.
In another school study in Wisconsin, the school nurse confirmed that after Graham-Stetzer filters were installed, the number of students needing asthma medication declined from 37 to 3, fewer people had migraines and students and teachers feel less fatigued. A grade school principal in the school experienced reversal of severe M.S. symptoms.
In my own case, symptoms included severe insomnia, head pain, tingling of my left arm and leg and frightening cardiac arrythmia. I had gone to the ER twice in an ambulance and undergone $18,000 worth of medical tests before the cause of my symptoms was finally determined to be exposure to electrical pollution. (Not brain cancer as had been suspected!) When we cleared my personal environment of the damaging frequencies, the symptoms disappeared.
You could not pay me any amount of money to use CFL bulbs in our house.
The LED bulbs do not create harmful frequencies, and they are available in “warm white.” They are not as bright as most of us are used to, but they are bright enough to meet our needs.
Regards,
Shivani Arjuna
www.LifeEnergies.com
