May 11, 2022 Testimony to the US National Council on Disabilities in regards to electromagnetic sensitivity and the health effects of wireless and non ionizing electromagnetic radiation.
Dear Members of the National Council on Disabilities,
I am so grateful that you are learning more about the EMS/MCS disabled in our country who have been so marginalized and have very little public access despite our ADA/FHAA rights. We hope you will be able to improve the situation for this ever-increasing population. Thousands, of us are in desperate living situations now with no safe in-person medical services. I am one of them, in contact with many others across the nation, working daily in advocacy, getting virtually no positive response from Title II or III entities (even to disabled accommodation requests). I think this Council is the first. Despite my credentials in biological science and medicine, the decades of independent scientific research and law I present, no one has taken positive action regarding health and disabled rights, at any level.
I have been shut into my partially RF-shielded home, alone, for 2.5 years by cellular emissions, unable to access my beloved property (gardens, outbuildings, mail) of 30 years—a violation of my ADA/FHAA rights. Like many, I have no family to help me. It is extremely difficult and I would not be alive had it not been for the help of one person on the weekends. Because of my own experience, hearing the stories and struggles of so many others, learning much law/codes that apply— I have ideas for solutions, as do many others who have been working for EMS disabled rights and accommodations. We would like to help you help us.
Please take a look at the slides in the Work Session I put together with Cece Doucette for my County Officials March 8, 2021. The Action Steps are especially important, although none were considered by my officials. Perhaps you can help support these on a national level.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xSbhLyf70WbjUyrmkAUcgt0nKd5-7iuL/view p 25-29.
https://youtu.be/nvaosvm9GQo?t=79 March 8, 2021 video, that includes testimonies. This is a crash course on Wireless Risks and Safer Technology Solutions for Municipalities.
I wrote the list below that pretty much sums up our plight.
Why EMS (electromagnetically sensitive) disabled people have such a difficult time:
- EMS is not being diagnosed because medical practitioners are not trained. They usually don’t know why they feel sick, some feel so hopeless they commit suicide, even as teenagers.
- They don’t know they have ADA/FHAA rights.
- They don’t know how or are mentally/physically unable to procure their rights with accommodation requests, complaints, or are unable to sue. Even institutions to assist the disabled are unfamiliar with EMS.
- They can’t find a doctor to write a letter for them, support them and those that might be able to help, are too far away. It’s dangerous to travel.
- There are no EMS safe medical facilities and very few medical practices willing to accommodate even for eye, dental or alternative care.
- Getting accommodations for employment is difficult, some are too ill to continue to work so become bankrupt, low income and have a very hard time trying to survive, pay for quality food and supplements they need. Most EMS disabled are women, often living alone. It is dangerous to run their own errands because of the wireless radiation and finding reliable help is not easy.
- Public transportation is unsafe there is so much wireless radiation in most cars, buses, trains, planes. If one’s old, safe vehicle no longer works, getting a safe replacement is very difficult and rental cars are not usually safe.
- If a cellular antenna or smart meter network goes up nearby or affects one’s home, it is nearly impossible to stop it despite the ADA/FHAA rights. It is possible to do RF (radiofrequency) shielding if you own the building but that means becoming an EMS prisoner, it’s expensive and may fail. Finding another safe home is difficult, logistically nearly impossible and then the same thing may happen.
- An EMS person needs wired high-speed internet and phone to be able to survive. Accessibility to these in an affordable EMS-safe home (no chemicals or mold) is also difficult to find.
- There are no EMS disabled guidelines in building codes despite recommendations by the Fed Access Board IEQ-Report.pdf so no subsidized or low-income housing is safe/available for EMS disabled people even if they’ve been able to secure Sec 8 assistance. Title II, III entities are not very likely to respond positively to accommodation requests because they have not planned, while installing their communication/record/ security systems, to be able to do this. They will claim “undue hardship” to accommodate.
- Parents of EMS disabled children find that the medical and education systems are not willing to accommodate them. If the parent has to work, as well as home school, this places a nearly impossible burden on them.
- Because our injuries are not visible, EMS disabled people become invisible to society, are often ridiculed by their own families, suffer alone in isolation without medical support, unable to attend religious services, school, social and family events like weddings, funerals, birthday parties, concerts, meet with government officials, safely go to courts, medical clinics, and hospitals. They can no longer travel and may not even be able to find a safe place in nature to be restored and heal.
In regards to your questions about Environmental Justice and Climate I would like to say that I was an environmental graduate student long ago and have cared deeply about living sustainably for more than 45 years. What seems to be missing in our federal government’s planning/policies is the need to reduce use of wireless because it is not “green”and it is not “smart”. Wireless is an energy hog, using at least 10x’s the energy of wired connections (5G uses even more) thereby increasing CO2 emissions. Even the wireless industry calls this an industrial environmental pollutant. No one is monitoring it, especially where vulnerable populations are— like children, the elderly, chronically ill and EMS disabled. Besides increasing CO2, it is also doing great environmental harm, especially to birds and bees (70% of our food is bee-dependent).
The fact that wireless is invisible, odorless and so ubiquitous now, makes it especially dangerous since people are not being educated about the bio-harm, and standards regarding biological effects are not being regulated by our government. The 30-year-old FCC guidelines are only thermal. The biological effects are what is making 1/3 of the population sick, disabling at least 6% and causing environmental destruction. As with tobacco, DDT, asbestos, and lead, it took time for policy to catch up with the science but in the meantime, people and the environment were being damaged. We can educate people now so they learn to use technology more safely. We can enforce the rights of the EMS disabled who are the most deeply affected by wireless—suffering and dying due to lack of accommodation.
This pollutant is an access barrier for the EMS disabled to nearly all public access in our country, even to critical medical services. Those disabled with “environmental illness” have been experiencing injustice for decades and in the event of extreme weather events would have no EMS/MCS safe places to go, they don’t even have their ADA/FHAA rights enforced to remain safe in their own homes now. Can safe shelters and low RF areas PLEASE be created for the thousands of EMS/MCS refugees that currently exist due to all emergencies, including loss of their homes from wireless radiation emitters?
Please do everything you can to help the EMS/MCS get accommodations and to help educate on safer use of technology so we can prevent more people from becoming disabled as they move further along on the EMS spectrum. Reach out to any of us who have offered; we are anxious to bring solutions to so many disabled who are unable help themselves.
Most sincerely and with gratitude,
https://ehtrust.org/testimony-to-us-national-council-on-disabilities-on-electromagnetic-sensitivity/ Source: Environmental Health Trust