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A Message from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Chairman on Leave
October 22, 2021

Oregon Legislature Set to Hear Arguments About OHA’s Lack of Safety Concerning Schools and EMF/5G Safety

By Shane Reilly
Electromagnetic Radiation Specialist, Portland OR
Owner – Optimal Dwelling Spaces LLC

In my work as a Building Biologist, I have become extremely concerned about the amount of wireless radiation children are being exposed to around the clock. One key area of concern is the exposures for kids while at school. Of course, you can take steps in your own home to reduce wireless radiation, but all control is lost when your kids get to school. I worry about this every day when I drop my kids off. Manufacturers claim their Wi-Fi routers meet FCC safety standards, but because of new studies showing exposure can be harmful to children, the FCC has recently been ordered by a federal court to re-evaluate those 25-year-old exposure safety limits. 

The issue of health risks from EMFs (electromagnetic fields) such as wireless radiation has historically been a non-starter for school administrators, city councils and legislators. Too many tinfoil hat memes exist out there for this to have much traction with those in authority. However, I am optimistic that acceptance is slowly coming online, as we now have a body of thousands of studies documenting the biological effects of these invisible energies. You can imagine how excited I was when I heard that the Oregon legislature had passed a bill directing the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to review the available independent scientific research to determine the health effects from microwave radiation exposures such as Wi-Fi in our schools. 

Senate Bill 283 was passed in 2019 and the OHA set out about their task, filing the completed report at 5 pm on New Year’s Eve 2020. It was almost as if they didn’t want it to be seen. The disappointments didn’t stop there. The report they created has been heavily criticized by researchers, scientists and health advocates around the world as being incomplete, biased, and not transparent. 

After reading through the report, along with multiple reviews of it, here are the noteworthy faults that you should be aware of:

  • Wireless-industry funded studies used in the report. 
  • Withholding of the report’s first draft from a public records release request. 
  • SB283 was specifically focused on wireless impacts to children. Yet OHA did not present research on children’s unique vulnerability to wireless as documented in numerous research studies. Children’s rapidly developing brains are more sensitive to wireless radiation, and children have been found to absorb proportionately higher wireless radiation than adults. 
  • The report would not pass peer review, as it omitted animal and cellular studies and thus does not provide a comprehensive or systematic review of the relevant literature. 
  • SB 283 directed focus to exposure in schools, yet OHA did not review research on school setting wireless exposures, nor did they attempt to characterize actual wireless exposures with actual measurement. 
  • The omission of reference to the classification of radiofrequency (wireless) radiation as a Class 2B Carcinogen by the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2011. 

Those are serious flaws in the report produced by OHA! But it gets worse: since OHA is one of the few state health boards that has done this type of research, this report will be used by school districts around the country to avoid protecting our children’s health and wellness. 

Fortunately, the Oregon legislature has heard the concerns surrounding this report and has scheduled a hearing to get an explanation from OHA. Senator Michael Dembrow is heading this effort, anticipated to occur in November. 

This is our chance to force the OHA to retract and redesign the report, potentially protecting the health of millions of children around the country! 

My call to action for all of you is to take three minutes and send Senator Dembrow a message with your concerns on this issue, as well as encouraging him to stay the course in keeping OHA accountable in their mission to protect and promote public health. 

Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov 

for more info on Shane’s work as a building biologist, please visit www.optimaldwelling spaces.com