Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.
Stu: This week we welcome Lyn Mclean back to the show. Lyn is Australia’s foremost consumer educator on the issue of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). She has been monitoring and writing on the subject for more than 20 years. Lyn is the author of Watt’s the Buzz, The Force, and Wireless-wise Kids, and is the publisher of the quarterly periodical EMR and Health. She has represented the community on various national committees and is director of EMR Australia.
Audio Version
Questions we ask in this episode:
- Is exercising with a mobile phone in your pocket safe? (Jump to 52:43)
- Can you tell us why we should be cautious of wi-fi?
- Are adults more resilient to wireless radiation than children?
- What are your top tips for mobile phone usage?
- Do everyday devices omit similar levels of wireless radiation?
Get More Of Lyn Mclean
If you enjoyed this, then we think you’ll enjoy this interview:
Full Transcript
Stu
Hey this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and welcome to another episode of The Health Sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it takes to achieve long lasting health. Now that is something that we would all aspire to have.
[00:00:30] Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products too. That’s right, we’re into whole food nutrition, and have a range of super foods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you’re curious, or want to find out more, just jump over to 180Nutrition.com.au and take a look.
Okay, back to the show. So this week I am super excited to welcome Lyn McLean. Now Lyn McLean is an expert in electromagnetic pollution and also Director of EMR Australia, which is the leading source of electromagnetic radiation information. Quite technical it sounds but this episode will be of huge benefit if you have– okay, a long list– a mobile phone, laptop, iPad, a tablet of any sort, if you use wifi, if you’ve got a fitness device, use Bluetooth headphones, you know, all of the above. This applies to everybody, me included of course. Everybody uses these things every single day.
[00:01:30] So what are we talk about during this podcast? We discuss simple strategies that you can implement today that will reduce our exposure to all of the invisible stuff that these devices and the technology present. Really, really, really interesting podcast. Lyn is a very, very smart lady. She’s got fantastic research to back all of this up, just launched a fantastic new book about wifi as well. Had a great time. Anyway, enough rambling from me. Let’s get into the show.
[00:02:00] Hey guys, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome back to the show Lyn McLean. Lyn, good morning, how are you?
Lyn Good morning, Stu. And I’m fine, and it’s lovely to talk to you.
Stu
[00:02:30] Great to have you back on the show, Lyn. We’re going to dive deep into your expertise in a second. But just first up, for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with your work, I wondered if you could just share with them, and me, a little bit about what you do and why you do it.
Lyn
Yeah, sure. My work here to do with electromagnetic radiation. People might be thinking, “What is electromagnetic radiation?” It’s the radiation that comes from anything wireless. We’re talking about mobile phones, mobile phone towers, [inaudible 00:02:50] towers, wifi, devices that people use, tablets, all that sort of thing.
Stu
Yeah.
Lyn
Smart meters too. Also we’re interested in fields that come from electrical sources like power lines, and cables, and wiring, but I thought today we might confine it to wireless radiation just to make the conversation simpler, if that’s okay.
Stu
[00:03:30] Absolutely. I’m going to just touch a little bit on the electromagnetic pollution as well, because that was a little bit of a life changer for us in terms of understanding what that actually meant. For everybody on video right now, I’m just going to hold up one of your books that I became very familiar with called The Force. And that was our introduction into what electromagnetic fields might actually be doing in terms of interfering with our health. We’ve got a whole podcast on that, and we wrote a great blog post, and there’s lots of information, so I’ll post all that in the show notes for people that want to dive into that side of things.
[00:04:00] For now, Lyn, so on today’s show, very, very interested in wireless radiation. It surrounds us everywhere right now. I wondered, wireless radiation, wifi, so what is wireless radiation, Lyn?
Lyn
[00:04:30] Well its proper, or correct, name is radio frequency electromagnetic fields. Basically it’s when a signal is propagated not through something like a wire, but it’s just propagated through space. For example, a mobile phone talks to a mobile phone tower. It’s that radio frequency radiation that carries the information. It’s any information that’s transmitted across a distance without a wire.
Stu
Right.
Lyn
Basically.
Stu
[00:05:00] Okay. Again, most of us now have smart phones, and tablets, and are subject to wifi, because it makes our life so convenient and easy, but I guess there is another side to that as well. Why should we, potentially, be cautious about the use of wifi?
Lyn
Well, there are now thousands of studies that are showing how harmful effects from this sort of radiation, so I’m talking about radio frequency radiation, and I’ll just refer to it as wireless radiation from this point on.
Stu
Yeah.
Lyn
[00:06:00] Thousands of studies, and they’re showing everything from brain tumors and cancers, to neurodegenerative diseases, to things like headaches, and depression, and pain, nausea, digestive problems, fatigue, anxiety. They’re also showing changes in the body, so when you expose a person, or when you expose a cell to this sort of radiation, you get changes in things like hormones, and genes, and DNA, and cell communication. You get more calcium flowing into cells. All of these things can lead to down stream effects on our health. There’s enough evidence, I think …
Stu
Yeah.
Lyn
… for us to start taking precautions and certainly there are lots of scientists out there saying things like, “Gosh, you know, we’ve got to A, take precautions, and B, we’ve got to reclassify this radiation as a carcinogen.”
Stu
Yes.
Lyn
[00:07:00] They’re saying there’s evidence to that. That, to me, is a bit of a concern. On top of that we get a lot of people who are reporting symptoms, so I talk to people every day who will say things like, “Since the NBN was turned on or since the smart meter was put in or since I got this new wifi or I got this new phone I’m getting all of these symptoms. I’m getting sick, it’s unbearable. And it’s quite well known that there’s a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity, which is where people react in an allergic type way to very low levels of this radiation. So whereas once people had never heard of things like peanut allergies, peanut allergies have become more common. Now we’re getting allergies to things like the smallest radiation.
[00:07:30] So there are people that are affected. There’s science supporting the fact that there’s harmful effects on the body. There are scientists calling for precautions. There are governments calling for precautions. And on top of all that, this has never been tested for safety before being rolled out on the market. So believe it or not we’re putting it in our homes, in our kindergartens, in our schools. We’re sitting our kids in front of it. We’re giving our kids these wireless devices not knowing what the long-term effects of that are going to be. And to me that just
Stu
[00:08:00] Frightening. Frightening. So in terms of the devices that we use every day, do we put them all in the same circle? Because I’m thinking about things like Bluetooth as well. Is that classified in the same vein as a mobile phone?
Lyn
It’s another frequency of radiation so yeah, it is wireless radiation and certainly some people react quite badly to it. So my view is if you’re going to take precautions to reduce your exposure you want to reduce your exposure across the board to wireless radiation. So therefore reduce your exposure to Bluetooth as well. In other words, don’t use it.
Stu
Got it. Got it. So what steps can we start to take? Because it’s like a snowball, isn’t it? Right now we are a wireless community. I use my mobile phone every day. I have to. It’s part of my business. But I do take precautions and we’ll talk about those a little bit later on. So as a society now that is very connected, where do we start in taking precautions?
Lyn
[00:09:30]
I think the best place to start is in people’s homes because I’m always getting people who call me and say, “I’m really worried about that tower out there,” or what the neighbours are doing or something out there in the wider community. And then when they actually measure and see what’s going on in their home, their major source of exposure is coming from, guess where? It’s actually inside the home. It’s their own devices. So we can make a really big difference to our exposure and our family’s exposure by dealing with what’s in our own homes. And usually the major sources are going to be, if you’re in somewhere like Victoria where you’ve got a wireless smart meter, your wifi modem and your cordless phone. They tend to be the highest sources. So some of those are easily dealt with. I mean the smart meter, for example, can be shielded. You can block that radiation from coming into the home. The cordless phone can easily be replaced with one of these.
Stu
Yes.
Lyn
[00:10:30]
Remember the ordinary corded phone. They’re still around. And that brings us to the modem. You can still wire in your internet so that you can have internet all the time but you’re not necessarily using wireless internet. And if we go back a few years that’s what everybody used to do. So you can have an ethernet cable for example, and it just means that the information is coming through wires, it’s not coming wirelessly. It’s not being broadcast throughout your entire home.
Stu
[00:11:30] Yeah. No, that’s good advice. Now I’m a heavy internet user, that’s part of the business, but my modem presents the option. So I use cable to internet, through an internet cable. And there is a button on there where I can use wifi if I need to. So most of the day that’s turned off and I’ve got wired internet which, after reading and delving deeper into what you’ve said and what I’ve learned from other health experts as well, is very much a concern. It’s very easy now, like you’ve said, to request a modem that does utilize ethernet and has the option of wifi and is switchable as well. Because I think with the devices that we use each day sometimes wifi is necessary if you need to move around with a device as well. So that’s what I’ve been doing.
The big one is the mobile phone. And again, it’s become part of our everyday lives. So, strategies? Tips? Safety tips, more than anything else, for mobile phone usage. What can you offer?
Lyn
[00:12:30] Okay. Well, a lot of things that people can do to reduce their exposure. And I know this sounds really basic but number one is…this. There are so many people who are sitting at home or sitting in front of a phone and using their mobile and I have to say, why? Could you not make that phone call from a corded phone? And in a lot of cases people can. So that’s number one, if you’ve got a choice, use a corded phone. And certainly have one in your home, because these days a lot of people just don’t have corded phones. So what are your children going to use? What’s a three-year-old going to use when they ring grandma? They’re going to have to use the mobile because there is nothing else. So first of all put one of these in place, so there is a safer option.
[00:13:00] Number two, if you have to use a mobile, and a lot of people do, don’t hold it against your head. And I know that sounds basic but so many people– and you look when you go out into the shopping center– they have these phones flat against their head. And if they do that their head is absorbing so much radiation that it may even exceed the levels that are specified by Australian and International standards. And that’s because these standards have been designed to protect people when their phone is a little distance from the body.
Stu
Right.
Lyn
[00:13:30] So that’s really important. So who goes around holding their phone like that. Nobody. People don’t even know that that’s a requirement. But that’s something that’s really important that people can do. Better still is to use it on speakerphone so that you’ve got it away from your body. So it’s such a distance that there’s a lot less absorption.
Stu
So if I use the analogy of a fire and when I’m close to the fire it’s very hot and I walk away from the fire and far less heat. Is that in the same vein as mobile phone and wireless radiation?
Lyn
[00:14:00] Yes, definitely, that’s true. You don’t have to move very far away to be making quite a difference to how much radiation is going into the body. But that brings us to the question, how far away do you actually have to be?
Stu
Yes.
Lyn
[00:14:30] Now the trouble is we don’t know the answer to that because different people have different sensitivities. So, for example, in our network we would have people who were so sensitive to a mobile phone that they would be affected by a neighbor’s mobile phone, by somebody’s mobile phone when they’re walking along the street outside, by people’s mobile phones in trains or public transport or public places. So that’s a high level of sensitivity. But there are more and more people who are becoming sensitive to this radiation. So how far is enough? We don’t know. But certainly you’re making a difference by keeping this away from your head.
Now other things that you can do are, you can use a shielded phone case. And I think this is something you can talk about.
Stu
It is. Absolutely right. So I have right here a BlocSock which I did actually purchase from your website. And we’ll add all of the notes and details to the podcast when we finish. But I’ve been using one of these things for, crikey, four years plus now. And I was initially intrigued when I spoke to you at a health seminar in Sydney many years ago and saw this and did a little bit of research. Read your book, and then started digging a little deeper and looked into studies in a drop in testosterone for males when the mobile phone is being carried in the pocket and all manner of health issues. And for me it was as simple as well at what I do, prevention is the cure. So we don’t know everything right now but what if, you know, what if I use a BlocSock and I only talk on my mobile phone through my headphones? What if I’ve been doing that for 10 years as opposed to pressing the phone against my head. Could I be preventing issues down the track?
So I have been using the BlocSock. Tell me a little bit more about it. Just describe it for all of our listeners that aren’t on video as well. So what does it do?
Lyn
[00:17:00] Sure. Well, you can say that it’s a soft fabric case and you pop your mobile phone in the outer pocket. And it’s just like a kangaroo pouch really. And the BlocSock is shielded on one side so the side that you’re holding against your head has got the shielding in it and that stops the radiation penetrating into your skull. But the other side out here is open so that means the radiation is talking to the tower; it’s connecting and still relaying information. So it doesn’t interfere with your communication, it’s just stopping that radiation going into your head. And it blocks about 96%. And we’ve got the laboratory test report on our website for that.
Stu
[00:17:30] Great. Fantastic. A preventive measure. And like I said, who knows what will happen. I’m skeptical about the health of our nation in such a device-driven time in our lives right now. And that leads me into one of my next questions. It’s a two-part question. So are adults more resilient to wireless radiation right now than children? And then I want to talk about iPad and tablet use in kindergartens for learning.
Lyn
Yeah. Okay, well, if we turn the question around and start with, are adults safe to use it?
Stu
Yeah.
Lyn
[00:18:00] And the answer would have to be, in my opinion, no. And that’s because there are these thousands of studies that are showing harmful effects on your body. And when the research is being done on humans most of it’s being done on adults. So if we go back and look at the mobile phone studies for example, they’re all looking at adults. They’re not, generally speaking, they’re not looking at children.
Stu
No.
Lyn
[00:18:30] So the majority of the research is showing harmful effects for long-term exposure, and I’m talking over 10 years of mobile phone use, it’s showing increased rates of brain tumors, like gliomas for example. So if it’s harmful for adults is it more harmful for kids? I think we would have to say yes. Although we can’t say that with conclusive proof because the research isn’t there.
[00:19:00] And a lot of research isn’t being done on kids. But we know that kids are more vulnerable to any kind of environmental exposure and we also know that their skulls are thinner. So if an adult holds a mobile phone right against their brain that radiation’s going to penetrate a little way into their brain. And in fact those are the locations where the brain tumors are being seen. But with a child that radiation is going to penetrate a lot further into the skull. There are actually images of this, something like maybe two-thirds of the way across into their brain. Or two-thirds of the brain that’s actually being exposed.
[00:19:30] Now to me that’s a huge concern because not only have they absorbed more radiation but these brains are still developing and growing. And the cells are dividing rapidly and at that time they’re particularly vulnerable to radiation. So what’s going to be the effect on these kids in 10, 20 years time? We don’t know.
But a very interesting study was done by a doctor, Lennart Hardell in Sweden. And he did a lot of studies actually, finding out a higher rate of brain tumors from long-term mobile phone usage. But in one study he looked at people who started using mobile phones before the age of 20.
Stu
Right.
Lyn
And he found that they had five times the risk. Now that’s some years ago. Today people don’t start just below the age of 20, they start–
Stu
Far younger, yes.
Lyn
[00:21:00] We see toddlers with mobile phones, playing with them, with them pressed up against their heads trying to behave like mommy or daddy. So we know that kids are being exposed from a very, very early age and we don’t know of the result. But I can tell you that in 10, 20, 30 years time we will. But by then it will be too late to fix the damage that’s been done to kids today. That’s why for me it’s so important to get this message out because I want parents of young kids to know, heck, there could be a problem. Let’s make an informed decision about giving our kids these radiating devices to play with so that in 10, 20, 30 years time they’re not going to be saying, “Well, too late now but really I wish I had done something.”
Stu
[00:21:30] Yeah, totally. It’s like cigarettes, isn’t it. “Oh, I wish I’d known smoking was so dangerous, but it’s too late now.” So I’ve got three young children. They’re all in school. I’m interested in the way that they learn, the devices that they use. And also the potential health issues that may happen down the track from what they’re doing right now. And I’m specifically talking about sitting down with a tablet or a laptop, you know, on their lap so they’re not pressing any of these things to their head. But right now I’m thinking, well would that affect reproductive organs, for one?
Lyn
Yes.
Stu
What are your thoughts on that? Because it’s just everywhere.
Lyn
[00:22:30] This to me is a really huge concern for a whole range of reasons. Firstly, we’re saying to kids, “Look, use these wireless, radiating devices. It’s okay.” And I think we need to be thinking about whether that’s the message we ought to be giving to kids at all. But secondly we’re saying to them, “Use them in this way that’s really irresponsible.” Because if kids have got these devices pressed on their laps then their bodies are absorbing again more radiation than is allowed by the international standards. Because as I said before the standards are designed for these devices not to be used right against the body but to have a gap so that when a laptop is on your lap then you’re absorbing more radiation than you should, basically. That radiation is going straight into the reproductive organs of the boys and the girls. Now for girls, you would probably know that girls are born with the number of eggs that they’re ever going to have.
Stu
Yes.
Lyn
[00:23:30] There are now studies on wifi that are showing that certainly in animals that were exposed, female animals had less eggs. In other words, exposure killed off the eggs along the way. So let’s start thinking about doing this to our young girls. They’ve got this wifi radiating device right next to their reproductive organs. Are they killing off their eggs? We don’t know that they’re not, and there’s evidence that they may be. Does that mean that these girls have an increased risk of infertility down the track? It may well do. I mean, we’re seeing increases in infertility, aren’t we?
Stu
Yeah.
Lyn
Which actually brings me to another story. Sorry to digress. I was talking to a doctor who specializes in fertility recently. And she said to me she had one couple who couldn’t get pregnant. And we sell t-shirts and underwear that block wireless radiation.
Stu
Right.
Lyn
[00:24:00] So she said to this guy, “Go out and get the shielding underwear and wear it.” He did, and guess what? He got pregnant. Well that is, his partner did. It’s suggesting to me that this sort of exposure can certainly, in some cases, interfere with reproduction. And when we’re getting our little tiny kids to use it, I think that’s a real problem.
Stu
Got it.
Lyn
[00:24:30] So yes, I think it’s being used in ways that are not safe, but also where are the policies on this in schools? I think schools have got policies on just about everything like what we do in English, what we do in Maths, what the school canteen can sell. Where is the policy on safe internet or internet-connection device use?
[00:25:00] And I think you’ll find that most schools don’t have them. In fact, I was talking to a vice-principle of one school fairly recently and he said, “You know, not only are we using these devices but we’re getting rid of the desks.” So instead of kids being able to put their devices on their desks they’re on the ground with these things on their body more often. And I think teachers about the research on risks and safe use and what other countries are suggesting as far as reducing exposure. And they’re just allowing kids to use this technology willy-nilly. Very dangerous.
Stu
[00:25:30] Yeah, it’s crazy. And off-topic as well, I wonder what that’s doing from a physiological perspective. Because we’re hunched and we’re craned and we’re in completely the wrong posture whereas before we used to be ergonomically correct at our desks.
Lyn
[00:25:45] That’s right. There are some studies I’ve seen over the years where they’re finding that people have got more problems in their upper neck because their posture is more .
Stu
[00:26:00] Yes. So safer use for tablet devices and laptops because I don’t think these devices are going away. And I know that parents can turn to these as well as a strategy just to give them a moment of sanity when their children are playing up, for want of a better word. So is it as simple as airplane mode across the board?
Lyn
[00:26:30] Yeah, my number one preference for using these devices, if you’ve got a choice, go for a laptop. I’ve got a laptop, not on at the moment, but it sits on a desk, it’s not on my body and it doesn’t use wifi. We have no wifi in our home, we have no wifi in our office. Everything is cabled so if want to connect to the internet I stick the thing in the modem. Not hard, not rocket science. Anyone can do it. So kids can use this technology quite safely; 100% safely. And they’ve got it a distance from their body. They can do their homework on it, they can do their schoolwork on it and you don’t have to worry.
[00:27:00] The problem with giving kids things like tablets is that most of these things can’t be connected to the internet with a cable. So if you’re going to use the internet on it it’s got to be wireless. Now personally, I don’t think we should be giving kids anything that has to be used wirelessly. So I would say, don’t use them, use a laptop instead. So those people who do have tablets and have to have tablets and their kids have to use them, they should only be used on airplane mode.
Stu
Yes, got it. Yes.
Lyn
And if kids want to play a game, if they want to do something else, go to the family wired-in computer. Do it that way. And as a parent, what’s wrong with going to the school and saying, “This is how my kid’s going to do their homework. This is the device they’re going to be using.” Perfectly reasonable thing to be telling the shool and asking for their cooperation with.
Stu
[00:28:00] Yeah, absolutely. Look, they’re good tips. And I just had a thought pop into my mind as well. And it’s mobile phone use when driving, I’m seeing this more and more. And irrespective of what the laws say, people still use their mobile phones in their car. You know, we’re texting away. We’re doing all the things we shouldn’t be doing. Are we more at risk when we’re driving and using a mobile than when we’re at home say?
Lyn
[00:28:27] Well quite possibly, and the reason is you’ve got a metal shell in a car. So that shell imagine and you’ve got the mobile phone in there, first of all your chances of an accident are much greater. It’s as bad as drunk driving, being on a mobile phone, and that’s irrespective of whether you’re holding the phone or not. So it’s do with concentration as much as anything else. But that radiation is being reflected, bouncing here, bouncing there, bouncing back, bouncing all over the place. So you’re on a mobile phone here and your kids in the back are being exposed.
Stu
Right, okay.
Lyn
[00:29:30] So my very strong advice on that is do not do it. Do not do it at all. If you have to use a mobile phone, don’t use it in the car. Get out of the car to make the call, open up the window and hold the phone outside the car. And I know that might sound extreme and people are going to say, “You know, look what she’s telling us,” but we have people in our network who can feel when a mobile phone is turned on in the car. So I’m not talking about calls being made, I’m just talking about the radiation that the phone puts out every now and then when it’s talking to the phone tower saying, “Here I am, here I am.” They can feel that and it’s affecting their driving performance.
[00:30:00] “Alright,” our listeners say, “I’m not like that. I’m not that sensitive.” But what people have to realize is it’s not just a question of whether you’re sensitive now, it’s a question of cumulative exposure. So if you look at what the research is saying it’s showing that exposure, exposure, exposure, people are okay. Then there’s a tipping point, and at some point people are not okay any more. And where that tipping point is is going to depend on your age, your health, what else are you being exposed to, your diet and so forth and how much you’re using this technology.
[00:30:30] So again, we don’t know the long-term effects of this exposure. Let’s minimize our risk. Let’s do whatever we can to reduce exposure. And I always say, don’t use it in the car.
Stu
Totally. No, it’s good advice. So I’m just going to touch on the car exposure once again. I’m a salesman, okay. Let’s just say I’m a salesman. I need to be in my car. I’m stuck in traffic and my car is my office. I need to make calls. What about the old-school aerials outside? So is that a better solution?
Lyn
That’s what I was going to say. Have an external aerial and the phone’s already there. So again, it’s not up against your head.
Stu
Right. Okay. Good stuff. No, that makes sense. It’s like anything, there are strategies that we can put in place now that will hopefully be strategies for better health moving forward, irrespective of what we know right now. Because I think in 10 years time we’re going to know a whole lot more than we do right now.
Lyn
There’s no question. And the fact that there’s so much research coming out and it’s showing so much evidence of risk. And you know my interest is in the health effects of this but we could talk about the educational effects, we can talk about the psychiatric effects, we can talk about all these dimensions in terms of the way this is having harmful effects on people. And there are people in lots of disciplines that are now starting to say, “Hang on, look at what we’re seeing.” And I think at some point all of this research is going to come together and we, as a society, are going to realize that we’ve actually created something that we didn’t understand the ramifications.
And you mentioned tobacco before and I think we see this with lead and asbestos too, that we have this new great technology and then a little while down the track we think, “Aw, heck, I didn’t know about that.”
Stu
[00:32:30] Oh, dear. If we wanted to know more, specifically about the studies, the current studies, is there a central body that we go to? Where would we go?
Lyn
Well, come to us. So if you don’t mind I’ll just take the liberty of showing this up. And this is coming up back to front on your screen. But this is my latest book which is called Wireless-wise Families. And I’ll just flip through because this is not a heavy read, it’s quite light. And it’s got all sorts of tips–
Stu
Fantastic.
Lyn
[00:33:30] — pictures and diagrams and things. It’s very easy to read and it says– here is the evidence and it refers to the studies and then it says, “Here’s what you can do if you want to take precautions.” Actually the references aren’t in that book just because there are so many of them and it would make the book a bit big. The references are on the publisher’s website and also on our website so you can see all the research there quite easily but you can see the sort of summary, the main points, in the book.
Also come to our website. There’s a free newsletter that you can download which is called EMR and Health. And I’ve been doing that now for about 22 years.
Stu
Fantastic.
Lyn
And we put it out four or five times a year. We’re trying to do it five times this year to let people see this is the latest research, this is the latest information that’s come out from this country or that country. So you can keep up to date quite easily.
Stu
Fantastic. Excellent. Well we will link to the book and to all of your resources in the show notes as well.
Lyn
Thank you.
Stu
So we’re talking about the studies and the safety recommendations as well. So are they consistent globally or do they vary radically from country to country?
Lyn
[00:35:00] Oh, well, there are different levels of advice and that you have a couple of different international standards. And the one in Australia we refer to is the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. So that’s a body that’s put a guideline in place saying, “This is what we recommend.” Now they recommend such vast, high levels of exposure that will be almost impossible not to comply with them. And that’s great because that allows industry to roll out whatever they want to roll out and for these standards not to get in the way. But what these standards are basically doing, they’re basically designed to stop us being burned over a six minute period. So that’s fantastic if you hold your mobile phone there for six minutes, it’s not going to leave a burn mark. And there is an arbitrary, they call it safety level, as well.
[00:35:30] But I think as a society we want a lot more assurance and protection than that given the fact that there are now so many studies showing that even at levels of radiation that comply with the standard people are getting sick, people are getting brain tumors, people are getting cancers and all these and all these harmful effects are being seen on the body and we’ve got all of these symptoms that are developing. That to me says sorry, these standards aren’t right. And I’m not the only one saying them. It’s not just my opinion. You listen to some of the researchers out there and they’re saying the same thing. As I said at the start there are scientists now saying these radiations should be classified as carcinogenic. That’s how much evidence there is that it’s dangerous.
Stu
Wow.
Lyn
[00:37:00]
So the first level is our international standards but then we’ve got countries saying, “Heck, there’s all this evidence of risk, what can we do?” And so they’re doing things like issuing guidelines. For example, Athens recently, and Cypress and Romania, have come out with these guidelines saying, “Do this and this and this and this to reduce exposure but particularly reduce your kid’s exposure,” because they’re generally recognized as being more vulnerable. In the United States you’ve got the City of Berkeley putting out mobile phone warnings so when people buy mobile phones they get this warning basically saying, “We know this phone’s emitting radiation. If you hold it up against your head you’ll be exposed to more radiation than the standard allows,” because people don’t know that. You get France putting a ban on advertising to kids who are 12 years and under and saying, “Well we’re not having wifi in preschools.” So there are a lot of countries that are putting in this extra layer of protection saying, “Alright, maybe there’s not conclusive proof but we’re concerned enough to be advising you to reduce exposure.”
Stu
Got it. And where does Australia sit in terms of the best level of information?
Lyn
[00:38:00] Well, Australia’s standard is basically aligned with the ICNIRP standard which means that it’s saying we can be exposed to quite a lot of radiation. Essentially we’re not really hearing precautions, we’re not hearing our authorities do the sort of things that overseas countries are doing. They’re not coming out and saying, “Reduce exposure, protect yourself.” They have put out a guideline saying that if you’re concerned about kid’s exposure it’s not a bad idea to reduce children’s exposure to wireless radiation which is something. But we are so far behind the eight ball. And what I want to know is how come our kids are deserving of less protection–
Stu
Yes, of course.
Lyn
–than kids in these other countries.
Stu
[00:38:30] Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, crikey, it’s crazy stuff, isn’t it? I wanted touch on a topic right now as well which is close to all of our hearts and that is sleep. And sleep for me I think, if we manage to access restorative sleep then that makes us far more resilient every single day in terms of all of the electromagnetic exposure and external pollutants that we are exposed to. In your thoughts, how does our mobile phone, our wireless router, laptop use, tablet, all of that, how does that affect our sleep, if at all?
Lyn
Well it does affect sleep and it has a deleterious effect on sleep. And that will come as no surprise to you having heard everything else that I’ve said. And one of the ways it affects sleep is that it reduces melatonin. So maybe your listeners have heard of melatonin, that really important hormone in the body that is a very effective free radical scavenger. So it’s helping mop up all of the oxidants that cause things like cancer. So reducing melatonin levels not only is a risk for health problems but it reduces the quality of sleep.
[00:40:00] Now there’s quite a bit of research that shows that when people have been using mobile phones for example, that it changes their brain wave patterns and it changes their sleep. So for example, there’s less REM sleep and that’s, as I understand it, the deep restorative level of sleep. So we know from these studies that sleep patterns are changing when people are exposed to this radiation.
On top of that we’re finding that what kids– some kids, but probably not just kids– are doing now is they have these devices in their bedroom and what are they doing at nighttime? No, they’re not going to bed.
Stu
No.
Lyn
[00:40:30] No, they’re not reading. They’re on their devices. They’re playing games, they’re on the internet, they’re talking to their friends, they’re doing all of this stuff using radiating devices. So there spending less time in bed, they’re spending less time sleeping and what some psychologists are saying is that this is affecting their quality of sleep, it’s affecting their academic performance. These kids are turning up at school and they are not performing. They are exhausted. They’re not sleeping.
Stu
Yes, yeah.
Lyn
[00:41:30] So you’re now getting pediatricians saying things like, well, kids shouldn’t have these devices in their bedrooms, they shouldn’t be on them at night and they shouldn’t be using them very much, let’s say two hours, before sleep. And one of the problems, of course, is on a screen you’re getting that blue light which is interfering with sleep as well. So there are all these different ways in which these devices are interfering with our sleep. And as you say, sleep is incredibly important for health. So if it’s been undermined, what are the consequences for health? And that brings us back to this question. We don’t actually know and how do you test these things anyway? How do you say this much of my health problem is to do with lack of sleep and my device use? But I think it makes sense, if you want to be healthy, you make sure you’ve got good sleep and you reduce your use of these devices at night.
Stu
[00:42:00] Absolutely. That’s good advice and especially talking about the youngsters as well. The less sleep they get the more inclined they are to be making the wrong food choices during the day, they’re going to be craving sugary and carby drinks, they’ll go to school tired and wired. Clearly issues with attention and mood and all of the above.
Lyn
[00:42:30] Yes, and there’s are studies showing that kids who are sitting in front of this equipment, they are more likely to be obese. And I’m not saying to do with the radiation but what are they doing is they’re sitting there, they’re spending hours and hours and hours doing this and eating instead of being out there, being active as perhaps they would’ve been in previous generations. So we’re seeing this change in activity patterns that’s not healthy for kids either.
Stu
[00:43:00] Totally, totally. It’s crazy, isn’t it really. You look at kids these days, and I look at my children as well, and when I was young it was the bicycle and the football and my swimming gear and now maybe I’ve got an app for swimming and an app for this. It’s all device driven which is sad in a way. But I’m sure as the years progress as studies are going to come out and they are going to say, “Well, we do need to minimize this or at least come up with some alternatives,” because I don’t see that it is anything but healthy.
Lyn
[00:44:00] That’s right. And that brings us to human relationships too, because this use of these technologies is actually interfering with relationships and people might think, “Oh, you know, I’m connecting with my friends. I’m doing…” whatever. But what is suffering is face-to-face interaction. So let’s just take schools for example. Kids go to school, on the bus, what are they doing? In the playground, what are they doing? In the classroom, what are they doing? They’re doing this. There are now a couple of schools in Australia that have banned mobile phones in school. And these kids have got to keep them in their lockers or hand them in before school starts. So they have no mobile phones all day. And what the Principle said is that these kids are now interacting with each other. They’re playing, they’re talking. There’s more noise because kids are talking to each other in the playground.
Stu
Of course, fancy that.
Lyn
A noticeable change. So how interesting is that?
Stu
Absolutely right. I’m very intrigued as to the change in my children’s behavior when I enforce limited hours on tablet use and television and things like that. They suddenly become creative and they interact more and they play more and they get outside more. And obviously it’s something I’m trying to do all the time without being too much of an ogre at home. But I’m in complete agreement.
Lyn
[00:45:00] Well that’s maybe something that our listeners could experiment with. If they’ve got young kids why not just put some sort of limitation in place like that and see what happens. And it’s so important too because what we see is that kids are using this technology such a lot. So what’s happening? They’re developing addictions. And you don’t have to look very far on the internet to see some of the games and programs that are on the internet are there designed in a way to reward people for continued use.
Stu
Yes.
Lyn
So that’s triggering a dopamine reaction in the body which is triggering people to keep going, keep going, and keep going. So we’re getting addictions. We’re getting kids that can’t get off this technology. There’s one story in an Australian newspaper of some young man who knifed his father because his father asked him to come to tea, you know, get off the phone and come to tea. So addiction is a real problem.
[00:46:30] And we’re seeing, psychologists again, dealing with this and trying to get kids off their devices. But this kind of addictive behavior is a real problem because not only is the time that people spend on it but it’s changing their behavior. It’s making them aggressive, it’s making them more anxious, it’s making them more depressed. So there are actual studies linking excessive internet use with all of this unpleasant consequences for behavior. So it makes a lot of sense for us to be trying to turn that around as a society.
Stu
Totally. I completely agree. It’s that instant hit you get of gratification and that dopamine release when you are swiping. Show me the next thing. Oh, great, I can see something wonderful and I want to see it again and I want to see it again and I swipe, swipe, swipe and before you know it you’ve lost an hour of your time. And you struggle to put that device down–
Lyn
Exactly.
Stu
— before you go to bed. And when you wake up you switch it on before you say hello to your partner. It’s just frightening, frightening. So Lyn, we are coming up on time and just a few wrap up questions. And the first one is, if you could share three of your top tips coming from your sphere of expertise that you think may make the biggest impact on our health.
Lyn
Think. Think before you do it. I know that sounds really, a funny thing to say, but people today are using this technology from habit. And habit, by definition, is the opposite of thinking. You do it unconsciously. So I’m inviting everybody to just think about it. Every time they pick up their phone be aware of what they’re doing. And start to ask themselves questions. “Do I need to make this phone call. Do I need to photograph this cheesecake and send it to all my friends? Do I need to be connecting to the internet? Do I need to be ignoring the person opposite me so I can talk to somebody else on my phone?” Think about what you’re doing. Think about the example you’re setting because we’ve got parents complaining– and there are studies on this– parents complaining about the kids use of technology, “Oh, they’re using it too much, they’re using it too much.” Why are their kids doing it? It’s because the parents are using it too much.
Stu
Of course.
Lyn
[00:49:00] The kids are copying their behavior. So please, think, think, think. Think about how you want this technology to serve you, not how you wat to serve the technology. And think about what you want for your kids in terms of happiness, educational performance and so forth, and how you can create that in your home. We, as individuals, have got a lot of power so we can put all of these changes in place and make our homes happier, healthier places. So number one would be think.
Stu
Great.
Lyn
Do I keep going?
Stu
You can, absolutely. No, I like what I’m hearing. Please do.
Lyn
[00:49:30] Number two. Keep it away from the body. Don’t do this, don’t put it on your lap. Keep it at a distance from your body. Number three, use wires. Love your wires. Wires are wonderful, wonderful things. Use wired phones, use wired internet, use wired computers. Use things that you can plug in and then you know that you’re safe and you know that your kids are safe.
Stu
Great, fantastic.
Lyn
[00:50:00] Buy products that fulfill all of those things. That have got wires, that have got the capacity to wire. Give the message to the manufacturers, “We want safe products, we want safe phones. We want these things that are not exposing us to radiation.” So we can start to bring about those changes in terms of the habits that we have in our family and in our buying habits as well.
Stu Fantastic. You know, when you’re talking about the mobile phone use as well it made me think, imagine a scene where a spaceship comes to Earth and the aliens come down and they look at us with these devices pressed to our ears and we’re glued to these things, I wonder who they would think was in charge.
Lyn
Look, it amazes me because I think what it’s doing is it’s making us unconscious to the world around us. We’re going for walks out there and we’re walking past people and we’re doing this. We don’t see the person, we don’t see the birds, we don’t see the trees, we don’t see nature, we don’t hear the music out there. Does that mean that we’ve lost something really important in our lives? We’re operating in a distant world, in a different place. We’re not operating in the present. And I think there’s so much information–
Stu
[00:51:30] Completely. You’re completely right. I saw a great picture on the internet on the other day. And it was a dog and his master sitting on a hill looking at a sunset and beautiful trees and then there were thought bubbles above each head. And above the master’s head there was like work and phones and Facebook and Instagram and all this stuff. And then the thought bubble above the dog’s head was sunset, trees, and everything that was in front of him. So yes, you’re spot on. Craziness.
So what’s next for Lyn McLean? So what have you got? Obviously you’ve got the book, and we’ll add all of the links to that as well, and I’m very excited to share that with everybody.
Lyn
Thank you.
Stu
What else is in the pipeline?
Lyn
Well we have a new range of shielding clothing that’s coming out. And these are for women, they’ll be singlet tops. So they’re like a camisole top that you can wear underneath clothing. We have had t-shirts in the past but the manufacturer is no longer making those so we’re making our own. And that means that people will be able to protect their vital organs if they have to work in a wireless environment, which most people do these days. For kids we’ve got singlets so they can wear them under school uniforms. If they’ve got a wireless classroom at least, again, their vital organs are being protected. And we’re very keen for this protection to be in place because I’m very concerned about kids in wireless environments in schools and preschools.
Stu
[00:53:00] Fantastic. Lyn, a thought just popped into my head when you were talking about the shielding clothing, and I see this a lot and I think, crikey, I’m sure this isn’t good but I’m sure you can validate this for me. Females with sport-like active wear tops with the mobile phone pushed in the bra. Tell me about that.
Lyn
[00:53:30] That is, that is terrible. As I said before, holding a mobile phone against your body means you’ve got maximum radiation absorption. So if you stick your mobile phone in your bra, as you say a lot of people do, that radiation is going straight into that very sensitive breast area. And there’s a case study in the United States where three women, three young women in their 20’s and early 30’s, developed breast cancer. And the tumors were in exactly the spot where the aerials of the phones were. One woman had three tumors in the positions of the three aerials. And they all– they had no history, no family history of breast cancer, no other risk factors. All had mastectomies. Really young women.
Stu
[00:54:00] Frightening. And am I right in thinking that if we’re running with that as well the intensity of the signal is going to be increased because the mobile phone is moving?
Lyn
[00:54:30] Yes, actually, I don’t actually know whether that’s the case or not but the fact that the phone is turned on and it’s going to be putting out radiation pretty much all the time and downloading information all the time. This case study was done a few years ago and the mobile phones coming out now, the smart phones for example, are exposing us to more and more radiation because they’re constantly downloading information. So whatever we’ve seen in the past is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the exposure.
Stu
You’re going to hate me because I’ve got another question now. They keep coming to me as we’re talking.
Lyn
That’s good.
Stu
New smart watches that are cellular enabled. So, your thoughts on that, because you do have a device now that is essentially a part of your body now. And it’s connecting with a tower all the time.
Lyn
That’s right. Well anything wearable has the same problem as having the phone against your head or the phone in your bra. It’s exposing your body and so we’re really concerned about that. Now can I tell you a little story about a Fitbit, which is not a smart watch, but I think the same thing applies. This was a wireless Fitbit and this woman upgraded her Fitbit from a non-wireless one to a wireless one. And she became sick, really, really, really sick. Went to her doctor, doctor couldn’t find anything wrong. Sent her to every specialist under the sun, they couldn’t find anything. She was off work, no employment for a year, she was so sick. She went to an acupuncturist, the acupuncturist looked at her and he said, “Get that thing off your wrist.”
Stu
Right.
Lyn
[00:56:00] She took it off her wrist, she got better. Now I’m not saying she took it off and instantly she was better but what I am saying is that when that thing came off her symptoms disappeared. She got better, she went back to work. So she went to see her doctor and said, “I found out what was wrong with me, it was…,” you know. “And when I put my Fitbit back on again the symptoms came back too.” So she did that little test. And the doctor said, “Oh, yeah, I had somebody else do the same thing.” Had a wireless Fitbit and all the symptoms. So why do it? Why expose yourself to more than necessary.
Stu
[00:56:30] Yes, good advice. Thank you so much. Well, Lyn, how can we get more of Lyn McLean? How can we get more of everything you say? Where would be the best place for me to point our audience?
Lyn
[00:57:00] Well, come to our website. Come to our website. All our contact information is on that. And we really do our best to help people. The reason that I set up EMRS training, which is about 14 years ago now, was to help people because we can see the need that is out there. And a lot of people are suffering and a lot of people want information. So come, have a look at our resources. As I said we’ve got the free newsletter, we’ve got the books, we’ve got lots of information. We’ve got meters so people can hire our meters wherever you are in Australia, take them home, test your home, see what’s going on there. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out and then make the decisions that you want to make based on your common sense and lifestyle and understanding. Make your home as safe as you want it.
Stu
[00:57:30] Absolutely. We’ve got a whole separate podcast on that as well and an article that I wrote after you visited my home. So we’ll share that as well because that was an eyeopener for me. And that genuinely improved the quality of my sleep overnight. So our listeners are going to be really intrigued as to how that happened and what I did to make that happen as well.
But Lyn, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate all of your knowledge and I hope we’ll be chatting to you in the future.
Lyn
[00:58:00] That would be wonderful, Stuart, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this with you and I hope that your listeners found it interesting.
Stu
I’m sure they will. Thanks again, Lyn.
Lyn
Thank you.
Stu
Okay, bye bye.
Lyn
Bye.
