In what professional capacity do you share this opinion?
Red herring arguement. New drugs are “approved” by the FDA for legal use. They are NOT, as part of this process, scientifically tested, exhaustively, for safety and effiectiveness. Just because the government says it is OK does not make it OK. Kinda like a mere code inspection (10 minutes, around here) vs. a Home Inspection (2 1/2 - 3 hours). Which would you trust more.
BTW: The FDA assumes no liability if a drug is later found to be dangerous, nor does FDA approval provide any cover for the manufacturer. Also, kinda like a code inspection.
AKA, pretty much worthless.
Your logic chain is broken in many places.
A large enough EMF will mess with you. But we are talking about a magnetic field thousands to millions of times what one would normally encounter in everyday life.
The levels of EMF that these people complain about is miniscule, in the 1/10 - 1/1000ths of a gauss. Any florescent light ballast would send out more than 500 gauss. A light dimmer switch projects some 30 - 50 gauss.
Then there is the 1 / r2 law. The intensity of an EMF decreases by the reciprocle of the distance squared. So, at 2 feet distance, the intensity is only 1/4 that at 1 foot. At 3 feet it is 1/9th. Distance has a lot to do with it.
As I stated before, and no one has provided any evidence to counter this, there are no peer reviewed, scientific studies that show any kind of harm to humans from the levels of EMF that are encountered in everyday life. Even though people have been studying this for decades (at least!) there is still no proof.
Nuff said.
WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
A scientific panel of 21 exports from 10 countries met in June 2001 to discuss EMF. The conclusion to this meeting which incorporated NIOSH, ACGIH panel classified EMF as a “possible carcinogenic to humans” based on fairly consistent statistical association between doubling of risk of childhood leukemia EMF of .4 microtesla or 4 milligause.
Again I am saying that this research is still going on and I have not kept up with ACGIH or anything on EMF. My statements on this have been clear and some women are affected more than men. Why is this? They feel that it might be associated with the percentage of time they sit at Computer stations and Copy machines.
I don’t know. Maybe because women watch more Oprah and enjoy feeling like victims more than men (on average, I will add).
Interesting.
The client wants the inspection performed (for whatever reason), and we can perform the inspection. Again, the inspection doesn’t determine if EMFs are dangerous. The inspection determines if EMFs are present.
It’s not our job to determine if EMFs are actually dangerous and it’s not our job to judge our client’s reasoning for wanting to know if EMFs are present.
Take the money. It’s honest, ethical to provide information sought by our clients.
Very true Nick and we would never want to point this info out to a normal client. I have done it for the MCS individuals suffering from different symptoms and did find interesting findings while doing this over 7 years back. I don’t think any IAQ organizations are concentrating on this info because of the little importance associated with it at this time.
So what do you say when you present the client with the results (just a bunch of numbers, if you want to be honest) and they ask you to “interpret” it. “So, is there any problem?” or “did we pass?” or “Are these levels dangerous?” What can you, honestly, say?
“I have no idea what these readings mean, whether they are elevated or what you should do about them. There are no government set or industry set levels for safe vs. dangerous. You asked me to ‘inspect’ and I did ahe here are my findings. Now please pay me.”
Looks like a good time, Nick.
The levels associated with the info and guidelines are from ACGIH and Other associations. At one point there was info on actual product producing high levels.
For instance here is an example. Humidifiers
An old standalone humidifier can put out over 200 Milligause.
Don’t ask me to find the info for you In my library but there was a list in 2002.
So even if you are beside it in an office you will be exposed to 20Mg-30Mg Gause.
I am not saying that this will cause cancer I am only making the blanket statement that more research is needed to determine the dangers and effects on the body.
The job of the Inspector is simple. If high levels are found you show the client so they can stay away from this area. You give the info for researching the subject and you are done.
Since this info is linked with IAQ and MCS it should only be performed by those understanding the readings. Even doctors have come to accept this.
This is facinating.
Can you provide ANY evidence that exposure to a 20-30 Gauss field is a problem?
And do you mean Gauss or did you really mean mGauss?
Perhaps you will find this useful.
As I stated before, there is no scientific, peer reviewed studies that show that there is any human harm caused by EMF at the levels that are commonly seen in the public or residential areas.
That’s my point and no one has given any evidencem here, to change that.
Thanks Michael it has been awhile since I used these terms MGause or Milligause. Corrected
Yes the article is similar to this one by NIOSH.
Basically… yes.
Hi Will…
I live in Batavia…a good freind of mine is a physics major, Graduated from MIT;and works at FERMILAB. I shot him an email.