Throughout the UK there is a drive to install smart meters in everybody’s home. They are promoted as being progressive, convenient and good for the environment. By implication, this means that if you are against the installation of a smart meter in your home, then you are a Luddite, unintelligent and a threat to the world’s climate.
The old saying that ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’, needs to be borne in mind when looking into the issue of smart meters. The reason I say this is because the installation of smart meters does not cost the customers of utility companies a penny. Instead, they are told that this technological upgrade is being done for the benefit of the people, by government and corporate interests that only have our welfare at heart. Isn’t that nice of them? Where do I sign to claim my free lunch? Over the years, I have come to realise that the government cannot be trusted. Furthermore, not only can the government not be trusted, it cannot be trusted on anything. How I came to this realisation is a bit of a long story, so I won’t go into it here. However, if you feel differently and you are prepared to trust the government, then please give one of your fellow citizens a moment of your time to explain why I believe that your trust is misplaced. In fact, I can do it in the single sentence below. Smart meters have not been proven to be safe. Now, I admit that the above sentence might not be as subversive as you were expecting but bear with me. I could have said that smart meters are dangerous. That would have been a mistake because something that is dangerous can be safe if it is used in very specific and limiting ways that minimise the risk. For example, biological scientists work with dangerous diseases all of the time but they do so in specialist negative pressure buildings, incorporating a variety of safety measures and emergency procedures. In other words, it all depends on the context. So, let me expand the earlier sentence. Smart meters have not been proven to be safe in standard home environments. If the above statement is true, then why, you may ask, is the government promoting smart meters and encouraging people to have them installed? Well, in essence, it is because the government, multinational corporations and those in authority, simply do not care about the health of citizens. In fact, they are quite happy to experiment on the public, without their knowledge or consent and this has been proven time and time again, despite our government accepting the principles of the Nuremberg Code through their agreement to Article 7 of the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. So, what is really going on? Firstly, there is a great deal of money to be made. Secondly, and more importantly, it enables the state to establish a communications network for mass surveillance and control of the population. Even if we do not live in a totalitarian fascist state quite yet, which is debatable, the infrastructure that such a state needs is being rapidly established and we are going along with it because we have been told to and because we do not question what we are told. One clear illustration of how the people are being misled is in the promotional material provided by the government. The government has its own smart meter website, which starts with a section about the benefits of smart meters but it is not until you get near to the end of the web page that safety concerns are addressed. And making health matters the government’s lowest priority is further reflected in the language that they use to describe the dangers that consumers face. Look at the sentence below for an example of the deceptive practices that they use. “Public Health England has advised that the evidence suggests that exposures to the radio waves produced by smart meters do not pose a risk to health.” Let’s break that down. Public Health England is an executive agency of the government’s Department of Health and Social Care. Its statement on smart meters starts by saying that it “has advised”, which simply means that it has an ‘opinion’ on smart meters. What is that opinion? Does it say that smart meters are safe? No. You cannot expect a straightforward statement like that from government. Instead, it has advised that “the evidence”, which we will have to accept has been rigorously collected and studied by suitably qualified scientists, “suggests”. Wait a minute, the evidence is too uncertain to be absolutely sure, so it ‘suggests’, which means that it leans towards a particular viewpoint. And the viewpoint it leans towards is “that exposures to the radio waves produced by smart meters”, the magnitude of which is not disclosed, “do not pose”, by which they mean ‘cause’, “a risk to health”, by which they mean ‘ill health’. Wow, talk about covering your bases. So, in summary, Public Health England has an opinion on smart meters, based upon an unspecified data set, which leans towards the viewpoint that they do not cause illness. Does that re-assure you? I would 'suggest' that Public Health England is being deliberately vague about the risks that people face because it knows something that you don’t. So, let’s follow their advice trail to see what other gems it produces. If you go to Public Health England’s specific health section on this subject (Smart meters: radio waves and health), the ambiguity over this issue just gets worst. So let’s look at some key quotes.
This is an extra-ordinary admission. Public Health England is not researching the safety of smart meters before they are rolled out; they are doing it as the roll-out is happening. This is an admission that the government is experimenting on the population and does not know enough to be able to state with confidence that smart meters are not detrimental to health. The question is, if the research eventually proves that smart meters are dangerous, how will the government put this right? I believe that there is already too much invested in the programme for anything in the short term to stop what is happening. If any early research does suggest dangers, the government will simply say that more research needs to be undertaken. In the long term, as Keynes once said, we are all dead. So what does it matter? Well, it matters if people want to live healthy lives that are not ended prematurely through the reckless actions of an uncontrolled and overly powerful telecommunications industry.
In other words, the government will not accept any claims from citizens that smart meters should not be installed on their property, or should be removed from their property, because of concerns about their safety.
This is plainly nonsense. Public Health England is an executive agency of the government’s Department of Health and Social Care. It is not independent of government; it is government. This is a sleight of hand by the state to fool people into believing that the advice to use smart meters is unbiased. Interestingly, Public Health England is also distancing itself from the decisions to use, what they admitted earlier, was not a fully tested technology. Why would they want to do that if they are so confident that smart meters are not harmful?
This statement says it all. Instead of their earlier statement that smart meters do not pose a risk for health, Public Health England now says that it “considers”, which means that it is not ‘sure’, that there “is no convincing evidence of harm”. Well, then how convincing does the evidence need to be and how much is needed, for Public Health England to change its opinion? Also, is this not an admission that there is already some evidence to the contrary of what Public Health England is advising?
It gets even better. Once again, we are talking about ‘convincing evidence’ but now we are told that there are guideline levels for radio wave exposure that should not be exceeded. Public Health England advises that smart meters do not pose a risk for health because there are assumptions about the level of exposure that people are likely to be subject to when using smart meters. How the guideline levels were derived is not explained but don’t worry because people using smart meters are not expected to have exposures that exceed those levels. Clearly, the implication here is that guideline levels have been set because there is believed to be a threshold, which if exceeded, is hazardous to health. That is worth bearing in mind because there is another agency that the government relies upon to convince the public not to be concerned. It is called the International Commission On Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICONIRP) and it states on its website that “The Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields (up to 300 GHz) published in 1998 are now being revised and replaced step by step, as explained in the Statement on EMF guidelines (2009).” In other words, the existing guidelines about the levels of safe exposure to the frequencies that smart meters operate within are to be updated. And I have never known scientists to relax guidelines. They never say we were mistaken; people should drink more alcohol, eat more sugar and saturated fats and do less exercise. Guidelines tend to become more stringent and I expect this is what will happen in the case of radio wave exposure. If nothing else, it is an admission that the current guidelines are out of date and insufficient for underpinning government advice on the safety of smart meters. After the safety section on the Public Health England web page, there is another section called ‘Timeframes for installation’, where it says that “All homes and small business sites will be offered smart meters by their energy company between now and the end of 2020”. This is very important wording because the government knows that you do not need to accept the ‘offer’ to have a smart meter installed. They know this but they are not explicitly making it clear to the public. Once again, they are being deceitful and this can be confirmed by visiting Citizens Advice (Refusing a smart meter). The Public Health England web page then directs the reader to another site called Smart Energy GB, which also has a section about the safety of smart meters, near the lower part of its list of FAQs. And this is what Smart Energy GB says about health concerns: “The smart meters used in Britain have undergone one of the most rigorous safety testing regimes in the world and exceed every UK and EU safety standard.” Now, this is clearly false because we saw earlier where Public Health England admitted that it “has been carrying out an extensive programme of research to assess exposures from the devices as the technology is rolled out.” So, if Public Health England says that research into the health effects of smart meters is taking place as the roll out takes place, then how can Smart Energy GB say that smart meters have “undergone one of the most rigorous safety testing regimes in the world”? Both statements cannot be correct. The roll-out of smart meters in the UK is being run by the government’s business partner Capita, which was granted, by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, now called the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), a 12 year licence, with an estimated value of £175M, to run a company called the Data Communications Company (DCC), through which it would manage the data and communications service providers. A company called CGI IT UK Ltd, signed an 8 year contract with DCC, worth an estimated £75M, to develop and operate the smart meter messaging system. Arqiva Ltd signed a 15 year contract with DCC, worth an estimated £625M, to provide the smart meter communications network in the north of England and Scotland. Telefonica UK Ltd signed two 15 year contracts with DCC, worth an estimated £1.5B, as the service provider for the Midlands, East Anglia, Wales and the south of England. Overseeing all of this is a company called Gemserv Ltd, which signed a 4 year contract, worth an estimated £10M, to administer the Smart Energy Code. What I find odd about these contracts is that they are all for different timescales. DCC only has a 12 year licence and yet it is able to enter into contracts with Arqiva and Telefonica that run for 15 years. The government’s industrial partner is somehow subcontracting over timescales that go beyond its licence to operate. How is that possible? Whatever the answer is to that question, you can see that there is a lot of money in the smart meter business. The combined value of the above contracts is £2.385B. If you have not yet had a smart meter installed, then you can refuse to accept the ‘offer’ that is coming your way. If you do already have a smart meter but are concerned about the safety of these devices, you can ask for them to be switched to ‘dumb mode’, so that they do not transmit but I am not sure that I would trust the energy companies not to switch the smart meter back on again. Though, having said that, you can purchase an RF meter to detect whether the smart meter is still pulsing. The other option is to have the smart meter removed and replaced with an analogue meter. This is not a straight forward process but it can be done. Please see the article from This is Money. For an understanding of what is going on with the roll-out of smart meters, please watch the video below called The Smart Agenda by Mike Mitcham, who set up the website Stop Smart Meters, which is now part of the International EMF Alliance. There is a small issue with the sound at the beginning of the video but it only lasts a short time. The content is very informative and highly recommended. In Mike Mitcham’s presentation at Alternative View 5 (AV5), he references another video that is well worth seeing called Take Back Your Power. There is a very dark side to the history behind smart meter technology. Barrie Trower is a scientist who worked for the government in this area for many years and what he says is shocking. He is referenced in a BBC article about TETRA (TErrestrial Trunked RAdio), which is the communications system used by the emergency services and other government agencies. He is also referenced on the TETRAWATCH website, which raises concerns about the TETRA Airwave system. He therefore has credibility and when he calls the government 'liars', then given what I have already presented here on smart meters, I am inclined to believe him.
0 Comments
I remember the MMR controversy in the UK when, back in 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield published a research paper in The Lancet that suggested a possible link between the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and the diagnosis of autism. The problem seemed to be related to having all three vaccines administered together though a single injection. Significantly, the paper did not claim to have proven a causal relationship between MMR and autism but at the subsequent press conference, Dr Wakefield advised caution and suggested that use of the MMR vaccine should be suspended until more research could be done.
Due to the publicity surrounding the news story, parents became reluctant to let their children have the MMR vaccine. However, parents were not against the idea of vaccination itself; they just wanted a safer alternative and therefore pushed for three separate injections over a longer period of time. This seemed to me to be a good solution but I remember being shocked when the government refused to make this option available. Their argument was that parents would be less likely to bring their children to a clinic for all three injections, meaning that the children would be more at risk. This was a completely nonsensical argument because the reason why parents sought three separate injections was precisely because of their concern for their children and not because they were feckless and unlikely to go through with the treatment. As a result, MMR vaccination rates dropped and Dr Andrew Wakefield was blamed for the increased infection rates that followed. After this, Dr Andrew Wakefield was discredited and struck off as a doctor by the British General Medical Council (GMC) but the controversy over the MMR vaccine has continued. Since then, Andrew Wakefield has been involved in the production of a film about autism called Vaxxed. It is a film that proves that Andrew Wakefield’s research should have been taken more seriously because following the original controversy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, was tasked with conducting its own research into the matter. Years later, when the CDC published its results, it declared to have scientifically proved that there was no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. That would have been the end of the matter had a CDC insider and whistle blower not come forward to claim that the CDC had committed fraud by deliberately ‘adjusting’ their results to take away a link that had been discovered. You would think then, that the mainstream media would be all over this story because the consequence for the health of children is massive. Yet, few people know that this even happened. The minimal coverage that the main stream media gave to the Vaxxed film was primarily focussed on re-asserting that Andrew Wakefield cannot be trusted, that medical scientists know best and that anyone who doubts them must be stupid. When you watch the film there are certain things that stand out, which in my case, convinces me that we are not being told the truth. They are as follows:
The sky rocketing rates of autism suggest that there is an urgent need to get to the bottom of what is happening. Science is not always black and white because there are assumptions that underlie medical research and its subsequent findings and conclusions. These need to be heavily scrutinised and if it means challenging established views, then that is what is necessary to resolve the issue. It is also worth noting that there is a great deal of money in the pharmaceutical industry and we cannot rule out the possibility that financial interests may have impacted outcomes in a way that is detrimental to the public interest. The Vaxxed film below is a version that includes Spanish subtitles (the video that I originally used included French subtitles but has since been taken down, which may be an indication of how controversial this subject is) but it is still worth watching and you can then come to your own conclusions on this subject. At the end of the film, there are 4 recommendations and you have to ask yourself why none of them have been implemented. |
AuthorA citizen journalist. Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|