Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy
—Tobacco executive internal memo, 1969

There really are people who feel pain, etc., related to EMF, etc., and rather than have them becoming hysterical, etc., I would quietly leave them alone.
—Former California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey in an email to Pacific Gas & Electric’s Brian Cherry seized by California authorities, 2010.

History was never my favorite subject. I preferred English, theatre, religion—subjects where the imagination seemed unrestricted by the weight of historical facts. Of course, I had heard the truism about not being able to understand the present without knowing the past. I appreciated the idea intellectually. But it wasn’t until my wife Godeliève Richard, a Swiss dancer, choreographer, and visual artist, became sick in the spring of 2010 and we came to understand, after three torturous years, that the root of her suffering was her sensitivity to radio frequency (RF) wireless radiation of the sort emitted by cell towers, cell phones, computers trying to pick up wi-fi, wi-fi-enabled routers, cordless phones, tablets, our electric meter, etc., etc., etc., that I became an avid student of history.

We began reading books, articles, websites. We watched documentaries. We spoke with activists. It took me several months to completely accept that electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) was what had derailed our lives and stolen time and energy from our now seven-year-old son. Members of our family and friends quietly confided their belief to me that this must be a mental problem. In a way, I wished they were right. How would we live? How would she survive?

Sometimes at four in the morning after another sleepless night when we were deciding whether or not to go to the emergency room, it seemed like death was a possible final outcome. Luckily, we followed a Swiss doctor’s recommendation and found a solution for our home that has allowed her to sleep well again and begin to heal; however she still can’t leave the house for more than a few hours at a time.

The author and his wife Godeliève Richard. Matthew Cavanaugh

One of my many layers of resistance to accepting that electromagnetic pollution or electrosmog was what had destroyed her health was a simple, naive faith in the regulatory powers of the US government. This radiation is literally everywhere. If it could be so dangerous, how could it be allowed on such a massive scale? But after I found the startling analogy between RF and asbestos and cigarettes laid out on more than one advocacy group site, things began to click.

The tobacco industry’s manipulation of the science and the US court system began in the 1950s. In 1981, Japanese researcher Takeshi Hirayama definitively established the link between cancer and second hand smoke. Every year that passed added to the death toll in America. Why the lag time? One reason was that the tobacco industry had hired product defense firms that specialized in one product: doubt. If you can define the parameters of a scientific study that you pay for, it turns out there is quite a good chance the scientists you have hired will reach a conclusion that supports your position. Cell phone companies have hired, literally, some of the same supporting cast used by the tobacco industry.

In May 2014, tobacco scientist Peter Valberg of product defense firm Gradient testified in Worcester, Massachusetts, to the Worcester Zoning Board of Appeals about the safety of National Grid’s smart meter pilot program. Smart meters are two-way RF transmission devices that the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities issued an order for utility companies to install on June 12, 2014. The DPU relied on Valberg’s testimony in their assessment that the radiation emitted from smart meters was safe because it is below FCC limits. A fraud complaint was filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office against the DPU in March.

It turns out our electric meter was installed in the late 90s already equipped to pulse RF radiation every couple of seconds from the meter to the street. I called our electric company and told them that radiation made my wife sick and asked that they pull in to our driveway as they drive by and read the meter in person. I was told this was not possible. I suggested that we could simply shield the meter and they could lift the shielding off to take the readings. But this, they warned, would lead to potentially more expensive “estimated readings” when their truck got back to headquarters without a reading from our meter.

Telecom Companies Hold A Legislative Trump Card
Between 1994 and 1998, telecom companies made nearly $12 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress. In 1996, they helped write the Telecommunications Act, which stipulates that “no state or local government…may regulate the placement, construction and modification of personal wireless facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the [Federal Communication Commission’s] regulations concerning such emissions.”

This provision stripped my town’s zoning board of appeals, not to mention every US individual and local and state government, of the ability to say “no” to a cell tower proposal on the basis of health concerns. The result is that although the now more than 15,000 independent studies demonstrating health risks may be mentioned during the hearing process, the tower AT&T proposed on our road had to be denied on some other grounds, like its proximity to a road designated as a scenic byway or perhaps the average of 15 percent drop in property value for those unfortunate enough to live next to it.

Luckily for us—and even better for the elderly people and children who would have been living about 150 feet from the tower—AT&T withdrew their proposal. They didn’t say why, but looking at the pattern of new cell tower placement around the US, we can surmise that this was a business decision based on their strategy of following the path of least resistance. In other words, putting a new tower on the road of a publicly known person suffering from EHS probably looked a little too costly. My wife and I make plays for a living, and one family-friendly piece, Innocenzo, tells the tale of a clown who, after visiting many doctors and healers, finally realizes that he has become electro-hypersensitive. We didn’t have to do much research.

Cell companies have become adept at hiding their antennas and AT&T wanted to stash the one designated for our road in an oversized barn silo. In Switzerland, where we tour our plays in French, there is a tower hidden in a church steeple not far from our apartment. Consequently, although Switzerland has some of the lowest RF limits in the world, Godeliève has a harder time leaving the house there than the rural road where we live in the US. Unfortunately, hiding cell towers or decorating them as trees does nothing to change health impacts.

A German study published in 2004 (Eger, et al), found that living within 400 meters of a cell tower increased the likelihood of developing cancer by 300 percent. These results are typical of the growing number of studies being done outside the US where the distinctive lack (read $0) of federal funds being spent on RF safety research seems unsurprising given the “over 400 million dollars in political contributions and lobbying [by the wireless industry],” according to lawyer Andrew Campanelli, who now specializes in preventing unwanted cell tower installation after starting his career as a telecom lawyer.