thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (06/28/89)
A few days ago I posted to this group a concern about radiation and the Mac. I was concerned about the Mac because I have one. I was also concerned because I have a couple of kids who use the machine a lot. My wife had read part of the article "Annals of Radiation III- Video-Display Terminals" by Paul Brodeur in the June 26th issue of the New Yorker and she was wondering. So I asked on the net what anyone knew. I received a number of interesting replys. I also received one very dumb one but that was ok because he had a degree in Nuclear Physics, he was an expert...Televisions were more dangerous than VDTs and there were no studys documenting any dangers in VDTs and the government is providing guidelines and adequate research to protect us. According to the New Yorker article this is not true. I'll hilite a few lines from the New Yorker article and suggest that anyone interested or concerned get the article and read it themselves. -VDTs and computer screens give of very-low-frequency radio-frequency (VLF) -" ...The fact that scientists in the United States have yet to carry out a single experiment to determine either the short-term or the long-term biological effects of the pulsed ELF and VLF fields emanating from video-display terminals gives some indication of the research vacuum that exists" -"Other scientists have expressed reservationsabout reports suggesting that the pulsed electromagnetic fields given off by computer terminals can cuase birth defects and miscarriages. The fact remains, however, that the Kaiser Permanente study has shed disturbing light on the dozen or more unexplained clusters of birth defects and miscarriages that have occurred in North America during the past decade.So have the Swedish experiments showing that VDT pulsed magnetic fields can cause malformations in the fetuses of mice, and the Spanish studies showing that similar fields can adversely affect the development of chick embryos. Most unsettling of all, perhaps, is the fact that the pulsed VLF and ELf magnetic fields found routinely within radius of about two feet from the average CRT computer terminal can be as strong as, or even stronger than, the sixty-hertz magnetic fields found inside tha homes in which Wertheimer and Savitz dicovered children to be dying unduly often of cancer" -"The fact that more than 20 epidemiological investigation already suggest that exposure to alternating-current magnetic fields from power lines and other sources is carcinogenic in human beings, together with the fact that pulsed elctromagnetic fields such as those given off by computer terminals are known to be more biologically potent than non-pulsed fields, makes it imperative that these experiments be undertqken as soon as possible" -"In 1976, there were fewer than a million VDT workstations in the United States; today, there are more than thirty million...Thus, if the magnetic fields given off by computer terminals should prove to cause cancer or otherwise be harmful to health, an immense and continually growing segment of the nation's population will have been placed at risk" -"As for what to do about computer terminals, I.B.M. and several other companies have provided an answer- albeit a somewhat selective one- by marketing in Scaninavia terminals shielded against VLF magnetic-field emissions, in order to comply with Sweden's 1988 guideline specifying that VLF emissions not exceed the equivalent of one-half a milligauss at a distance of 20 inches. Although I.B.M has not introduced this model in the United States, a Norwegian firm is now marketing a line of VLF-sheilded display terminals in this country" [Guess who has been opposing regulations on VDTs in this country for the last 15 years?] -"Meanwhile, the defacto policy that power lines, electric blankets, and video-display terminals be considered innocent until proved guilty should be rejected out of hand by sensible people everywhere. To do otherwise is to accept a situation in which millions of human beings continue to be test animals in a long-term biological experiment whose consequence remains unknown" [Remember the atomic soldiers of the pacific, the one's we had salute atomic bomb drops in the 50's from small islands in the Pacific?] A QUESTION FOR APPLE COMPUTER- we know you read this discussion group What about the Mac? Where does it stand? Have you published VLF and ELF testing of the machine? Where are the results we'd like to see them? AND FOR ANYONE RESPONDING TO THIS POSTING! DO NOT RESPOND UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN THE NEW YORKER. THANKS --THOM GILLESPIE WHO NOW SITS AT LEAST 28 INCHES FROM HIS MAC