Question: That kind of answers my next question, which is what is the ideal scenario for cellular radiation in our daily lives?
Devra Davis: It depends on your life. I mean, there are people who need mobile communication, 24/7. If you're an emergency technician, if you are an EMT, if you are a physician on call, you obviously need your phone to be on all the time. But if you're not in an emergency profession, then you can, in fact, have a phone that goes automatically off, and that goes to the lowest power needed. And we think, in general, routers will be produced that do that automatically – go to the lowest power, that can automatically turn themselves off, that automatically reduce all of the notifications except for those that you deem essential. Right now, you have to turn off your notifications. It ought to be the other way around. Right now, you have to turn your phone off. It ought to be that phones automatically go to sleep. So there are simple changes that can and will be made. They will actually save greenhouse gasses because they will be using less electricity. I think that that's what's in the future.
Question: What are the impacts of cellular radiation that people don't know? Those that are most commonly unknown but need to be known?
Devra Davis: People don't really appreciate that our bodies are electric. Without electricity, our brain and our heart would not work. In fact, the definition of death is the cessation of electricity in the electrical stems. Electrical pulses in the brain characterize our being alive. And when they say you are braindead, it means there are no longer electrical pulses in the brain. So the definition of life and death is electrical and we have to recognize that has profound implications for everything else. What we know is that the amount of electrical stimulation that can be emitted by phones and other wireless devices today can disrupt cell communication. Communication between cells is what keeps us in order and under control, and if you disrupt normal cellular communication, you can have a host of effects on the development of chronic illnesses, whether heart disease or neurological disease or cancer.
Question: You're talking about the human body being cellular communication itself. Is that also true of the environment?
Devra Davis: Absolutely, every living thing, whether plant, insect, fish, bird, mammal, or humans, every living thing contains DNA, and electrical information is what keeps DNA working. Interfering with that at the very basic level can have an effect on the nucleotides that hold together our DNA and have profound effects on life itself. And we know we now have evidence that my colleagues and I in Australia have published that electromagnetic stimulation interferes with the growth of plants. We have evidence that it interferes with the ability of birds to find their way. Navigation of all animals that migrate, they follow the Earth's magnetic field. In the case of animals, we've identified a cryptochrome, also found, by the way, in plants, and this cryptochrome is critical to sensing the Earth's magnetic field and it can be interfered with by electromagnetic stimulation.
Devra Davis: What's new are the stories and there are just a few of them, I assure you, of why and how we were prevented from getting the message out more broadly. And what's new is, unfortunately, more of the victims, more of the people who paid the ultimate price of losing their lives because of the ways they used this technology. There's also more information and resources about what you can do to learn how to practice safer technology, more practical things, some of which were in the original edition, but again, now there's more and more expert groups that have signed onto the recommendations. The Austrian Medical Association is one of several medical associations internationally recommending reducing exposure. The International Commission for Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields didn't exist when I first wrote the book and they have published two landmark papers on the need to update human exposure limits and design safer technology. The World Health Organization had not said yet that cell phone radiation was a possible human carcinogen. All of that came since so we talk about the new science, which is important and we give people more practical advice about what to do.
Question: What is the best thing that someone can do personally?
Devra Davis: Look at our website and get information about how you can wire your computer instead of using Wi-Fi. I keep the phone away from my body and brain and use a speakerphone. Beware of
Question: So why are phones working with such high power and radiation?
Devra Davis: I don't know the answer to that, it would be a good question to ask the industry. I think we've always sort of assumed that more is better. And this is the case where it's not.
Question: What else can we do?
Devra Davis: As for other practical advice about what you can do right now, you can use your phone as an answering machine. You can forward your calls when you're home to a landline. You can keep a landline, which is important where you have the option to do that. You want to have the security of knowing that when the cellular goes out, which it will in big storms, that you'll have the ability to use your phone lines. Whenever you're installing electrical outlets in buildings or renovations, make sure they have an outlet for an ethernet cable because you can do that directly into your wiring for your home. Every time I advise on renovations, I always recommend installing ethernet cables. This way you can plug your computer directly into the wall.
Question: That's at home but people are out all the time. You see people in restaurants, people driving looking at their phones ...
Devra Davis: You want to avoid using your phone when driving, but if you need to use it, do not hold the phone next to your head or body and use the car speaker not the phone because as you're driving, of course, the phone goes to higher power as it goes to each new cell tower. And if you