Subject: Cell phones banned at Canadian gas pumps (Kelley)
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 002257 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
I am forwarding Libby's news item (below) as a matter of interest
because we have seen similar reports before, here on EMF-L.
But! I hope that information of this type (when circulated on EMF-L) is
not taken as "science" just because we circulate it.... By any of our
readers or our critics....
The "legitimate" press and others are having a gay-old-time these days
BASHING the internet and ANY information that is circulated on the
internet.... From time to time, I get "vibrations" that EMF-L is one
of their favorite targets....
No doubt it is easy for those inclined to do so ... to find plenty of
examples which justify that "internet" bashing. The news story below may
be based upon some such examples. Nevertheless, I believe that anyone
who would seriously study the EMF-L archives would have to conclude
"objectively" that EMF-L strives genuinely to be scientific and serious in
the work it is doing ... and the information we promulgate......
I don't consider that we deserve the internet bashing ... (which we may
be targeted for....).
NEVER, to my knowledge has anyone on this list (EMF_L) credited any
scientific credence to the reports about "cell phones igniting fuel
fumes at gas pumps." I certainly wouldn't and haven't!! No scientific
support of that contention has ever been offered -- to my knowledge.....
So, to that extent guru is in sympathy with the expressions of doubt about
any "real" risk, expressed below in the news story....
The thing that I find INCREDIBLE is: that so much serious credence
should arise around an entirely UNsupported (scientifically) assertion
that cell phones could ignite fuel fumes; while -- at the same time --
other assertions based on scientific evidence and judgment concerning the
effects of RF, MW and ELF upon HUMAN CELLS -- which ARE scientifically
documented and published -- (by the Vienna meeting scientific group for
one example, or even the recent NIEHS study report) go entirely ignored by
the "legitimate" press!!!
So, we get articles like the one below which "bashes" internet
information. While, at the sametime, we hear or see virtually nothing
about the (now many) examples of scientific evidence that human cells are
being "biologically affected" by EMF at (apparently) all frequency bands
in the electromagnetic spectrum! And the epidemiological scientific
evidence consistently confirms findings that these bioeffects can have
adverse health consequences!!!....
Such scientific findings are much more serious than the risk of "spark"
damage that is being (in my opinion, justifiably) ridiculed below.....
So, which story do we see in the "press" -- the story about cell phones
being a risk at fuel pumps??? That story, of course, sets up the
"bashing" of the internet....
Where are the stories about EMF bioeffects? The press could not "blame"
the internet for that information. It is to be found in abundance
elsewhere -- including publication in scientific journals (which are often
cited on EMF-L).... [But which probably are not read by "the press."]
Predictably -- on the other hand -- the stories about biological effects
of EMF are being ignored.... I say "predictably," though, in point of
fact, I cannot explain it -- unless the "press" is afraid of the powerful
vested interests that are involved....
For such one-sided reporting, the "legitimate" press deserves to be
denigrated and chastised much, much more ... than does "the internet."
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at:
EMF-L archives can be found at:
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................
.........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST?????............
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 19:57:27 -0700
From: Libby Kelley
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Cell phones banned at Canadian gas pumps
South China Morning Post
Friday, October 1, 1999
NORTH AMERICA TODAY
Mobile phone ban sparks row
MURRAY CAMPBELL in Toronto
Canada's major petroleum companies have bowed to
the power of rumour and banned drivers from using
mobile phones while filling their tanks.
The companies say there is no basis to the concern that
the phones' electromagnetic waves could produce
sparks powerful enough to ignite flammable vapours but
they have grown tired of trying to debunk the myth.
They said customers would no longer be allowed to use
mobile phones near petrol pumps.
"The probability is very low but the consequences are
relatively high," said a spokesman for Imperial Oil Ltd.
The company's 2,500 Esso outlets will have warning
stickers on their pumps by the end of the year.
However, critics of the oil companies said the firms had
succumbed to "junk science".
"I would say there is a very slight possibility that a
mobile phone would spark a fire," said Ron Johnston,
head of electrical engineering at the University of
Calgary.
A spokesman for the Canadian Wireless
Telecommunications Association said people were
being misled by false accounts on the Internet about
mobile phones igniting explosions.
Reports of accidents began circulating in 1993, most of
them alluding to an incident in Indonesia that has never
been confirmed.
More recently, there were media reports of a driver
being burned in Trail, British Columbia, but the driver
was never identified.
Nevertheless, the fire chiefs' association in British
Columbia related the apparent explosion in its
newsletter and, by August, a fuel-safety advisory group
in Ontario had issued a caution about mobile-phone use.
The decision by the oil companies infuriated the Globe
and Mail. "Gasoline vendors are telling us that if enough
people tell the same lie long enough, their businesses will
respond by validating it," the newspaper said.
A columnist at the National Post added: "Paper cuts can
theoretically lead to death but, as yet, paper carries no
health warning."
Published in the South China Morning Post. Copyright ©
1999. All rights reserved.
Libby Kelley
Executive Director
Council on Wireless Technology Impacts
aka ~ Ad Hoc Association of Parties Concerned about
the FCC's Radiofrequency Radiation Health and Safety Rules
____________________________
Website: http://www.ccwti.org
Phone - 415-892-1973
Fax - 415-892-3108
Address:
936-B Seventh Street, PMB 206
Novato, California 94945
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com