Dear Editor:

In the article in the September 28th edition of The Pioneer about smart meters, Greg Alexis, BC Hydro spokesperson, stated that the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms that wireless smart meters pose no known health risks.

In May 2011, the WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer committee classified radio frequency radiation from all wireless devices, including smart meters, in a 2B class. That means the meters are possibly carcinogenic to humans. Without evidence of health risks, there would be no reason for this classification.

In a YouTube video entitled Health Canada Warns Smart Meters, Dr. David Carpenter, the University of Albanys Dean of the School of Public Health, asks, What is the evidence that smart meters are safe? There is no such evidence.

In the video Smart Meters and EMR: The Health Crisis of Our Time, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt of the Sophia Health Institute states that law reports show everybody is electrosensitive. He says the meters are 600 times above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards, sending signals of up to 190,000 pulses a day, with serious health consequences including high blood pressure, heart palpitations, Alzheimers, brain tumours and neurological symptoms.

Dr. Daniel Hirsh, Radiation Scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, states that while cellphones are used voluntarily for short periods of time with radiation to the head, smart meters give whole body radiation with cumulative exposure producing a latent effect that could produce an illness decades later.

From Mr. Hirschs calculations, smart meters expose residents to about 100 times the microwave radiation of a cellphone.

The Physicians Group of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has adopted a resolution against smart meters. They state that there are serious concerns regarding radio frequency (from 3 KHz to 300 GHz) or extremely low frequency (from 0 to 300 Hz) exposures.

In the YouTube video called The Truth About Smart Meters, Dr. Karl Maret says the non-thermal pulsed radiation of wireless smart meters breaks down DNA and causes cancer cells to develop, as well as interfering with the blood-brain barrier allowing toxins to reach the brain, causing neurodegenerative diseases and lowering melatonin.

Dr. Bill Deagle, who works in the area of electromagnetic radiation and can be seen in the YouTube video Death by Smart Meters, states that wireless smart meters can cause heart attacks and arrhythmia.

People who have had wireless smart meters installed on their homes in various places such as B.C., California and Australia say there have been ill effects including dizziness, headaches, heart palpitations and pacemaker interference. Some reported dogs whining and not wanting to sleep near the meter. There is a YouTube video of a plant dying on a wall around a smart meter.

The meters could be wired and customers should at least have a choice to not be radiated. Thousands of B.C. customers have barricaded their existing meters and are refusing installation of a smart meter.

The Stop Smart Meters BC coalition is now proceeding with a class action suit.

Beverley Sinclair, Invermere