In a couple of weeks it will be September.  September is childhood cancer awareness month.   Over the course of the upcoming month I am sure you will see many stats that are unsettling.  Stats like how only 4% of US Federal funding goes towards cancer funding for children, or how childhood cancers have risen 24% in the last 40 years.  As startling as the stats may be, September is about kids.  Kids that are sick, really sick.  For some their outlook is good.  For instance, children diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), which is the most common type of childhood cancer, have a 90% survival rate to where as children diagnosed with the cancer that Kyanna had, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), have a survival rate of almost 0%.   In fact 90% of children diagnosed with DIPG will not live another year.   In order to solve problems you have to admit there is one.  Kids getting cancer is a problem.   Once you realize that, you can either work on finding a cure or find reasons it is happening in the first place.

One of the first research papers to link childhood cancer, leukemia, to electromagnetic fields came in 1979 and dealt with powerlines and magnetic fields.  There have been many studies since then that have verified their results which were that children exposed to magnetic fields at levels of as little as 3mG had a higher rate of leukemia.  Since that time there has been more attention paid to electromagnetic fields.  As researchers explored electromagnetic radiation and how it interacted with health, more and more adverse health effects were found.  Some of the most recent studies, from the last couple of months, find links to cancer by exposure from electromagnetic radiation.  This includes studies done by the National Toxicology Program which shows a link between cell phones and brain cancer, and the Ramazzini Study that shows a dose-related increased incidence in breast cancer.  In addition, there is a Swedish study finding of higher rate of cancer in proximity to FM transmitters.   Not all studies have shown electromagnetic radiation to be harmful.  Why?  Because we want electromagnetic radiation to be safe, so we can go on enjoying all of the things that it offers.   We are not the only ones that want it to be ‘safe’.  In a 2006 research paper done on industry funding-bias, the conclusion states “you should take in account sponsorship when interpreting results”.  This ongoing discrepancy on results has led many to question the validity of the research and overall has caused confusion for the general public.   Know there is more than just a smattering of research papers that show adverse effects, there are thousands.

Kyanna didn’t defy the odds.  In fact she died less than 2 months after being diagnosed.  When she was diagnosed we asked why.  The reason that Kyanna is not here is unsettling, because the reasons are all around us.  An over-exposure to electromagnetic fields from a variety of places, and a variety of kinds is the reason that my daughter is no longer here.  I can’t stop them all, I can just mitigate them the best I can.  Sadly, by the time I put it all together it was more than 7 months after she passed away.  By then it was way too late to help Kyanna, but maybe it is in time for the rest of us.  Until more people realize that the wonders and conveniences that we have at the tips of our fingers at all times may not be as great and as safe as we thought, things like what happened to Kyanna will happen to others.  It is not a matter of if.  It is a matter of when.  Society’s exposure to electromagnetic radiation is increasing.  Since the advent of electricity, and now in its many current daily uses, we are exposed to more than a quintillion times more radiation than naturally occurs.  (Saving you a google search, a quintillion is 18 zeros and is still considered at safe levels of exposure in the US.  As a reference, our national debt is 19 trillion.  You would need to increase that 100,000 times to be at the same level.) Is it then a wonder why there is a rise in neurological disorders, auto-immune issues, or why cancer is so prevalent?  According to cancer.org, for a male your chances of developing cancer in your lifetime is 1:2 and the chance of dying from cancer is 1:4.  A female risk of developing cancer is 1:3 and their risk of dying of cancer 1:5.  At some point people will have to ask the question: Why?