“Wifi is altering people’s biology”

Dr. Ceferino Maestú Unturbe is one of the most relevant scientists studying the impact of artificial electromagnetic fields (CEM) and electromagnetic pollution on human health.

In addition to directing the Bioelectromagnetism Laboratory of the Biomedical Technology Center of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), he is one of the two hundred signatory scientists of the international manifesto against EMF.

They ask governments for sensitivity, caution and restraint in the face of exponential exposure to electromagnetic pollution to which citizens are increasingly subjected in this highly technical society.

In his opinion, all the biological effects that science has managed to recognize make it imperative to legislate to protect the health of the citizensomething that the General Telecommunications Law has refused to include, which only favors the development of these networks.

Ceferino Maestú, expert in electromagnetic pollution

The information circulating on the internet and other media about the risks of electromagnetic pollution could not be more contradictory. In many cases it is clearly oriented by the telecommunications industry, and that is why the independent work of Ceferino Maestú is so remarkable, one of the very few specialists in biomedical engineering and bioelectromagnetism What is in Spain?

He has published multiple scientific studies on the subject and promotes the change of Spanish and European legislation to reduce people’s exposure to this pollution, as they have already done in Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

—What is the objective of the international manifesto that you subscribe to?
—It is an appeal to the authorities and public institutions and the European Parliament to adopt more restrictive measures against the electromagnetic field.

And it is that the appeals made by other institutions —such as the European Environment Agency and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe— have not been heard or transferred to any regulations.

Parliament recommended in 2008 and 2009 that it be limited to 0.1 microwatts/cm2, but in Spain the current rate for the 900 Mz frequency is 400 microwatts/cm2 (4,000 times more).

We believe that the studies that have been carried out allow us to affirm that mobile telephony can be used with exposure levels much lower than the current ones without exposing the population to all this radiation.

What would be the appropriate rate?
—Some ask up to ten or a hundred times less. We don’t yet know what the ideal rate would be, but the increasing average exposure will determine the speed at which problems will appear.

Many studies have already begun to find physiological dysfunctions at levels below current standards. That is why caution is called for and to protect the population by reducing exposure levels.

“How long can the human immune system last?”
—We don’t know, but we don’t have the capacity to adapt because it would take centuries, if this were possible.

If we continue as we are, we’ll exhaust the immune system’s stamina and it will be forced to respond in an acute fashion. The electrohypersensitive system is responding before the others, but this does not mean that the others will not.

Those who are against believe that, if what we say were true, more people would be reacting to the fields, but this does not exclude that they appear more hypersensitive as the rate of exposure increases.

Electrohypersensitivity and central sensitivity syndrome

—According to you, there are already 13 million Europeans (3-5% of the population) electrohypersensitive to a greater or lesser extent…
“So it’s not a small problem. Those who are not electrohypersensitive (EHS) today can become so, because no one has been born with this problem.

Primary care physicians recognize that they receive a large part of the population with specific symptoms of electrohypersensitivity, although these coincide with other pathologies, such as fibromyalgia, so we should think that they have the same origin.

They are symptoms such as fatigue, short-term memory loss, lack of concentration, itchy eyes, tinnitus, muscle stiffness, lack of libido, nervousness, thyroid disorders…

On the other hand, public bodies are reluctant to consider it. Medicine needs a new concept to approach this issue, because the traditional one consists of diagnosing these hypersensitivities separately.

What would that approach be based on?
—Many researchers believe that there is a central sensitivity syndrome.

It is an alteration in the physiological activity at the brain level that modifies the modulation of the signals that we receive and that gives rise to new pathologies that probably have the same origin: electrohypersensitivity, fibromyalgia, multiple chemical syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome and possibly others.

Those affected by alterations of the Central Nervous System are many. One in four people (counting food intolerances) has some type of environmental intolerance and 60% are women.

These changes occur at the molecular and tissue level, which we know little about. We only know the processes at the central level.

– What has produced this situation?
—Among external agents, everyday chemicals that are hypersensitizing our system, certain ingredients or foods to which the body begins to respond, and environmental electromagnetic fields.

There is no pure profile of the person who is hypersensitive to the electromagnetic field, but generally whoever begins to be sensitive to EMF can be sensitive to chemicals and also to food. And vice versa.

—Can this problem be treated from a medical point of view?
—In medicine we are in a defenseless position. There are no biological markers for EHS and only the clinic allows us to identify it.

We do not have instruments or drugs to block these body responses or automatic detection systems to know when we are exposed or if our pathology is related to it.

To heal ourselves, we can only avoid environmental triggers and reduce toxins, because this response seems to be produced by a bioaccumulation of different toxic elements: chemicals, poorly cured infectious processes, metals in the mouth, and electromagnetic fields.

One alone may not do anything, but the sum of several does.

—The WHO does not consider it proven that this is a new pathology.
—The WHO has not accepted this classification because it cannot always identify the same symptoms for the same exposure.

And this is because each organism responds differently to different exposure processes, frequencies, intensities… Some people even respond to one type of frequency and not to others. This makes epidemiological studies difficult.

But it is a serious mistake. He attributes the disease to emotionally unbalanced and obsessed people. Nothing could be further from the truth: they are people who have not chosen it, from all walks of life, some of whom are very feisty and alive.

Too many electromagnetic fields

—The radiation in the houses does not stop growing. Has the percentage of electromagnetic pollution that we have been calculated?
—In Spain, Enrique Navarro, professor at the Valencia Faculty of Physics, calculated that radiation had doubled between 1970 and 2000.

The IT’IS foundation, with support from the Swiss government, also establishes a relationship between certain pathologies and relative exposure rates. But today we don’t know how much it has grown because nobody measures it.

Our children face this radiation from conception. They are going to be exposed to levels thousands of times higher than what we have had.

—Wifi reigns everywhere: schools, bars, libraries, parks…
—Current Wi-Fi is incompatible with humans from a biological point of view.

The microwave uses the same frequency: 2.45 gigahertz, the resonance frequency of the proton in water when subjected to radiation that produces shocks that generate heating.

We are 80% water and. when we use wifi, we are producing a general heating in our system. If communication mechanisms were sought with other frequencies and intermodulation systems, which do not correspond to the biological activity of the human being, it would be more interesting.

—Is Spain interested in researching electromagnetic fields?
—Only 10 or 15 researchers and 3 or 4 research groups are dealing with this.

In Europe there are more people and they are doing all kinds of research, because there are many variables involved: frequency, exposure rate… In this way we avoid generalizing results, because what happens with some parameters does not have to happen with others.

—What would you say to those who say that there are not enough studies on this?
—Yes there are: about 20,000, counting the epidemiological ones.

In the 1950s researchers called for control over industrial development to check biological compatibility, in the 1960s there was talk of Radio Wave Sickness and in 1990 Dr. Olle Johansson established a relationship and got Sweden to recognize EHS.

But industry is way ahead of research.