Pall has a bachelor’s in physics from Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and genetics from Caltech, and is uniquely qualified for this type of research. For the past 18 years, he’s been scouring the medical literature, integrating and drawing parallels between work done by others to answer this pressing question. Pall explains:
Now [I have found] 26 [papers] … They all show that EMFs work by activating what are called voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs). These are channels in the outer membrane of the cell, the plasma membrane that surrounds all our cells. When they’re activated, they open up and allow calcium to flow into the cell. It’s the excess calcium in the cell which is responsible for most if not all of the [biological effects].”
When you expose cells to EMFs, there’s increased intercellular calcium. You also get increases in calcium signaling, which is important as well, in terms of explaining the damage EMFs cause. For the past 25 years, the industry has claimed that non-ionizing radiation is harmless and that the only radiation worth worrying about is ionizing radiation. Pall’s research unequivocally proves that this assumption is false.
“It’s been very clear, going back all the way to 1971 and even before that, that this wasn’t true. But we didn’t know what the mechanism was. Now, we do. I think it’s very important, because the industry’s been trying to hoodwink everybody for decades. Now we know how it works. One of the other things that’s very important about this is that there is a wide variety of different health impacts that have been reported. Now we can explain how [these problems arise].”
How EMFs Damage Your Health
When your VGCCs are exposed to EMFs, they open up, allowing abnormally large volumes of calcium ions into the cells – about 1 million ions per second per channel. Each VGCC has a voltage sensor, a structure that detects electrical changes across the plasma membrane and opens the channel. EMFs work through the voltage sensor to activate the channel and radically increase intracellular levels into dangerous ranges.
The highest density of VGCCs are found in your nervous system and, indeed, studies dating back to the 1950s and ’60s show the nervous system is the organ that is most sensitive to EMFs.
Some of these studies show massive changes in the structure of neurons, including cell death and synaptic dysfunction. When the VGCCs are activated in the brain they release neurotransmitters and neuroendocrine hormones. Hence, consequences of chronic EMF exposure to the brain include the following, which Pall details in a 2016 paper:5
In animals exposed to EMFs, there are massive, cumulative effects in the brain. Genetic polymorphism studies also show that elevated VGCC activity in certain parts of the brain produces a variety of neuropsychiatric effects.
Cardiac Effects
Your heart is also very sensitive to EMFs, particularly the pacemaker cells of your heart, as they have the highest density of VGCCs. As a consequence of this, we find that EMFs tend to trigger the following conditions. If you have any of these conditions (or any of the ones discussed above and below), you need to know that EMF exposure is a major contributing factor and take immediate and aggressive steps to remediate your exposure.
- Cardiac arrhythmias (associated with sudden cardiac death)
- Atrial fibrillation / atrial flutter
- Premature atrial contractions (PACs) and premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), also known as heart palpitations
- Tachycardia (fast heartbeat) and brachycardia (slow heartbeat)
Reproductive Effects
A third area with densely populated VGCCs is the reproductive system, particularly the male testes. A consequence here is impaired or reduced fertility. There is evidence showing EMFs can cause both male and female infertility, but male infertility has been more studied. Pall describes a classic reproduction experiment published 19 years ago by Ioannis Magras and Thomas Xenosin Greece:
“They took young pairs of mice, one male and female. They put them in a little cage on the ground outside in an antenna park … The [radiation] levels at the ground were well within our current safety guidelines … They put them in two different locations, one with a higher level of exposure and one with a lower level of exposure.
What they found was that at the higher-level exposure, each pair produced one litter that was approximately normal sized, then a second litter that was clearly down in numbers and then complete infertility – not a single mouse born …
At lower level exposure, it was basically the same story, except it took twice as long. They produced four litters with decreasing numbers, and then complete infertility. We have now, in humans in many countries around the world, decreased male sperm count – down by over 50 percent in Western countries, and about half of that amount in other countries around the world. 6,7
there’s not enough energy in microwave radiation to cause direct damage to covalent bonds in DNA…. It’s the biological amplification resulting in excessive oxidative stress that causes the damage. Interestingly, even most of the damage caused by ionizing radiation is actually due to secondary free radical formation that breaks DNA. It’s not directly from the energy within the radiation. Pall explains:
“That was published by Arthur Compton. He got the Nobel Prize for it in 1927. The way in which ionizing radiation works, it basically gets molecules and atoms and knocks electrons out, and then you get pairs of free radicals generated. That’s called Compton scattering.
There is amplification from ionizing radiation, but it’s only at one level. One energetic photon can produce a chain of free radicals. You’ve got three levels of amplification with the microwave frequency EMFs. The amount of damage you get based on those studies is truly extraordinary. Of course, Adlkofer and [Pilger] Rudinger were severely attacked by the industry.”