Magnetic fields possibly linked to childhood leukemia: Dutch health council

DutchNews, April 18, 2018

Children living in the vicinity of overhead power lines may have a greater chance of contracting leukemia, a report by the national health council said on Wednesday. 

One case every two years could possibly be linked to the effects of the magnetic fields surrounding the power lines, the council said. While a causal relation with magnetic fields has not been proven, ‘there are indications for such a relationship’, the council said. 

The report is an update of earlier research by the advisory body and was commissioned by the infrastructure ministry. Apart from cancer in children, the council will also look into the data available on cancer and diseases of the central nervous system in adults. 

Some 135 children are diagnosed with leukemia each year in the Netherlands. According to the council’s data analysis, there are indications that children who live near overhead power lines are twice as likely to fall victim to the disease. 

The council also analysed the data on other types of cancer in children and found a possible link between brain tumours and the strength of magnetic fields. However, again the higher instances could be down to coincidence, the council said. Both the distance from and the strength of magnetic fields were looked at. 

Danger zone 

Although hard and fast evidence for a link with the effects of magnetic fields is lacking and coincidence or other factors may play a role, the council says it cannot be ruled out. Current government policy is not to build homes too close to the power lines and offer compensation to people who already own a home in a presumed danger zone so they can move. 

The council now recommends an extension of the present preventative policy to include underground cables. Magnetic fields from these cables are not stopped by the soil or building materials. 

‘We already have a preventative policy in place on overhead power lines. If the government wants to be consistent it will also have to find ways of protecting people from exposure to magnetic fields from other sources of the electricity network, such as underground cables and transformer stations,’ spokesman Eert Schoten told broadcaster NOS.

Read a summary of the report, in English

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"The A in Kundalini" – Oct 23, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) – (Subjects: What is Ascension, Ascended Consciousness, Ascension on cellular level (Biology), Activate/higher Efficiency DNA (90%), Air/Electromagnetic pollution in the air, Children will be born with bigger livers for pollution protection, Children will start to have instinct (like animals), 21-12-2012, Stop Aging, Ascension of Gaia, …etc.)

Kryon Q&A

(9) Question: Dear Kryon: I've read your books (only the ones that are translated in Dutch), and I have a French friend who also reads them. She tells me that it's not healthy to live near electric wires. She says that the cactus (which normally lives in the desert or tropical countries) helps eliminate the negativity of this electricity. Is that so, and is there any particular plant that can help eliminate the negative effects of electricity?

Answer: Indeed, we've admonished you to at least make a measurement (easily done) to see if you live in a magnetic field caused by the proximity to high-voltage lines that are often strung in the air near where you live. Not all these wires are bad. Some carry only communications, and some are lower voltages. The ones that are the most dangerous to you are those that are very large and that carry the power from city to city.

It's also true that certain kinds of plants carry energy that can help shield or void magnetics. This is actually a part of what you call "radionics," which we will leave for another discussion. This is not well known to the people reading this, however, and your friend is correct. Some cacti have water in them, which changes the situation slightly. However, if you're near a very large magnetic source, we still recommend moving instead of growing a lot of cactus. Even though the cactus "knows" what you're trying to do and might help reduce the risk, unfortunately, today's technology presents a far stronger field than can be voided by this plant.

Also know that there is now scientific validation to support the danger of the effects of long-term magnetic-field exposure on both plants and animals. It's not balancing for you to remain in a magnetic field. You should instead be exposed only to the one you were born in... the one that surrounds you and the earth, and which science is now beginning to understand is needed for your health and well-being... the earth's magnetic field. To have another one around you is to stop the flow of the balance that you need and deserve.

Three Dutch firms are sourcing granite from child labour quarries

DutchNews, August 23, 2017

Granite is widely used in luxury kitchens 

Three Dutch companies which import stone from abroad have bought granite from quarries in India where child labour is used, Trouw said on Wednesday. 

Some of the workers in the quarries are also vulnerable to debt slavery because of debts owed to their employer, according to a new report by three Dutch NGOs. The  NGOs base their claims on an investigation into working conditions and export data. 

The three firms supply granite for worktops for kitchen suppliers, window sills for the building industry and stone tiles for gardens, floors and bathrooms. All three say they are taking action to stop the abuse. 

India is the largest exporter of granite in the world. The researchers interviewed 172 employees at 22 quarries in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. They found evidence of child labour at seven of the quarries and debt slavery at 19. In total, 22 western companies were found to have bought stone from a quarry using child labour. 

The paper also states that the Dutch stone importers association VNNI has withdrawn from talks within the government’s SER advisory group which was working on a covenant for the sector. The VNNI says that the process is too expensive and that the companies concerned import relatively little stone from India. 

According to the VNNI, debt slavery is also a bigger problem than child labour in the quarries. ‘The quarries are in remote areas and there is often no school nearby so parents take their children with them to the quarry,’ VNN’s treasurer Niels Ros told the paper. 

Strong public health message on UN World Toilet Day

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been leading calls for improved sanitation on World Toilet Day. Billions still suffer from a lack of proper toilets and the accompanying, heightened risk of serious illness.

Deutsche Welle, 19 Nov 2015

The United Nations says 2.4 billion people around the world don't have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate out in the open. The world's population is currently just under 7.5 billion.

The UN launched World Toilet Day (19.11.2015) with a strong public health message. Poor sanitation, it said, increases the risk of illness and malnutrition, especially for children.

The UN also said that women and girls in particular need safe, clean facilities.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that one in three women around the world had no access to safe toilets. "As a result they face disease, shame and potential violence when they seek a place to defecate."

In Ghana's Northern region, it's estimated that seven out of ten people - men, women and children - have no access to toilet facilities, neither in their home nor in public spaces.

But some people who have access to public toilets prefer the bush. "Inside the toilet it is always hot, it is better to consider the forest. Also they don't keep them clean. That's the main reason why I won't use a public toilet," one man in Tamale told DW.

DW visited a public toilet in Tamale where people pay a small gratuity. It was in a filthy condition.

"Toilets can't always be cleaned. Sometimes the caretaker will have additional work somewhere else so he has no time to keep things clean," the toilet attendant said.

Ban Ki-moon:'We have a moral
imperative to end open defecation'

An estimated 18,000 Ghanaians, including 5,000 children under the age of five, die every year from ailments related to poor sanitation.

Convention and customs?

The UN Millennium Development Goals, which are supposed to be achieved this year, call for the halving of the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

Ban said that by many accounts, this will be "the most-missed target."

In 2013, the UN launched a campaign to end defecation in the open by 2025. In sub-Sharan Africa, 36 percent of the population were not using toilets in 1990. Twenty-five years later that figure now stands at 25 percent.

In a World Toilet Day press release, the UN says open defecation is deeply rooted in poverty, but has also been linked to convention and customs in some countries and societies. It represents some of the only times other than worship where women from rigid family circumstances may meet one another.

Maxwell Suuk in Tamale contributed to this report.

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

Yahoo – AFP, 2 Nov 2014

Indian men wash in a toilet complex run by an NGO Sulabh International at
a railway station in New Delhi on April 23, 2011 (AFP file)

Children armed with whistles will soon be patrolling villages in central India to try to shame those defecating in the open, a report said Sunday.

Madhya Pradesh state government is expected soon to launch the unusual sanitation initiative, in which schoolchildren will blow their whistles loudly when they spot someone squatting in the open instead of using a toilet.

Open defecation has long been a major health and sanitation problem in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying every household should have a toilet within four years.

But a Madhya Pradesh official said many preferred to relieve themselves in the open rather than use a toilet, requiring unusual efforts to halt the practice which spreads disease.

"It is not just enough to make 'pucca' (proper) toilets to stop the practice of open defecation in rural areas," Sanjay Dubey, a divisional commissioner for Indore region, told the Press Trust of India (PTI).

"There is also a need to launch an effective social drive in such areas to check it," Dubey said.

Children in the Indore region will be educated about the need to keep their surroundings clean, before being handed the whistles and asked to roam their neighbourhoods, he told the news agency.

"This (blowing a whistle) would make that person feel shameful and would help to check this practice."

Modi has stressed the need to clean up India, which has a reputation for poor public hygiene and rudimentary sanitation.

A recent report by the UN children's fund UNICEF estimates almost 594 million -- or nearly 50 percent of India's population -- defecate in the open.

In addition to those who choose to do so, some 300 million women and girls are forced to squat in the open at night, exposing themselves to harassment and assault.

The issue was highlighted in May when two girls, aged 12 and 14, were attacked as they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Police are investigating if they were gang-raped before being lynched.

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How lead paint is poisoning Asia's children

While the global use of lead has decreased, paint sold across Asia still contains excessive levels of the toxic substance. Meanwhile, awareness of the risks and health consequences from lead exposure remains inadequate.

Deutsche Welle, 18 Sep 2014

With the almost complete phase-out of leaded petrol worldwide, attention has turned to other sources of lead exposure and its deadly effect on humans. Statistics from a 2013 New York University report on the cost of lead exposure to the economies of developing countries reveal that consumption of the damaging element has increased since 1970, despite the fact that lead petrol has been almost entirely phased out.

One way that people who, despite having no connection to industries where they might be directly exposed to lead are still consuming huge amounts of it, is through paint.

Lead is used in paint because it makes it less susceptible to cracking and increases its opacity. It is also used to intensify colors, meaning the brighter the color of the paint the higher concentrations of lead it is likely to have. Lead is also used to speed up drying times and to stop rust.

But the danger doesn't start until years after the paint has dried and begins to wear. Dust from paint flakes or the sanding of painted surfaces creates lead-filled particles that can be inhaled, and collect in people's systems.

Dr Sara Brosché from IPEN, a global organization working to eliminate toxic substances around the world, says the reasons why lead is still being used in Asia are a lack of knowledge of the dangers and a reluctance to change, "because that is how they have always done it."

An expanding middle class means more
 people will be able to afford to paint their
homes

While globally the paint industry has contracted, the opposite has occurred in Asia which is now the biggest paint market in the world. Brosché says that while low income earners typically do not live in painted homes, "with rising incomes and an emerging middle class, the number of people who can afford painted interiors and exteriors in their homes and schools has been increasing dramatically."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), just 30 countries have completely phased out the use of lead in paints, and most other places have some sort of guidelines around the substance. The "Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint" run by the WHO and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) aims to raise that figure to 70 by next year.

Meanwhile figures from the European Union and IPEN's 2014 Asia Regional Paint Report show that while countries such as the Philippines have introduced regulations, overwhelmingly paints sold in Asia still contain excessive lead levels.

Worse still, Brosché says none of the paints found to contain lead in the research had any warnings on their labels.

Despite industry making up the majority of users of high lead products in Asia, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that industrial and residential living areas are growing geographically closer together. This has been highlighted in China, with a series of cases in recent years of mass lead poisonings, with the victims living nearby to factories.

Even cookware has been shown to contain lead. Published in August of this year a study by Ashland University in the United States revealed the excessive amounts of lead that can leach out of metal used for cooking when it is heated up. Across Africa and Asia cookware and utensils made of scrap metal are commonplace, and can include parts from cars and materials used in construction.

The report's authors refer to the high numbers of people exposed to lead as a "global lead poisoning epidemic," and stress that cookware is just one of a number of factors contributing to lead exposure.

Lead's burden

Even limited contact with lead, at levels earlier regarded safe by the WHO and without any external symptoms, can cause irreversible health consequences. These can include kidney damage, high blood pressure, and an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Pregnant women with a build up of lead in their systems can pass on toxic side effects to their unborn children.

However, it is young children who are most at risk. A report from the New York-based environmental research organization the Blacksmith Institute showed that many children who were exposed to lead during their childhoods grew up to have lower IQs, and that this and other damage to the brain "is permanent and irreversible and that there is no current form of medical treatment that can reverse the brain injury caused by lead once this injury has occurred."

High levels of lead exposure can cause comas, convulsions and even death, with children who survive these conditions likely left with permanent physical and mental injury.

The WHO attributes around 600,000 new cases of intellectual disabilities in children to lead exposure every year.

In a study published in 2013 by New York University, the total cost to Asia's economy was calculated at around 700 billion USD, compared to 134.7 billion USD in Africa and 142.3 billion USD in Latin America and the Caribbean. The report's authors say East and Southeast Asia make up the bulk of this shortfall, and the "burden of lead-associated disability and economic cost is now borne by developing countries."

The cheapest public health intervention

While regulations around lead were introduced in most parts of the world in the 1970s and 80s, a 2012 UNEP and IPEN survey showed large parts of Asia continued to ignore or under-regulate the issue.

The 2014 report on the Asia lead paint elimination project states that "a few countries in Asia do regulate the allowed lead content in decorative paints," including Singapore and Sri Lanka. Other places have voluntary standards, such as Thailand whose regulation calls for paints to include less than 100 parts per million (ppm) of lead. But tests conducted by the Ecology Alert and Recovery Thailand Foundation showed that despite the alleged checks, most paints still contained levels higher than this.

Other experts say the problem is the developing world is always playing catch-up, and the infrastructure needed to test and properly regulate the use of lead across the country just doesn't exist.

Many developing countries don't have
 the infrastructure to test and regulate
the use of lead

Low public awareness is another factor stopping manufacturers from switching from lead to less dangerous additives. Johnson Ongking, vice-president of one of Indonesia's largest paint companies, Boysen Paints, agrees with this, admitting they simply didn't realize the danger. "Honestly, we just weren't that aware of the hazards of lead in paint." Since 2007 the company has phased out lead completely from its range.

Jack Weinberg, Senior Policy Advisor with IPEN is more blunt. He says there is one reason the issue hasn't yet been solved: laziness.

He dismisses the argument that using lead saves money on production costs for manufacturers, saying the savings are marginal at best.

Research from IPEN's Regional Paint Report supports this view, calling the costs involved in reformulating paints to avoid adding lead "minimal." Their research showed the majority of suppliers that had eliminated the deadly element hadn't raised the price of their paints.

Weinberg says intervention now will save costs in the long run. "Eliminating lead paint is about the cheapest public health intervention with the greatest public health benefit imaginable."

Dr Leonardo Trasande has a similiar view. The expert says that in order to avoid future complications arising from childhood lead exposure - such as continuing medical care - action must be taken now. "The only way to avoid the large economic costs related to lead exposure is primary prevention," he says.

According to IPEN the best way to get rid of lead in paint once and for all is through binding legal requirements, company-mandated action and national certification schemes in each country. Brosché is also confident. "It is absolutely possible to eliminate dangerous levels of lead in paint," she says.