Today on the show we welcome Cece Doucette. Cece is the director of Education Services of wireless education at wirelesseducation.org. She works with schools, communities, municipalities and legislatures to address wireless radiation and public health. Today we’re going to get into the nuts and bolts of how Cece makes change happen.
In this episode you will hear:
- Harmful effects of wireless technology
- Rapid neurological issues
- Removing wireless in schools
- 5G Technology
- Legislative ruling on wireless technology
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Watch
Transcript
R Blank 0:00
Hello, everyone, I’m R blank. Welcome to another episode of the healthier tech Podcast, the podcast about creating a healthier relationship with modern technology. Today, I’m really pleased to welcome Cecilia Doucet to the show. Cecilia, who goes by CC is the Director of Education Services of wireless education at wireless education.org. There she works with schools, communities, municipalities and legislatures to address wireless radiation and public health.
Cece Doucette 0:28
So I would educate everybody around me first, and we have so many great tools to do that today that we didn’t have. Even eight years ago when I fell down the rabbit hole.
R Blank 0:39
CeCe has been featured on genius of wellness, Boston, 25 News, PBS, oh Dwyers EMF warriors, and then the film’s generation zapped and Wi Fi refugees. Today we’re going to get into the nuts and bolts of how CC makes change happened. Real change in EMF safety regulations at the local level, with lessons to help guide and inspire others around the country. Before we begin a brief word, this podcast is brought to you by my company shield your body where it is our mission to help make technology safer for you and your loved ones to enjoy. Inspired by the life’s work of my father, Dr. Martin blanc one of the world’s leading EMF scientists I founded shield your body in 2012. We provide a ton of great and free resources for you to learn all about EMF radiation, like articles, ebooks, webinars and videos. And we also have a world class catalog of laboratory tested EMF and 5g protection products from our phone pouch and laptop pad all the way up to our bed canopy. All of our products are laboratory tested and include a lifetime warranty, learn more about our products and why we have hundreds of 1000s of satisfied customers around the world at shield your body.com that shield your body all one word.com or click the link in the show notes and use promo code pod to save 15% On your first order with free shipping throughout North America, the UK and Europe. Welcome CZ, to the healthier tech podcast. Thank you so much for coming
Cece Doucette 2:00
on. Thank you are it’s a pleasure to be with you here today.
R Blank 2:04
So as a just as a starting point. And we’ll get into into into some interesting topics here in a second. But as a starting point, can you can you tell us a little bit about you know what, what it is you do and and how you got into this area?
Cece Doucette 2:18
Sure. I’m actually a technical and professional writer by trade. But when my children were in schools, we kept hearing about the 21st century classroom and how they were going to need all this new equipment to succeed in the world. And our school budgets had been cut to the bone year after year. And we of course didn’t have that kind of funding to invest in all new technology. So as parents, we jumped in and started doing fundraising. And I was helping to run our Local Education Foundation at that time. And I led seven campaigns to get technology into our schools, including wireless infrastructure, iPads, Chromebooks, smart boards, minis, and all this other equipment that we were being told was a really good thing. And then one night at Book Group, a girlfriend of mine, who’s an electrical engineer, had been reading and Louise Gittleman book called zapped. And she was starting to piece together that the radio frequency radiation emissions that are posed from all of our wireless devices, and all of our infrastructure could be biologically harmful. So that was my entry point. And, you know, that night I was at boat group, so I just kind of made a mental note of it. And then not long after that something crossed my desk at work that was inferring the same day. And I thought, wow, if there’s anything to this, I need to know, because I spent seven years or eight years bringing this technology into my children’s schools. So I started looking and you know, if you do a cursory search is Wi Fi safe, you will find things that pop up and say, oh, yeah, you know, there’s no harm, you know, you have to have heat to have harm. And the FCC limits are well within this heat limit. So but I kept researching and I didn’t have to look very far and I was astounded to find literally 1000s of peer reviewed published studies all over the world, linking this radio frequency radiation emission from all of our wonderful gadgets, to child and adult cancers, autism, Alzheimer’s coming on it earlier and earlier ages and a whole host of neurological issues and in the short term, I learned that so many symptoms people are experiencing may very well be because we’re leaving this radiation pulsing at us all the time. And my daughter had had in high school migraines, you know what kid is getting a migraine, right and nosebleeds and other common MICROWAVE SICKNESS symptoms are now you know, the headaches, the nosebleeds, nausea, dizziness, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. And we now have advanced scientific studies that show that it biologically changes the gray matter of the brain, it changes the white matter in the brain. And it causes the blood brain barrier to be permeated by these constantly pulsing microwave hits to the blood brain barrier. So now, in our I know, your father was heavily involved in this kind of research too. But once you open up that blood brain barrier, you now have a venue for toxins trying to escort our body through the bloodstream to take a turn and go into the brain. And we’ve never had that before. So it can help to explain these rapidly increases, increasing rates, we have these neurological issues from the autism to the pans in the pandas in the anxiety and the depression. So I was shocked. And of course, I felt you responsible for having brought this into my kids schools. So I started speaking to our schools, and I’m passing along the scientific literature and public policy things that I was seeing, like the French National Library, took wireless out in 2008, because of the health considerations, and there were pockets in France, and Italy and Israel, that were removing wireless from the school. So I thought, wow, you know, all we have to do is, is show the evidence, and then we’ll protect the kids. But what happened was, we have a very top down education system here in the United States. And I know we do here in Massachusetts, which is where I’m from. And so I’m handing off all this information to our schools, and I got back like crickets. And I’m thinking, wow, if there was a chemical leak in the science lab at school, we would have evacuated that building and protected the students and the staff. But I didn’t even get a response. And it was the busy season in our schools for our administrators in that summer time. Granted, the kids aren’t on campus, but they’ve got to wrap up one fiscal year, get the budget set for the next fiscal year order all their supplies do their professional development training. So it was a very busy time for me to bring this up. But I kept finding more science showing it’s especially harmful to children because their central nervous system is still under development, their immune system is still under development, their DNA is still forming. And their skulls are thinner. And their brains are absorbing more radiation because they have a higher water content in their brain. So this is looking really bad all around for our kids. And it can help to explain why so many kids don’t feel well today. And we have chronic illness that’s just taking over. So I persisted. And I kept sharing the information. And I think it was when our school committee and our administrators read the legal fine print, that they realized not only is there a health risk, but there’s a legal risk to our school administrators. And so for anybody listening today who has an iPhone, I would welcome you to take it out and go into settings. And once you’re in Settings, scroll down and hit general. It’s just a little waist down. And then once you’re in general, go all the way down to the bottom. And I think second from the last you’ll see legal and regulatory and if you want to remember how to get back there later, just remember the acronym gal, like this gal on ours program taught us this. So G for general than go all the way down for the L for legal. Once you get in there three or four maybe from the top, you’ll see our F exposure, which stands for radio frequency radiation. And this fine print disclaimer has been in the legal section all along. And when we read it, it tells us a couple of really important things. One, this device was tested at a distance from the body. What they’re not telling you is that if you put that device in your bra or your shirt or your suit pocket, or you put it in your back pocket or your waistband, and that is on your body, you will be exceeding the FCC limits for public radiation exposure. And those limits by the way, were never tested for biological safety. They were only tested to see how much heat it would take from that device to raise the temperature of your skin. But unfortunately, those limits are hundreds of 1000s 1000s of times too high, we are seeing biological effects that the non thermal non ionizing level that link into all those symptoms that I described earlier. And then when you go into the next paragraph about legal fine print, it also tells us to use the hands free option of a speakerphone, or a headset. And as R would tell us, you’d be better off with a hollow tube or an air tube headset, because that at least stops the radiation from transmitting on a wire all the way up to your brain.
And create some distance from the radiating device of your cell phone or your tablet or whatever you’re using. So they tell us right there in that legal fine print, to keep a distance. But who would ever know it’s there, and we’ve not been taught to use this technology safely. So when we continued this conversation with my schools, once they read that legal fine print, I think they had an oh moment because we of course, have given all the students in the staff, these devices with no safety training. So I didn’t realize that at the time, but my public school district here in Ashland, Massachusetts, became the first in the United States to hang a little sign in all of our classrooms that says, best practices for mobile devices, turn off the device when not in use. And that will turn off all the radiating antennas, turn Wi Fi on only when needed. But currently, all of our classrooms have these access points for the routers up on the ceiling, that just pulse this radiation all day, every day, unless we know to turn it off. And then as the fine print told us always place the mobile device on a solid surface. And you know, when I was a kid, my mom used to say don’t stand near the TV, it’s bad for your eyes. Well, that was a different form of electromagnetic field. It wasn’t this digital pulse that’s constantly coming. So mom wasn’t wrong distance is definitely our friend. But the first line of defense is to remove all of this wireless radiation exposure in simply go back to using a hard wired Ethernet cable connection. And who would know, for 20 or $30, you can buy a little adapter for most wireless devices. So for example, for the iPhone, all you need to do is buy a Lightning adapter, hook it up on one end to the Ethernet cable, and on the other end of the Ethernet cable, plug it into your router, and then just go into your settings and turn off all those antennas. Because by now, a typical cell phone has a cell antenna, a data antenna, a Bluetooth antenna, a Wi Fi antenna, a locator antenna, a hotspot antenna, and now anybody who didn’t know any better and upgraded to a 5g phone that has another array of antennas in there. So our message, of course, is not no technology, because we love it, and we live by it. But it’s high time we be given the facts to have a choice to make safe technology choices. So that’s how I first got involved in this was through high schools.
R Blank 13:24
So that and I think I’d like to, to put a link to that, that yellow sign in the show notes. So everyone, all the listeners can see what we’re talking about. And that story, you know, obviously part of what I what I find interesting about it is you came into this basically by pulling up like a complete 180. Right, you were tech advocate. And then you spearheaded a first in the nation, set of safety regulations at your children’s school. Right. And
Cece Doucette 13:57
so when we had the first day back to school, and I was working for the schools, then as our grant coordinator, so the day before the kids come back to school, all the faculty get their required training the mandated reporter and the anti bullying and physical restraint. And then they put up a few slides around what we had done with best practices for mobile devices. So they showed our little sign. And then they moved on to the next segment. And I went, well wait a minute, they didn’t actually tell the staff that this is two way microwave radiation. That’s extraordinarily harmful. And that’s because this would become a contentious issue in our community. And we had when we were talking about this with school committee, we had PhD physicists, we had a veterinarian, we had technologists, we had engineers who would get up to the microphone and say, Well, you know, our kids really deserve to have the best that we can afford to give them and wouldn’t it be a step backwards to get rid of the wireless You know, our school administrators and school committee members, they’re not doctors or scientists. And so it became very difficult to have this conversation because the industry has been so effective at their disinformation campaigns, spinning up all the benefits. But without fessing up to the harm, yeah, so it was a tough issue. And so once I realized that they hung up this sign, but they didn’t tell the teachers that this is two way microwave radiation that is extraordinarily harmful. I made an appointment with our school superintendent, and he was new to being a superintendent, but he was a good guy and a good administrator. And he had been our high school principal previous to that. And so I said, you know, Mr. Adams, I’m so grateful that we have this sign, because I’ve seen in other communities across the country in the world where they’re so deep in bed with industry, that other schools don’t even want to hear it. And they don’t do anything to protect anybody. So I said, First, an expression of gratitude. Second, we didn’t tell the teachers that this is radiation. And he just kind of held up his hands. And he said, Cece, all I can do is what school committee told me to do. And that’s to hang that sign. And I said, Okay, how about we tell the parents that this is to a microwave radiation. And he said, you know, he lives in a different town. And he said, I did go back and check with my children’s schools, and they don’t allow wireless in the classroom, unless a child has an individualized education plan that requires their own tablet to access their education. So that at least told me that he understood that there was some harm there. So I still held out some hope.
But he said, You know, I’ve taken it as far as I can, and our schools. So then I started scratching my head going, well, how can we tell the parents because if the parents knew at least they could protect the children’s sleep. And that’s such a critical component for allowing their bodies to do cell growth and proper cell repair and regeneration during the sleeping hours. So I thought, okay, what can I do now. And when I served as the president of our local education foundation, I worked in tandem with our State Senator Karen spilka, who is a wonderful public servant. So I made an appointment with Senator spilka. And I met her for her local coffee hours, and I brought the science and I brought Ashland little sign. And I brought a detection meter. And so I taught her what I was learning. And then I measured her cell phone. And her district directors laptop, and both devices went right off the charts with radiation. And they’re looking at me like, really? And I said, Yeah, and nobody knows, I said, Is there something from where you said, that we could do to just simply give the public the right to know, just like we do with alcohol, and eventually we did with tobacco, and gambling and pornography and drugs, whatever people want to choose as adults, that’s their choice, but it’s our moral obligation to protect our collected children. So Senator spilka, put me in touch with a lawyer in her office. And he and I crafted a very simple bill back in 2014, that would simply bring the right minds together at the state level to take a look at this and then decide what to do. So in January of 2015, my bill was introduced, the house gave it the nod, and then it was assigned to the Joint Committee on Public Health. And I honestly didn’t really have any clue as to how the legislative process works in Massachusetts. So I was looking for a lot of coaching along the way. And some would pull me aside and say, yeah, good luck. bills in Massachusetts almost never go anywhere, the first time they’re introduced. And then others would pull me aside and said, hey, you know, that bill went in under your name, if it’s not directly sponsored by a legislator, good luck to you. It’s like, okay, but I’ve done everything I could think to do. So I’ll just pursue this. And so are, as you know, on this crazy journey, the scientists and the doctors and the public health experts in the folks who have become so ill or lost loved ones, from radiation, you know, terminal illnesses. They are all wanting to help and it’s such a gracious community. And so, being a technical writer, when our bill was coming up for public hearing, I knew we’d only get three minutes to testify, and that’s not certainly long enough to cover this issue. So being a tech writer, I can created a very simple template. And I included the addresses of everybody on the public health committee, as well as governor, Governor and folks I had connected with at the state level with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. I figured let’s all learned together. So I included everybody on this template. And I sent it off to the experts, as well as the citizenry who knew about this issue. And I said, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d be so grateful if you would send in a statement of support. So we got those statements in and we started building the public record. And lo and behold, our bill was actually reported out favorably that very first session by the Joint Committee on Public Health, but then it was given over to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. And they sent it to study at the end of that session in 2016. So I went back to the attorney and Senator Spelke, his office and Aaron karthi, said, come back in the fall, and we’ll take a look at this again. So I come knockin again in the fall. And he said, Oh, yeah, we just met with requests out of her district. And he comes back and he looks at his notes. He says, oh, yeah, Senator spilka is going to bring this bill back. And she’s going to bring it back under her own name. And this time, she’s going to do it as a resolve. And I said, What’s the resolve? And he said, Well, when you introduce a bill, you can introduce it as an act, which is what my bill was initially. And an act would change the law. Or you can introduce it as a resolve, as in, we resolved that we’re going to take a look at this issue and figure out what to do with it. And then once you do that, then it goes away, and you continue on with whatever the plan is. So I thought, okay, you know, strategically, she would certainly know better than me what needs to happen to move this forward inside the system through which changes affected in the Massachusetts State House. So we did what we do. And we got a lot of testimony sent in again, and a number of us went in and testified in person. And the bill was reported out favorably again. And then it went to another committee, where it didn’t get sent to study, but it did time out before anything happened. So then last session, now we’re in 2017 2018. I go back and say, Will Senator spilka, introduce my bill again? And they said, Oh, gosh, no, she’s now been elected senate president, and she does not introduce legislation anymore. And I was like, Oh, no. So I start scrambling, and I go over to my state representative who I had voted for, because he’s a very bright man, very compassionate, and does a lot of work with children. And so I said, Representative Jack Lewis, would you please consider introducing my bill. And so he did. And it got assigned not to public health, but to the Joint Committee on telecommunications, utilities and energy. And I went, Oh, because they had had a bill for years to give the public the right to choose not to have a utility smart meter mounted on their home. Because these smart meters to measure our usage of gas, Water and Electric, are mounted on our homes. And they don’t just take a reading once a month to give you your billing, they pulse, this constant toxic microwave radiation 24/7, literally 1000s of hits a day. And if people don’t know any better, they might put a child next to the wall where that’s mounted. They might put an elderly person, they might put a pregnant woman, or anybody else with an existing health condition. And those are four classes of citizens who are especially vulnerable to microwave radiation. And it’s not good for you and I either, so I was dismayed that my bill went over to the telecom committee, because they hadn’t done anything in I think six or eight years that they had a bill.
But we do what we do. And we got information and expert testimony in and for the first time last session, that telecom utilities and Energy Committee reported the Smart Meter bill out favorably, but they didn’t report my bill out favorably. So I called up the chair, Representative Tom golden. And I said, you know, I’m so grateful the Smart Meter Bill advanced, but I’d like to know what determined that my bill would not advance and he said, Well, I reached out and spoke to the chairman of the Consumer Protection Committee, which had another bill that would form a commission here in Massachusetts to investigate. And that bill was actually written by the consumer protection committee after our senator Julian Cyr had written a couple of bills to investigate this issue, too. So I said, I don’t care if my bill advanced or not, I just want us to get this issue figured out. So I was so grateful that Senator Sears Bill advanced. And then with the pandemic, and everybody’s so busy, it was huge that these two bills advanced out of committee, and that they didn’t just shove everything aside to deal with a pandemic. But once again, by the end of the session, they had not enacted these bills. So I was pretty ready to start walking away from the legislative work, because if we’ve been doing this for eight or 10 years now in Massachusetts, what are we doing? I had the same conversation with a state representative in New Hampshire, whose constituent had almost died because of the radiation and her doctors and the specialists couldn’t figure it out. And it wasn’t until somebody connected her symptoms with radiofrequency radiation sickness, or it’s also called the electromagnetic field illnesses or MICROWAVE SICKNESS. So this woman, Deb Hodgdon, up in New Hampshire, introduced me to this representative Patrick Brahmi. And he was an engineer. And when he heard that she got sick from wireless, he was like, well, this doesn’t add up to what we’ve been trained in, because our engineers and our physicists have been taught that you have to have heat from a device to have harm, and that our FCC guidelines are safe. So when he learned about this, from his constituent who was an accountant, you know, a very respectable professional, she wasn’t some crazy off the street. He went and started doing the deep dive, and he started reading the scientific literature. And he has this major wow moment, like, wow, what are we doing? So Deb Hodgdon introduced me to Representative Patrick Brahmi. They got in his car in New Hampshire, they drove down to my home in Massachusetts, and we spent the afternoon helping him to connect the dots. And then I didn’t realize that at the time, but he went back and beefed up his bill. And he put, I think it was eight very pointed questions in the demand answers. And he started with, why do Lloyds of London Swiss, our re am best and the world’s leading insurers already recognize this as a leading risk? And they have put exclusions in their policies that they will not cover damages from radio frequency electromagnetic fields. So that’s a big red flag. And then he said, Why does that fine print tell us to keep these devices away from us? Why does the FCC only account for the heat impact? Why does the FCC ignore 1000s of scientific studies showing biological harm at the non thermal non ionizing low level radio frequency, the emission levels? And then he said and why are they ignoring Why isn’t anybody looking out for us for this cumulative effect? Because if you look around your home today, we have multiple cell phones we have perhaps tablets and laptops. We have printers, we have mice, we have keyboards, we have ring, we have Roku, we have, you know, Bluetooth, we have Chromecast, we have all of these devices constantly pulsing this toxic microwave radiation. And people wonder why they’re chronically fatigued or why they have headaches or why they can’t sleep through the night anymore. So I was so grateful that Representative Patrick Abramoff introduced this bill in the winter of 2019. And then the bill came up for public hearing first, before the House Committee on Science, Technology and energy. And rep. Romney invited me to come up and testify. So I drove up from Massachusetts, and there were a number of citizens in New Hampshire who testified as well because they were sick, or their children were sick. Or we had a biologist who talked about the whole other piece of this, which is the environmental impact and all of our disappearing pollinators. And birds dropping dead out of the sky when they were testing 5g in The Hague in the Netherlands and birds dropping dead on cruise ships because of the antennas on top of the ships. So we had a lot of good testimony and then we also had other experts join us. Frank Clegg is the retired president of Microsoft, Canada. And our I know he did a lot of work with your father up in Canada. To the honorable Dr. Martin blank, may he rest in peace.
And they had worked together on this a lot in Canada. So I introduced Frank Clegg to Representative Patrick Brahmi. And when Mr. Clegg was in the technology industry, he was the president of Microsoft Canada. And he knew enough while he was raising his family, never to have wireless in his own home. And when his kids were clamoring for the latest and greatest and gadgets, he would not give his kids smartphones. But when he retired, he wanted to really understand this better. So he sought out a dozen of the world’s leading experts, and learn the truth behind wireless and came back and said, We are not protected here in North America. The FCC, guidelines for public radiation exposure are not safe, and nor are Canada’s safety code, six standards. So it was wonderful that he came and testified. And then Dr. Paul Hill Rue from McGill University, is a professor in their medical school. And he also does the science and he has created cancer in his lab, using radio frequency radiation. So we all testified. And the House Committee reported the bill out favorably, and then it went over to the Senate side where it was assigned to the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. So that was great. First, it went through the technology and things and now it’s going through the Health Committee. And the bill was co sponsored by Senator Tom Sherman, who is a medical doctor. And he is seeing the fallout of radio frequency radiation from wireless in his medical practice, as are far too many medical doctors who have no idea to even connect it to the wireless radiation. So I was asked to go up and testify again in New Hampshire for the Senate. They voted it out favorably. And then it went under the governor’s pin and Governor Sununu signed the bill into law that they had to form a commission and investigate the health and environmental impact of emerging 5g technology. And once they formed their commission, and it was a really good commission, they had top level professionals who had the credentials and the experience to actually assess the peer reviewed scientific literature. So they had two medical doctors, I think they had three engineers, physicist, who were all legislators and then they also had the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office was there, the state level Medical Society was there. And of course, we want to have everybody at the table. So they had the national level, industry representative, who is Beth and Cooley from CTIA, the wireless industry. And at the state level, they had David Dubay, who is the state level wireless guy. So they had all and the business association was represented. So they had all these experts at the table. And they brought in leading independent scientists and doctors to inform them of what the science and the risk is. And then the industry brought in this Dr. Swanson, who they pay to come in and say there’s no harm and deny everything that shows harm. Now, Dr. Swanson, who told the commission that he would be providing scientific evidence that this is safe, and at the end of the day, he never submitted anything. Neither did Beth and Cooley or de do Bay. And in fact, it was even worse than that. In Keene, New Hampshire, they had become informed of what this radio frequency radiation was. And so they put a moratorium on any new wireless technology applications for 5g small cells or
upgraded 4g systems that the industry was pushing to put in. So they said, you know, it would behoove us to just wait until this New Hampshire commission report comes out and they voted on it and they decided they would wait until that report comes out. Well, my understanding is that during these hearings that were happening at the statehouse, Beth Ann Cooley got the ear of the mayor of Keene, New Hampshire, and he made his city council do a revote, and they revolted eight to seven to reverse that moratorium on the 5g small cells. So that was just for most of us, we would consider it unconscionable. And then secondly, the week before that report was published, de Du vai went and took out big space in the local media, saying that oh, 5g is the latest and greatest and don’t believe what anybody says about any kind of harm. So they’re, they’re a wildly bunch. But in New Hampshire, the way they work it is, if the majority of the people on a commission can can agree than they do a majority report, if there are still people who are in the minority, they are given the opportunity to write up a minority report. So when we look at the New Hampshire report, I love the way they structured it repor Brahmi wanted to put the executive summary and their 15 recommendations to migrate towards safe technology, put all that right up front. And then that’s followed by another 10 pages of the industry report in the month out Minority Report, which in itself is kind of a gift, because they just spelled out all this disinformation that they give to our towns and to our legislators. So you’ve got their playbook right there too. And in the very last meeting of the commission, Senator Denise Riccardi countered a lot of the disinformation that they put in that Minority Report. And another component of this report that I love is that Deb Hodgdon took minutes for every one of the commission meetings. And so we have all those statements of fact, in the minutes, where are where Senator Riccardi countered all of the industry spin that’s in that Minority Report. So this is a really solid report. The appendices contain the science. And they tried to get the Federal Communications Commission to come talk them through why we have the radiation exposure levels that we have. And the FCC defers to the Food and Drug Administration, who told them they don’t have to change their public radiation exposure limits. So the commission invited the FDA and the FCC to come sit with them, and talk us through how we justify what looked to be toxic levels of radio frequency emissions. And they wouldn’t come our federal agencies would not engage with a state level commission. And they just continue to point to the disinformation that’s posted on the FDA and the FCC and other federal agency websites. So another really good piece of evidence that they included in their final report is that Harvard published a free online report out of their Law School Center for Ethics that’s called captured agency, how the Federal Communications Commission is dominated by the industries that presumably regulates and in captured agency. The bottom line is, is that the folks who have been running our federal agencies of late are all from the industry, and they are expert now at deploying the Big Tobacco playbook. All you need to do is suppress the credible evidence of harm, do your own studies under conditions that would appear to show no harm, commandeer the airwaves and the media, which they’ve done? Their parent organizations either outright own our media channels now, or their advertising revenue is so potent, that there are embargoes where they cannot do true journalism investigation into this issue, and then just spin up your sexy product. So the public wants all the benefits, but have no inclination to even question whether there could be biological effects. So that captured Agency report is referenced in the New Hampshire report.
R Blank 38:58
So you’ve covered Yeah, you’ve covered a few a few things here. So first, we started with the discussion on on your local schools and then covered your initiatives in the Massachusetts State Legislature. And then in the New Hampshire state legislature. So if you could, let’s go one by one, just what is what is the current status of what happened in your local school district and what’s what’s next?
Cece Doucette 39:25
In my local school district, I began to educate at the state level with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on numerous occasions, myself and others, presented the scientific fact and I had been told by our state level department of education that they’re waiting for higher authorities to tell them what to do. I had partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health back in 2016, and we wrote an EMF or electromagnetic field factsheet that was based on science And they told me it would be out in three months, it has now been five years, and that information has yet to be given to the public. So I said to the interim Commissioner of the Department of Education, Dr. Jeffrey Wilson, I said, so who does the Department of Public Health Report to end he said, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, so I called a meeting with their office, but by then I knew not to go it alone. So I brought my district director from Senator spilka. ‘s office, I brought with me a research analyst from the Joint Committee on Public Health, I brought with me my contact at the Department of Education plus a half a dozen citizens from around the state, one of whom has multiple residencies, including in France, where they’ve already passed a national law that you cannot have wireless in preschools are nursery schools or kindergartens. And at the upper grades, the default is all wireless is off. And you only turn it on what you need when you need. So I thought we had a great meeting. And this was in the summer of 2019. And then nothing, nothing from the people in Massachusetts who are responsible for public health. And so we still have our bills in Massachusetts, and our schools are still waiting for higher authorities to tell them what to do. And we do have a bill in Massachusetts that would require the Department of Education to assess this and protect our kids and our staff. So we move like molasses in Massachusetts, and I wasn’t going to come back and do this work. Because if we could get a bill passed into law in New Hampshire, in seven months, what are we doing in Massachusetts over eight to 10 years. But I also learned that in Massachusetts, all their legislators are volunteers, they receive a $100 stipend, and that has not been increased since like the 1890s or something. So, you know, my, my big sister always told me follow the dollar. And she’s right. So I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors in Massachusetts. I do know that we have some very, very good public servants. But not all of our public servants are public leaders.
R Blank 42:24
Right? So then what what is the status of, of your efforts in New Hampshire,
Cece Doucette 42:29
in New Hampshire, that that report was submitted to the legislature and now this upcoming legislative session that begins in January, Representative Brahmi. And Senator Riccardi are introducing the next bill that would begin to enact some of the 15 recommendations that they put in their report. And I think the first piece they’re going to go after is to say, you know, let’s, let’s put our fingers in the dike and at least stop what’s going on. So for any new wireless community level infrastructure, like small cells, or big macro cell towers, you cannot put them any closer than 500 meters or 1640 feet, because in the scientific literature, within that 500 meter mark, we see high levels of cancers and neurological issues and sleep problems. So it starts to go down at that 500 meter mark. So I think that’s the first piece of legislation they’re going to be introducing. And then who knows, maybe, you know, one of their recommendations is that our state level authorities should be proactively taking out radio and TV ads and educating the public about how to use their own devices more safely. So who knows, maybe they can do that without even having to go through legislation. So we remain hopeful. It is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. And I did go back this session in Massachusetts, because Senator Julian Cyr, reintroduce the bills that would form a commission. And so we’ve been chaperoning the commission bill through as well as the Smart Meter bill and the Wi Fi in schools bill. And just this past month, on November 4, they advanced the commission bill out of the Consumer Protection Committee. So now we’re working on helping to educate the Senate Committee on Ways and Means on what this issue is, and I had a wonderful two and a half hour conversation with one of the staff members there. And now I’m looking to get in with the chairperson, Senator Rodricks if we can. So we’ll keep doing what we do. But I would encourage everybody not to wait for public policy to catch up to the science. I think that the real power lies at the local level. And if I could share lessons learned if I had Do over, I would not in all good faith have gone right up to our school in town administrators, what I would have done is gone laterally and educated all of the parents that I know all of the grandparents and grandparents and retirees are wonderful because they recognize the Big Tobacco playbook when they see it. And they have more discretionary time. And they want to give back to their communities. So they have more time than busy working parents have. So I would educate everybody around me first. And we have so many great tools to do that today that we didn’t have even eight years ago, and I fell down the rabbit hole. Our I know that the work that your dad did is greatly featured in the award winning documentary called generations zapped, and generations that was included in the United Nations Film Festival, get one best documentary at the DC Independent Film Festival and the women’s Independent Film Festival. And now it’s become part of our library collections. So if you have a library card, and your library has subscribed to the streaming services of canopy that’s canopy with a K, or hoopla, you can just watch generations app for free. So have a watch party with your loved ones. Or if you don’t have a library card, you can just download it at generation generations app.com For just a few dollars.
R Blank 46:33
Yeah. And it’s also on Amazon. Prime Video.
Cece Doucette 46:36
Very cool. Yeah. So yeah, learn and then be courageous, because this is a very difficult conversation to have. But we have so much to gain with a little bit of time to talk to people about this. So once you get a good group of people informed, then start talking at the local level to your schools who are going to look at you like deer in the headlights, because the industry already penetrated at the state level with their 21st century classroom. And they gave them sweetheart deals to start buying all this technology. And now the industry is very good at marketing. They know once you have a child as a consumer, you basically get them for life. So their goal has to be has been to get a one to one device in the hands of all of our children.
R Blank 47:29
There was something something else you mentioned at the start where you you when you were approaching your local school, when you weren’t just talking to them about the health risks, but also about the legal risks. Yes. Is that one of the one of what what something? Is that something you would advise other concerned parents? And absolutely,
Cece Doucette 47:53
absolutely, because, you know, most of the people who serve on our school boards are just good, doobies, right, they just want to help. And they get scared to death by the legal stuff. But they need to know that they are legally responsible for radiating the children. And we have had a wonderful project that launched in 2021. And it’s by our friends, Patty and Doug wood at grassroots environmental education, which is a nonprofit, Patti has won an award from the Environmental Protection Agency for the work that she’s done with her team to protect children on other environmental toxins. And so patty and her husband, Doug, launched a new project that they call tech safe schools. So if you go out to tech, safe schools.org, they have created a couple of really great resources. One is a letter to your school administrators to teach them what this issue is. And the other is a legal letter, where they engage lawyers from around the country who specialize in the harms from radio frequency radiation or wireless technology. And so, you know, none of it is threatening. It’s just information. So take this information to your schools once you’ve got a group of educated people who want to see change happen because again, my superintendent, even when our own government put out a $30 million study from the National Toxicology Program, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. It is the gold standard for toxics research in the world. When the National Toxicology Program put out their $30 million study, over 20 years of investigation with an unprecedented three day peer review with radiation experts from all around the world that concluded clear evidence of cancerous tumors and DNA damage. I gave that to our school superintendent and he said yeah, CeCe but you’re just one voice. So do not go it alone. alone. But once you have a group of well informed, determined parents, you can move mountains, and we can help you. And tech Safe Schools can help you. And I’ve also helped to establish Massachusetts for safe technology, and our website is that am a, then the number for safe tech.org. That’s M A for safe tech.org. And we’ve got links to all these resources out there. And I do a monthly meeting and anybody from anywhere you don’t have to be from Massachusetts is welcome to join us. And on our monthly meeting, we just compare notes, you know, what are you guys doing in your community? What worked? What didn’t work? What could we do better, who’s doing what at the national level, who’s doing what at the international level, and we just get together once a month. And it’s so empowering. And we have people from all over the country join us we’ve had legislators from other states join us. So everybody’s welcome. And if you go out to Massachusetts for safe technology, and just click on the Sign Up or the Join Us button, I try not to pollute people’s inboxes, I usually just send out communicate when we’ve got a meeting coming up. Or if there’s an action step that you could take maybe five minutes, send in a letter to the legislature or contact the federal delegates when the folks who are working on the federal level, TF something that we can help with because man, they are working their backs off to tee these things that but nothing’s going to happen if at the grassroots, we don’t lend our voice to it. So if they’re kind enough to make it easy, and show us what to do, then we have a choice to help move the needle towards safe technology. And our I know you’ve done a lot of work around the other issue with technology and that excessive screen time. And there are a couple of really great resources. There’s a
psychologist here in Massachusetts by the name of Dr. Katherine Steiner Adair, and I read her book cover to cover, it’s called the big the big disconnect. And it talks about every stage of childhood development from the wee little ones up through high school, and the impact that excessive screentime is having on our kids, they should not be given a device as a pacifier while mom and dad get stuff done. We know that has to happen sometimes as parents, but if you do that, make sure you’ve turned off all the antennas. And they’re only using the applications that are downloaded on the app. But Catherine Steiner Adair taught us that the you know, when a child’s brain is developing, they need to be sitting out under the rhododendron going into deeper and deeper and deeper levels of creative imaginative play. That’s what causes the synapses to grow a proper brain and to interact with other children and to interact in their environment and to interact with loving caring adults, where you’re learning everything about what it is to be human through not only the verbal, but all the nonverbal cues, and to learn compassion and to learn empathy. And kids who are stuck in front of screens all day are not properly developing those human skills. They’re doing all right on the other side of the brain where science and technology are. But as far as developing proper humans, being in front of a screen is not the way to go. Dr. Victoria Dunkley has a book called reset your child’s brain, and she has a psychiatrist who’s developed a four week protocol to teach everybody around your child what is happening, and then do that the first week, and then the next three weeks, you remove the child from the technology environment. And as scary as that sounds, by the end of that four week protocol, the whole family is so grateful. They’ve all kind of taken a step back and gotten their lives back. And their children are these happy, well functioning children again, instead of these anxious, depressed, you know, scared in competent, socially ungrazed children. So it’s hard, you know, my daughter was working as a lifeguard at a place nearby and my neighbor who hired her came up and said, You know, I have to tell you, I love having your daughter work for me. She makes eye contact, she talks to other adults. And I said really? Is that so unusual? And she said today Yes, it is. Wow. And it just broke my heart so yeah, we have to address the excessive screen time and we also have to address the radio frequency damage that’s happening day and night so it’s not rocket science to is hardwired technology. Plug in your technology come up with a family plan, the American Academy of Pediatrics has a template out there to start the conversation and to come up with a family plan. And the kids are watching, we’ve got to set the example. So I hope some of that is helpful.
R Blank 55:16
No, that’s the FCC. Thank, thank you so much for coming on the healthier tech podcast, I know, you know, just talking to people, people contact us at sci fi all the time. And, you know, a lot of people lose, lose hope. And especially when you’re just looking at the federal level where virtually nothing is happening. Except it is so easy to lose hope. And
Cece Doucette 55:40
it is but you know, humanity, maybe we’re just one big classroom where we have to learn all the bits about being human. So if we look back, historically, we’ve always had this awful element, be it enslaving the Chinese for the gold mines, and then to build the railways, be it enslaving the African Americans. You know, we’ve done this the the coal mines, we did it everywhere. It’s just wearing a new face today. And it’s the wireless industry. But there are many people who work in the wireless industry that are really good people. So we don’t want to, you know, cast everybody out. But we do need to bring public policy up to speed.
R Blank 56:24
And I really appreciate you coming on to, to show how that can be accomplished at the local level. And yeah, and
Cece Doucette 56:31
one other, if, if I could just offer one other piece of advice, because wireless radiation is invisible, it’s really important to be able to show people. So I would recommend that people get a radio frequency detection meter, so that they can demonstrate what this radiation is. And once you do that, then you show them the fine print in their devices. And they can now put two and two together and go, Wow, what are we doing here. And I went after a grant through a local fund in my community. And it took me three tries of convincing different boards. But ultimately, we put a radio frequency detection meter on loan in our public library that the public can take out and go around and measure and see what their exposures are, do the gap analysis and then decide what they want to do to get to safe technology. And that was a pilot program. And now in Newton, Massachusetts, a doctor and I put another one on loan there in Pittsfield Massachusetts, where a whole neighborhood became ill when a cell tower went up on top of them. There’s one in the Pittsfield library, and then I’ve heard from others across the country that they’re doing the same. So help to make the invisible visible. And Dr. Mann to have us up in Canada is starting to do what our government should be doing. And that’s mapping out what these exposure levels are. So if anybody wants to participate in Dr. Magda have assists study with meter, there’s a certain one that they recommend, and it’s the safe and sound Pro to meter. And if you agree to participate in her study, they’re offering a discount on that. So you can go to the global emf.com I think it is global emf.com, or reach out to me at Massachusetts for safe technology, and I can put you in touch. So lots of good things happening. We have hope every day, if we can plant one seed every day, then it’s a good day. If we get a big win, then we pop the champagne. But there’s always hope and don’t give it up because we have so many solutions. But it takes education at the grassroots level. So I can be brought in to educate your town boards to meet with your legislators, to meet with your friends, I’ll join you to co host a screening of generations that are watching it in advance. And then we can do a zoom meeting with your friends. So anything I can do to help I did walk away from my tech writing career to do this. So if you’re in a position to give me a speaker’s honorarium, I would be very grateful. But if not, I’ll still come and help so let us know what we can do but do not give up hope because there is always a solution out there.
R Blank 59:15
Well, thank you so much CeCe for for taking the time today. And for all the work that you’ve done over the last eight years. And it sounds like you’re geared up to keep keep plowing forward on so thank you very much.
Cece Doucette 59:27
And right back out to our I understand that you and your father and your cousin all collaborated on his book. What was the name of his book, overpowered, overpowered so if anybody really wants to read a solid book of evidence on what this issue is, thank you, and thank you for everything you continue to do today to help us shield our bodies and acknowledge that the first line of defense is to remove the exposures. But if you have to be out and about and you’re electrically sensitive, we’re so very grateful that you have vetted products that are not just some shyster selling or something, but products that people who are electrically sensitive, are finding great comfort in using. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Well, have a great day, everybody, let us know if we can help further.
R Blank 1:00:22
Well, so as always, I’m joined by my co host, Stephanie, Hey, Stephanie, what do you think of that interview?
Stephanie Warner 1:00:28
Hey, I, wow, I was a really excellent story, I really enjoyed listening to her journey and hearing all about her activism, as well as her positive attitude, even in the face of, you know, doing this for years and advocating for, you know, first to be advocating to have tech in the schools and advocating to remove that tech from the schools or have safer use of it into, you know, local and state legislation. And, you know, she’s still continuing to advocate highly. And, you know, I appreciate that she kind of left the the interview with a note of hope, and, you know, keep going, because it is, it’s a it’s a long process, but also her advice to, you know, for each individual listening, if you want to become active start with the people, you know, I thought that was really, really important message. Yeah, I think our Yeah, the
R Blank 1:01:37
way she’s, I think she talked about that go laterally, get support from other people don’t go it alone. I think that that that is, I think that’s really important. And that’s something you know, I think we’ve been emphasizing it si B, quite a quite a bit, which is, you can’t, you can’t affect this change on your own. And you do need support, and you do need to learn how to communicate these issues to get that support. And I think CC is clearly a very good communicator on these issues. And she knows a lot of the key talking points she has, basically an encyclopedic knowledge of of the situation. And I thought I thought it was, you know, especially after a couple of the other interviews this season, especially, I’m thinking the one with with Matt Robeson, where, where we see how hard it is to get things done. At the national level, you know, in contrast to the interview with Alex about what’s going on in the EU, you know, I thought it was it was really helpful and insightful to see how to get this stuff done at the local level, and that it is getting done at the local level.
Stephanie Warner 1:02:48
Yeah, and it almost feels like and thank you for bringing up that point, that’s really, really great point, and almost feels like it is easier to get traction on the local level. And when I say that, I mean, I mean, specifically looking at your zoning boards, and your, you know, your right at your schools, your zoning boards, the town, you know, the town offices and kind of working there. So first working with your, like, core group, once you can, you know, get your, your argument, I want arguments, probably not the best word to use, but, you know, once you get used to speaking about the topic, bringing it up, you know, on that local level. Yeah,
R Blank 1:03:35
and one other thing, I thought that was really insightful, and I hadn’t even really thought of before in any of my talks on this stuff, but focusing on the legal risks, I thought was really interesting, a really interesting kind of perspective, you know, because, especially when, when, when you’re when, when you’re in this niche, and in you, you are, you know, the health risks, and you know, what science says about the health risks, you find it a very concerning, and B you think that that makes the point on its own. But for a lot of people, you know, there there are really I mean, the the issue she brought up about, you know, Swiss sorry, and Lloyds of London and at best or am best not being able to get not not being willing to issue coverage for wireless companies for future health risks. You know, that that speaks real volumes and when you know, especially at the local level people really can be guided by risk mitigation.
Stephanie Warner 1:04:36
Yeah, I mean, I would not lead with that if you’re talking to your school don’t don’t don’t start there. Maybe start with some you know, educational materials the yellow sign you know, go there, but I really I definitely did take a note when she said cuz it just I don’t know something about the way she said it and the thought of, you know, it’s your job not to radiate our children. job not to end. I don’t know that when she said it, I was just like, wow, that’s a really powerful line in and of itself. But again, I wouldn’t start there. But it is true. Not just for educators but also for parents.
R Blank 1:05:15
Yeah, well, CeCe is clearly a force to be reckoned with. And it’s amazing to see the change that that she’s been able to affect in in Massachusetts in New Hampshire and in her own children’s school, so I’m really glad that she was able to make the time to come on the show today. Yeah,
Stephanie Warner 1:05:30
I really appreciated hearing her journey and I left with a lot of really great actionable information and places to look for more resources.
R Blank 1:05:46
Well, that does it for today’s episode. Remember, if you like this show, and want to hear more, please subscribe the healthier tech podcast available on all major podcasting platforms. And if you have a moment please also leave a review reviews are really critical to help more people find this podcast and learn about the important and undercover topics that we discuss. Also, you can learn more and sign up for our mailing list to get notified when we have new interviews, webinars, ebooks and sales at shield your body calm. You can also just click that link in the show notes. While you’re there at shield your body calm you can check out our world class catalog of laboratory tested EMF and 5g protection products. Don’t forget to use promo code pod to save 15% On your first order from shield your body comm with free shipping throughout North America and Europe. Until next time, I’m R blank. And I want to thank you so much for tuning into the healthier tech podcast. Always remember to shield your body
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
