Smart meters

In June of this year, 2026, we were forced to upgrade to a SMART meter, which we did not want. Prior to the SMART meter, we had a lot of squirrels with beautiful coats, very vibrant and active. Within a few weeks after SMART meter installation on our street, the squirrels started looking sick and now we have none. At my community garden, plants are growing much more slowly. Some of them do not thrive at all. This has been going on for 2 years now, and it is widespread throughout the entire garden. It's like something is holding them down, which I'm wondering may be attributed to all of the EMF pollution. My ability to sleep well has changed since the SMART meter was installed. Now I have a sleepless night or two per week. Thank you so much for asking, I am deeply concerned about the EMF pollution now totally enveloping our beautiful planet. When will all of this madness stop????

I am submitting this comment in response to HHS’s Request for Information on Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs), Radiofrequency (RF) Radiation, and Wireless Radiation Exposure. I am responding from the perspective of a patient. I am currently 75. Around 2011 I experienced tinnitus in my right ear only. I consulted an ear, nose, and throat doctor, who sent me for an MRI. He said that one sided hearing loss could be caused by a tumor. The MRI revealed that I had an acoustic neuroma. These tumors are usually benign, but if they grow, they can require invasive surgery which can result in hearing loss, facial paralysis, and more. These tumors take up to 10 years to form. I started using a cell phone around 2001. From the beginning, I believed that my tumor was caused by cell phone use. I'm right handed, its my right ear, and I held my phone up to that ear for long periods of time talking to people long distance with that phone. I was unaware of the radiation coming from cell phones. At first I had an MRI with contrast yearly for 7 years. That contrast was gadolinium which is a heavy metal. I now regret complying with that requirement because of the possible health ramifications from heavy metals. Current medical research indicates that the contrast is not required for MRIs of acoustic neuromas and my current doctor agrees. Initially, it was very frightening to have a tumor in my head and I experienced anxiety about the possibility that invasive surgery might be required. When my tumor was diagnosed, the medical literature did not show a relationship between acoustic neuroma and cell phone use, but it does now. Initially, my doctor did not attribute the tumor to cell phone use. My current doctor does. Yet, the general public continues to use these phones and to give them to their children to use with little understanding of the possible health consequences. Now I often tell people about my tumor and the fact that research has proven that they are caused by cell phone radiation. The public needs to know this and our government needs to protect American citizens from this danger, especially vulnerable children. I do as much as I can to avoid exposure to radiation which is very difficult in a world where 5G is everywhere, xrays are often recommended, smart meters are forced on American citizens, etc. I was an academic librarian when I started to lose the hearing in my right ear. That loss affected my ability to hear students who asked questions at the reference desk and to hear students during my presentations to classes. I have difficulty hearing people speak when there is a great deal of background noise and this affects my relationships and ability to communicate. I must position myself with my good ear closest to the person speaking in many situations in order to hear conversation. Sometimes I stop trying to hear. Fortunately, as soon as I stopped holding the phone up to my ear, my tumor stopped growing. I have been watching and waiting for years now. My doctor believes that my tumor will not grow and I can avoid surgery. Others are not so lucky. I have seen patients at support group meetings who have experienced facial paralysis as a result of their surgery. I object to being exposed to more and more unchecked radiation in the world that we live in and believe that it is unconscionable that our government has not protected its citizens from this danger. Data centers are springing up everywhere exposing the public to more and more technology and radiation. Technology companies should have to prove that their products are safe prior to putting them on the market. Instead, citizens are injured and must prove that the technology caused their injury. How many of those children now using cell phones will have tumors like mine in 10 years or cancerous tumors as a result of cell phone radiation? Therefore, I wholeheartedly support HHS taking an active role in examining the potential health and environmental effects of wireless radiation. Questions about human health should be addressed by federal agencies with appropriate expertise in medicine, biology, epidemiology, and public health, and the experiences of individuals and families who report being affected should be considered alongside the scientific evidence. I urge HHS to carefully evaluate these experiences and the scientific evidence, identify gaps in current research, give particular attention to children and other potentially vulnerable populations, and establish appropriate federal research priorities regarding wireless radiation and public health. Thank you for providing individuals and families with an opportunity to be heard. I am very lucky that my tumor has only taken my hearing in one ear and has stopped growing. Others will continue to experience these tumors until the health of American citizens is prioritized and companies are required to prove that their products are safe before they can sell them.

To whom it may concern, Upon seeing the you tube video on this study, I thought of an area to evaluate that may pertain to public health. When living in a condo in Canyon Country, California from 2005 to 2017, the utility company began doing some type of electronic meter reading in our community at some point. During these years I was either pregnant or nursing babies most of the time. While at home in the condo, I would periodically hear a strange type of ringing in my ears at a certain frequency, as if a scan was going through the area. It is possible my experience was caused by reconnaissance scans, the WiFi used for my husbands remote architecture work on his computer, or some other unknown reason. Our family also had cell phones. I experienced SSNHL in my right ear in October of 2014 that was permanent. The doctors said, it was most likely caused by damage to the small hairs in the inner ear, and was more common in pregnant people. At the time, I believed it was from exposure to some type of virus going around, possibly in active military member circles of the United States Air Force, or defense communities of the Antelope Valley near Lancaster, California. I thought I should share this with you. Thank you for your care for the American people, and your dedicated service. It’s a true blessing to be in our country. Warm regards, Stacey Matthews

I am submitting this comment in response to HHS’s Request for Information on Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs), Radiofrequency (RF) Radiation, and Wireless Radiation Exposure. I am responding from the perspective of a concerned member of the public and as one who is negatively affected by man-made electromagnetic radiation. I personally suffer from tinnitus and severe vertigo. When I was living in a city with smart meters, cell towers, neighbors wi-fi, etc. my symptoms were becoming more severe as time went by. About 2 years, ago we moved to an acreage where the emf levels are low the great majority of the time and since we have moved here I have not had any more vertigo attacks. In my opinion, man-made electromagnetic radiation is the latest, greatest environmental pollutant and it has become ubiquitous in our present world. Many people as well as all life in the environment is negatively affected, as we have evolved to function in the natural electromagnetic environment. I support HHS taking an active role in examining the potential health and environmental effects of wireless radiation. Questions about human health should be addressed by federal agencies with appropriate expertise in medicine, biology, epidemiology, and public health, and the experiences of individuals and families who report being affected should be considered alongside the scientific evidence. I urge HHS to carefully evaluate these experiences and the scientific evidence, identify gaps in current research, give particular attention to children and other potentially vulnerable populations, and establish appropriate federal research priorities regarding wireless radiation and public health. Thank you for providing individuals and families with an opportunity to be heard.

My ears rang continuously until I learned to eliminate the EMF sources. I had two serious bouts of vertigo lasting hours. When I felt I was going to go into a “spin” I would force myself to stay awake and get out of that environment. My eyes were doing funny things even when they were closed. Once I was driving. I was not sleepy but I had to struggle to keep my eyes from closing. Myself and my dog were up several times a night and I always felt tired. We slept through the night the day the sources were identified. Brain fog all the time and I started forgetting things. I could tell when 5 G came to my area, and multiple cell towers. My symptoms became worse. As I learned to shield myself, the symptoms are not as severe. There are still two rooms in my house that I cannot sleep in and I believe it may be related to my two neighbor’s smart meters.

I have had and am still having so much sensitivity to EMF's and it has disabled me. I started working in a county office in Coconino County AZ, where we had a cell phone tower dressed up to look like a pine tree. It was at the end of the parking lot from where I sat at my desk. I did not feel the radiation while working there but believe that this is what over sensitized me, starting my condition of EMF hypersensitivity. I gradually became more and more sensitive to EMF's from 2013 onwards until I was unable to tolerate being around electricity in general. Radio frequencies, including cell phones, cell phone towers, wifi routers, blue tooth, etc all are very uncomfortable and even cause me physical pain. I was homeless for quite a while because I was unable to tolerate living in a house with even electricity, as the electric and magnetic fields from those became unbearable to me as well. (While I was living in Tucson AZ, it had become really bad as we had a cell phone tower installed at the top of our street as well as one down at the bottom of our neighborhood. And also had our house encircled with people with solar instillations which also put off a high dirty electricity filed, and then we had 5G put down our alley, smart meters on every house, and I then was unable to tolerate living there. During this time several of my older neighbors began falling more often and eventually one broke their hip and the others mild dementia became severe, the one who broke their hip passed away from complications, and then the one with mild dementia who became severe needed to live in a care facility and passed away quickly. My mom had several heart attacks after their putting in the increased radio frequency generating devices, I had neurological issues that started during that time period and we disabling, as well as several others in my neighborhood had neurological issues begin and many had heart related conditions with another on my street passing away within months of the "upgrade". I can still feel radio frequencies and I find myself turning my head and looking at them as I pass by cell /data towers, not intentionally, it is just something that happens. I eventually built a tiny house out of a shipping container as a faraday cage to be able to handle living in their new modern environment with supposed "high tech" surroundings, towers, wifi etc everywhere. And at least now I have a safe place to live that doesn't hurt my body. I also back in 2017 had developed a breast tumor and cancer in my right breast because I always had my cell phone resting in that area tucked into my breast pocket. And then I started to learn and understand how dangerous that was, and now keep it in airplane mode every night and keep it away from my body at all times as to not be irradiated. These things are not safe and they are destroying our health. We used to be afraid of the higher SAR ratings that cell phones had when they were first coming out but now they have been deemed "safe" and in doing so people give them to their little children, and keep them in their pockets, and hold them directly against their heads unaware of the dangers of radio frequencies and in doing so are creating tremendous health consequences. Oh my goodness, I almost forgot to tell you that my sister Jennifer, has had a brain tumor that she had to have operated on that grew as a result of her having her phone against her head all the time for years and that was before they became as powerful as they are currently. I hope you are able to bring more awareness and reform to this issue and bring more safety to others so that we don't end up sterilizing our next generations. And for people like myself so we can be out in public more without ending up in pain.

My husband, John, suffered a traumatic head injury several years ago. Since then he has suffered adverse reactions to Rf radiation such as migraines, dizziness , the back of his head swelling from prolonged exposure and extreme fatigue/ body aches. Wisconsin Public Service would not allow us to opt out of a smart meter even after we submitted a notarized medical letter from my husband’s medical practitioner. We asked that they take the antenna out of the smart meter to accommodate my husband’s disability. However, they refused stating we had to be on remote shutoff. WPS disconnected our electric 3 years ago. We have been disconnected since. Jennifer Christensen Merrill, WI 54452 Here is a link to the newspaper article about our story. Our story was also covered in The City Pages newspaper. https://www.thewausonian.com/p/the-christensens-are-one-of-12-wps

Our comment is related to SMART METERS and our own personal experience. We purchased a house in Lake Arrowhead CA. and the SMART METER was located just outside the window of our master bedroom. Within a few weeks my wife experienced sleepless nights, rapid heartbeat and hair loss. We were aware of EMF and 5G and decided to look at the SMART METER. I purchased an EMF meter and went outside to see what the SMART METER was putting out. I stood about two feet from the SMART METER and every 4 seconds it would "SYNC" and overload the EMF meter. According to SCE they only "SYNC" a few times an hour. We were able to "OPT OUT" of the SMART METER and went back to the old Analog meter. This fixed the problem. We now live in Big Bear CA. at our retirement home and have found we can't go to our town area because of a large 5G tower in the middle of it. My wife will get dizzy, eye twitches and loss of balance after a few minutes. I have hard wired our retirement home so there is no WIFI in the house. We do not sleep with our cell phone in the bedrooms.

I am a retired scientific researcher and strategy adviser having worked mainly in telecom R&D, industry and academia, living in Norway. Only late in my career, around 2010, I became aware of the abounding scientific research indicating health issues from cell phones and other RF-EMFs, as well as of tricks used to build a boolwark against such results. Since then, I have full time studied the scientific results and conveyed them to others, as I find the evidence overwhelming. On the way, I wrote books reviewing the science, translated books, and collected 150 selfreported descriptions of unhealth reactions experienced by electrohypersentive persons mainly from smartmeters, and from some other transmitting equipment. The stories include several in practice blind folded tests, and a wide range of so called "diffuse" acute symptoms, which vanish when away from the transmitting source. The 150 stories are included. (Publication consented.). However, listings of symptoms such as requested here and found in the 150 stories, do only register acute reactions, not long term effects from well documented impact on biosystems, e.g. DNA breaks or opening of the blood-brain-barrier. As unhealth from such effects is stochastic, multifactor and spread on a wide range of possible diagnoses, no valid conclusions can be drawn from registering acute symptoms. One must rely on huge epidemiological studies, realistic lab studies on basic mechanisms, and a precautionary approach. Therefore, as to relevant standards, the present standards from ICES/IIEEE and ICNIRP are irrelevant, as they only accept acute heat effects as proven, and set the recommended exposure maxima accordingly, only to protect against heat effects and demand presize measurements relevant for heat as causation. Such standards are unsuitable for protecting against (athermal) long term effects, and not precaucionary and have no predication value and therefore unusable for public radiation protection. Federal health agencies should in stead consider exposure standards based on experience cum science, and base standards on a precautionary approach. The best and most relevant such guideline and standard with recommended max exposure limits at present is: Belyaev I, Dean A, Eger H, Hubmann G, Jandrisovits R, Kern M, Kundi M, Moshammer H, Lercher P, Müller K, Oberfeld G, Ohnsorge P, Pelzmann P, Scheingraber C, Thill R. EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems and illnesses. Rev Environ Health. 2016 Sep 1;31(3):363-97. doi: 10.1515/reveh-2016-0011. PMID: 27454111. What would improve the assessment, disclosure, and regulation of wireless radiation exposure the most, would be to get the bodies shaping the norms have a balanced representation of industry, independent researchers and government - not only industry and/or personell accepting to work on the premises that heat only effects is all there is to protect, and neglecting all other effects, although very well proven (or even probable only). To include taking advice from the ICBE-EMF (The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields) would be such an important step in the right direction. A very efficient step to develop, test, and evaluate the effectiveness of procedures and techniques for minimizing exposure to electronic product radiation, would be to establish a lab test site and approval system based on measuring oxidative stress in cells from microwave exposure. (This can easily and cost-effectively and fast be measured by standard equipment. Ask prof. em. Martin L Pall for further advice for set up of such a lab.) As effects from RF-EMF are in part acute, in part long term and just one of several vectors, trying to list the risk picture per item is a futile exercise and disturbs real risk assessments. In stead, to Measure Human Exposure and Public Health Surveillance, MDs should start registering and reporting suspected cases of EMF-caused unhealth. Any radiation protection strategy must be based on standard environmental medicine / toxicology procedures as to already present toxic matters: i.e. based on precaution and with a low, not an extremely high, demand for proof as at present, and not demanding sigle factorial proofs. Einar Flydal, cand. polit.; Master of Telecom Strategy, retired from telecom & academia, writer and blogger Oslo, Norway

I am very grateful that HHS is giving Americans an opportunity to share our personal experiences and concerns about RF radiation and electromagnetic fields. I appreciate the willingness to listen to the public and investigate questions that may have been overlooked or insufficiently studied. I am 29 years old, and until the past few years, I had always been an exceptionally healthy, active person. I have been athletic my entire life and loved exercising, being outdoors, traveling, and challenging my body. I have also always eaten a very clean, healthy diet and have been extremely proactive about taking care of myself. I was able to live a very active and full life. I was not someone who had a history of chronic illness. That is why the change in my health has been so shocking. After I had COVID, my health changed dramatically. It felt as though my Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which had previously been dormant, suddenly "turned on." I was diagnosed with EBV a little over two years ago, and since then I have experienced debilitating chronic fatigue, brain fog, depression, anxiety, significant neck and body pain, and what I can only describe as a constantly frazzled nervous system. I went from being a very healthy and athletic young woman to struggling to work normal hours and participate in many of the things that once made me feel like myself. I do not claim that COVID caused my EBV to reactivate or that EMF caused my illness. I understand that my experience does not establish causation. However, I believe the dramatic change in someone who was previously so healthy deserves to be investigated, especially when multiple environmental factors may be involved. One thing I have personally noticed is that I seem to be sensitive to electromagnetic and wireless exposure. I have experimented with reducing my exposure in my home, and the difference has been significant enough that I feel compelled to share it. At night, I use a kill switch to turn off wireless and Bluetooth devices, including my Alexa and television. I use wired headphones instead of Bluetooth whenever possible, and I use a Faraday box over my smart meter. When I significantly reduce my wireless exposure, particularly at night, I feel noticeably better. My nervous system feels less overwhelmed and my body seems able to settle down more easily. I realize this is only my personal experience and that there may be other explanations. But I believe experiences like mine should be studied rather than dismissed. I would like to see more research into whether some people may be more sensitive to RF/EMF exposure than others, whether people with chronic illnesses may respond differently, and whether long-term, cumulative, real-world exposure is adequately represented in current research. While we are looking at environmental factors that may affect our health, I also hope we can investigate the bigger picture: highly processed foods, pesticide exposure and glyphosate, PFAS and other "forever chemicals," plastics, and the cumulative effect of being exposed to so many substances throughout our lives. I have always eaten very cleanly and taken care of my body, yet I am still exposed to environmental chemicals that are difficult or impossible to avoid. I would like to better understand what levels of these substances are actually accumulating in our bodies and what long-term, low-level exposure may mean for human health. I also hope there is continued independent research into microwave ovens, including both the radiation they emit and potential effects of prolonged proximity while they are operating. I understand that properly functioning microwave ovens are currently considered safe when they meet federal standards, but I believe it is reasonable to continue studying these questions rather than assuming everything has already been answered. I hope researchers look at cumulative exposure rather than studying every environmental factor completely in isolation. We are surrounded by wireless technology, pesticides, plastics, PFAS, food additives, and many other environmental substances daily. We need to understand what years of combined exposure may mean for human health, particularly for people who develop complex chronic illnesses. I am not asking for predetermined conclusions. I am asking for these questions to be taken seriously and investigated with rigorous, independent research. I am grateful that HHS is creating a place for people like me to share what we have experienced. The past two years have been incredibly difficult. I know what it feels like to have a healthy, active body, and I desperately want to get back to that life—to exercise, work, travel, have a family, and feel like myself again. I hope listening to patients and investigating these environmental questions can lead to better research, greater transparency, and a healthier future for all of us and the generations that come after us.