((This is a reblog from an older post; my original blog was deleted by the host))

I’ve been seeing a lot of disinformation regarding COVID19 and 5G radio/cell towers in the last few days. I feel compelled to write a brief synopsis of the two in as layman’s terms as possible, so please if you have prior knowledge of the subject, bear with me. As always, feel free to comment below with suggestions, corrections and comments.

So let’s start with, “What is radiation?”

 Simply put radiation is energy in the form of light waves. Most of this energy is not visible to the naked eye. There are 2 types of radiation, Ionizing and Non-Ionizing radiation. I will refer to these as IR and NIR respectively throughout this blog. It is common in human nature to have a “fear of the unknown” and as such, radiation is something that scares people. But why is that? Is it media sensationalism? Is it watching a Netflix documentary about Chernobyl? Is it reading the history of the US nuclear strike on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Well it’s all of these things. I’m here to help dispel the rumors a bit and try to set your minds at ease.

One can easily google “radiation and cancer” and get thousands of results; most of them are technical articles and few other blogs by people with absolutely no background in hazardous materials (and they do at least identify as such, much to their credit.) I am not a nuclear physicist, I am however a Hazardous Materials Specialist in Weapons of Mass Destruction, which encompasses nuclear sources.

So what is Ionizing Radiation? IR is defined as “A type of high-energy radiation that has enough energy to remove an electron (negative particle) from an atom or molecule, causing it to become ionized. Ionizing radiation can cause chemical changes in cells and damage DNA. This may increase the risk of developing certain health conditions, such as cancer. Ionizing radiation can come from natural sources, such as radon and cosmic rays (rays that enter the earth’s atmosphere from outer space). It may also come from medical imaging equipment, such as x-ray, CT scan, or PET scan machines. Nuclear power plant accidents and atomic weapons also release high levels of ionizing radiation. Being exposed to very high doses of ionizing radiation can cause immediate damage to a person’s body, including severe skin or tissue damage, acute radiation sickness, and death.” (National Cancer Institute (NIH), 2019)
That is a pretty lengthy definition, in short terms, IR is radiation of a type that enough energy to directly damage the DNA structure of a living cell by displacing ions at the molecular/atomic level. This causes mutations at the cellular level and either benign or malignant tumors and cancers. IR is classified into four types of IR; Alpha, Beta, Gamma and X-Ray. The most common type of IR that a layperson would be exposed to is X-Rays, and this is why doctors, radiologists and dentists use lead shielding to protect other vital organs when taking images of people for diagnostic use. Alpha and Beta aren’t rays but are physical particles, and as such is block able by physical barriers. All types of IR are dangerous to your health and known carcinogens.

NIR radiation is defined by the NCI as, “A type of low-energy radiation that does not have enough energy to remove an electron (negative particle) from an atom or molecule. Non-ionizing radiation includes visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light; microwaves; radio waves; and radiofrequency energy from cell phones. Most types of non-ionizing radiation have not been found to cause cancer.” (National Cancer Institute (NIH), 2019). The way that NIR can damage cells is by causing them to heat up and then damage cells. Think of the microwave, it uses NIR to “agitate” the molecules of your food to vibrate them, generating heat. It is very rare for this to do any sort of permanent damage to human cells. One form of NIR Electro-magnetic (EM) is UV rays. These are (at least as far as research dictates) are the only forms of NIR that are truly carcinogenic, causing skin cancers and other melanomas.

5G Cell towers, just like 3G and 4G LTE, us radio waves or NIR (EM) waves to transmit data from point to point. There has been years of research into cellular phone radiation (linked below) that show there is no evidence linking cellular phone use to increased instances of cancer. I don’t even know where this crazy theory of 5G killing people came from. Another wild hypothesis is 5G “vibrates” at “exactly” the same frequency as a red blood cell, and somehow breaks it apart to prevent the transmission of oxygen within the body. There is zero scientific evidence to back this up, it makes absolutely no sense and is based on some wild ranting of an online entity. Another place to look is the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. They explain the limits and testing of NIR fields and scientific basis for safe limits.

So why all bring up all this information on radiation? Well I feel you need a baseline to understand what is going on. Keep in mind this is very down and dirty and barely scratches the surface of radiation threats. Another definition we need to address, what is a virus? A virus walks the line between a living organism and a “dead” one. (CN) A virus is essentially a small piece of a genetic code that has a shield on it. This shield (protein shell) enables it to penetrate a target cells’ barrier, releasing the genetic code inside. This code then attaches itself to the existing DNA/RNA code and modifies it. Once modified, it starts creating problems for the host organism, typically by mutating cells, killing cells and initiating an immune response from the body. (That is an entirely different blog post for another day).

Note, that nowhere does it say, that NIR or IR is a transport vessel for a virus. It is literally physically impossible. It doesn’t work. The reasoning I gave the background information is a way to try to explain what it is to increase understanding as to why it is impossible for a 5G tower to spread a virus. Science is even proving that cellular phone technology, with its electromagnetic non-ionizing radiation waves aren’t causing cancer, let alone COVID19.

There’s plenty of information about COVID19 out there that is true. There’s a lot out there that fake as well, and frankly it’s hard to keep up. That stuff is another topic to cover entirely. If you want some more of your own reading that’s a bit more in depth, see the references below.
-The HazMat Medic.

References
American Cancer Society. (2018, November 2). Microwaves, Radio Waves, and Other Types of Radiofrequency Radiation. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from American Cancer Society: https://www.cancer.org/…/radiofrequency-radiation.html
American Cancer Society. (2019, November 5). Cellular Phones (Radiation Exposure). Retrieved April 12, 2020, from American Cancer Society: https://www.cancer.org/…/radiation…/cellular-phones.html
Centers For Disease Control. (2015, December 7). Radiation and Your Health – Non-Ionizing Radiation. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from CDC.GOV: https://www.cdc.gov/…/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.html
ICNIRP. (1998). ICNIRP Guidelines For Limiting Exposure to Time-Varying Electric, Magnetic and Electromagnetic Fields. Health Physics 74(4), pp. 494-522.
National Cancer Institute (NIH). (2019, Aug 01). Cancer Definitions. Maryland.
NIH – National Cancer Institute. (2019, January 9). Cell Phones and Cancer Risk. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from NIH- National Cancer Institute: https://www.cancer.gov/…/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet
Ronca, D. (2008, July 28). How Radiation Works. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from howstuffworks.com: https://science.howstuffworks.com/radiation.htm
Villareal, L. P. (2008, August 08). Biology: Are Viruses Alive? Retrieved April 12, 2020, from Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/…/are-viruses-alive…/

The post Radiation, 5G and Covid-19 (Reblog) first appeared on The Hazmat Medic.

Recently, I saw a series of videos, vblogs or whatever the younger crowd is calling them these days about DNRs, and end of life care being discussed, and the resulting commentary was frankly disturbing. This lead to a discussion with some trusted colleagues (fellow medics) as well as a family member of my own who is a BSN and RN. One of the scariest things I’ve found, in general, is that many many people treat DNRs as “do not treats” regardless of the “level” of DNRs. An example in my state, is there are DNR B (Palliative only) vs DNR A/DNIs, which is “do everything except intubate” and they still don’t try as hard. Without delving deep into the multitude of studies, they do exist showing that even in facilities, staffs don’t try as hard regardless of “types” of DNRs when they exist. I bring all this up as a preamble to the core of these underserved patient populations.

Arguably, you’d think the job of explaining the DNR/MOLST/POLST form (depending on your state) would fall on the hospitalist and/or hospice group right? Except often times they’re all too busy to do so. Often times just what is on the DNR form isn’t actually explained to a patient. How often do you see the front page checked “palliative only” yet the back page (the one for the inpatient stuff) shows “do everything.” I had a patient once where no one explained the difference to them at what DNR A1, DNR A2 (DNI) and DNR B meant. They literally had no idea what they were signing, nothing was explained to them. On the other hand, when they are sent home on hospice care often times they just get dropped off by a private EMS transport and left… with little to know information or even planning or care in how to help arrange their homes to help prevent future calls.

Often times, family members call us because they don’t know what to do. We are their last line of defense, the solution to the “hand in the air, I’m lost.” An abbreviated example, I was called for a service call to a residence to assist a family member with her recently returned to home husband who had been placed into hospice care. The IFT crew had just brought him home and left him in his upstairs bedroom. They’d provided no guidance on helping her prepare the home for him, or how to setup the house for his end of life care. The hospice team had not gone over any of the papers with her, none of the MOLST forms, DNR forms, living wills, etc. Now being on the fire engine, we don’t carry stair chairs (she had asked us to help move him downstairs) so we had called for an ambulance to bring one to us non-emergency, while we waited I decided to go over some of this stuff with her. Spent the next 20 minutes or so helping her rearrange some furniture, plan how to setup her home, go over the MOLST form, what numbers in the folder to contact regarding the living will etc. Explaining what to call for, what we need we can help her with, what we can’t actually help her and everything else. In the end, the extra 20 minutes spent with the patient’s spouse set her mind at ease, has definitely alleviated further calls for service that many would call “useless” or “wasteful” and improved the quality of life for the patient in his end-of-life care for comfort in the end of life care.

The bottom line here, is that while less than maybe 5-10% of the calls are “guts and glory” we should be pay attention to the other 90-95% of the calls. Take the extra few minutes, even if you’re tired and don’t want to, to just speak for a few minutes to the family members. Those few minutes might save you an hour or two later. That public perception makes a big difference later.

The post The Underserved community within our community. first appeared on The Hazmat Medic.