Andy Smith 00:00 
A quick disclaimer before we begin, The PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns please visit a healthcare professional. Welcome back to the PEMF podcast. Today I'm joined by Nick Pineault, sometimes known as the EMF guy. Nick has been researching and educating on electromagnetic fields for nearly a decade and today we're diving into a topic that causes a lot of confusion especially when it comes to the difference between EMFs and PEMFs. And much more but Nick welcome to the podcast.

Nick Pineault 00:39 
Hey, welcome. Well, thanks for having me. It's a, it's a pleasure. And it's in fact, this topic of EMF versus PEMF, you know, it's one that has followed me since the beginning, uh, because it's one of the very common questions I get, so I'm excited to actually specifically dive into this.

Andy Smith 00:56 
No, good. And before we get into some of the more debated areas, we're going to start with the basics, but we'll also break down what EMF actually are, how they differ from PEMF and why those two often get confused. We'll touch on some common myths around EMFs, how modern technology may be influencing our health and why some people seem more sensitive than others. We'll also look at dirty electricity, electro smog, why signal quality matters and what to consider when it comes to PEMF devices. So let's start right at the beginning. So for anyone new to this topic, what does the term EMF actually mean?

Nick Pineault 01:33 
Yes, well, EMF means electromagnetic fields or electromagnetic frequencies. In the end, you know, people who use a PEMF or, you know, use a cell phone are using types of EMFs, visible lights is also a type of EMF, so it's really an entire spectrum of frequencies that are part of life. Uh, the difference though, we're going to get into that, but essentially when I talk about EMF, I mostly talk about human made EMFs used for telecommunications or purposes that have nothing to do with therapy. And that's very important because, you know, when we use certain types of EMFs, including, you know, red light therapy or, uh, blue light therapy for people who suffer from, you know, I don't know, suffer from like me from the Canadian winter, but in the UK, you have it pretty bad too. I mean, when you have a very, you know, this ACD seasonal affected disorder where you feel just the winter blues and you use blue light, you know, it has a biological effect and you are using something that is manmade to have a specific impact. And that's gonna, the, the, what I've been looking at is when you use telecommunication devices, what is it doing to your biology? Because of course that specific machine has not been designed for therapy. It's been designed for telecommunications and it's not been optimized to minimize biological effects. It's been optimized to maximize connectivity, to maximize speed and to maximize convenience. And really with, with the wrong type of optimization, you end up with a lot of trouble when you create these different machines and you know, what I've been researching is the fact that of course our use of, um, human made EMFs has been steadily increasing in the last, uh, 150 years since the advent of electricity, but now with the telecommunications cell towers, cell phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, all of these are examples of modern uses of EMFs that are to this day, kind of, you know, uh, it's a, it's a fast rollout that is, uh, at a faster rate than our ability to study and stay up to date with the potential risks coming with these technologies.

Andy Smith 03:50 
And so you mentioned things like Wi-Fi routers like 5G towers that's so it's completely different type of like emf but roughly where did these technologies sit on the electromagnetic spectrum when we're talking about like therapeutic devices like PEMF and red light therapy like how far and few of these between each other.

Nick Pineault 04:09 
Yeah, well, that's that's kind of the tricky part. If you talk about light, that's in fact very high on the spectrum, right? Even, you know, we generally don't talk about light in the terms of frequency, but we talk about wavelength. So the wavelength, if we talked about light in terms of frequency, we would be in the hundreds of thousands of gigahertz. Whereas your cell phone is maybe around a little bit below one gigahertz, which is one billion hertz in frequency to about, you know, now we have maybe the 5G connectivity could be up to almost 20 gigahertz, 30 gigahertz. So but Wi-Fi would be between 2.4 and 5.8 gigahertz. And then you would have the cell towers fall somewhere between that. So the bulk of our exposure is in that range. But in fact, it is below the visible light, but it is way higher than most therapeutic devices or what they use as far as frequency goes. Most of them my understanding is that they would be below 100 hertz. Although you also have therapeutic devices, even in that spectrum of wireless radio frequency therapy used for skincare, for example, where you would use. But again, we're going to get into the differences. But the the problem people, you know, have a presumption of safety because of a certain frequency, they say, oh, well, you know, we use we use radio frequency radiation for therapeutics or therefore it's safe. But there's an immense difference between having an intention that is therapeutic and using a device for a specific time at a specific frequency. Whereas with cell phones or Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, you know, what is the right time of use? What is the safe distance to be from these machines? And, you know, have we studied the real impact of all of these different machines that we use in our homes? Sometimes people have 50 different wireless devices around them, on them, in their homes, in their office, and then in their vicinity. The reality is that none of it none of it has been properly studied. And the very foundation of wireless safety is based on short term exposure to five monkeys and eight rats. When you look at those fundamental fundamental studies from the 1980s, you realize, my God, this is extremely, extremely insufficient to determine safety in users. So the reality is that in a sense, the therapeutic use of these EMS has evolved more quickly than even our understanding of the risks associated with those telecommunication devices. And this is certainly because there is a financial incentive to develop biomedical technologies, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the funding has been severely lacking in the safety aspect of consumer devices that nowadays everyone uses from children to, you know, a hundred years old.

Andy Smith 07:13 
So before we get into the number of this and go in real deep into the questions, we like to do a bit of a quick fire. So I'm going to just ask you a couple of questions and these are like very short answers. And then we kind of come back to those later on in the podcast and we break those questions down a bit more. So I'll fire these at you quickly. Are EMS from 5G and cell towers bad for your health?

Nick Pineault 07:37 
Yes, certainly not good.

Andy Smith 07:40 
Can we actually block negative EMFs?

Nick Pineault 07:43 
We can shield from them, but it requires a strategy.

Andy Smith 07:48 
Yeah. So maybe some limitations we'll get to those. What's one of the worst ways people expose themselves to unnecessary EMFs?

Nick Pineault 07:57 
Close distance to cell phones, Bluetooth, anything, or Wi-Fi enabled tablets, very close to the body.

Andy Smith 08:05 
Can exposure to EMFs increase cancer risk?

Nick Pineault 08:09 
I would call it the next smoking. In my view, the science has been sufficient since 2018, based on the scientists I follow, many research groups agree that it should have been reclassified next to tobacco smoke and asbestos as a group 1 carcinogen back in 2018.

Andy Smith 08:28 
Mm, that's a good point and we'll come to that. If someone could reduce EMF exposure in just one place, where would that be most important?

Nick Pineault 08:37 
Bedroom, at night.

Andy Smith 08:38 
Does using aeroplane mode really reduce EMF exposure from your phone?

Nick Pineault 08:42 
It depends on what antennas are still enabled. Um, if you have airplane mode, you're still, you can still be on wifi and Bluetooth, then you need to turn off all of these antennas to have no exposure to wireless.

Andy Smith 08:55 
Should you really turn your Wi-Fi off at night?

Nick Pineault 08:58 
Yes, I don't see any world or any reason not to.

Andy Smith 09:02 
One myth about EMF you wish would disappear?

Nick Pineault 09:04 
Everything is safe, everything is safe, everything is merry and the safety guidelines are sufficient.

Andy Smith 09:10 
And the last one is, are products or devices that give off a lot of dirty electricity or electro smog something we should be concerned about?

Nick Pineault 09:18 
Yes, but it's complicated when it comes to dirty electricity. There is, it's really the lack of standards across the entire electronics industry that creates this problem and it's not easy to remediate.

Andy Smith 09:30 
Cool. Okay. So, let's dig into some of these sections that we spoke about just then. Talking more broadly about EMFs and PEMFs. PEMF devices also produce non-ionizing EMFs. Can you explain the difference between an ionizing and a non-ionizing radiation and whether each is inherently dangerous?

Nick Pineault 09:52 
Yeah, so essentially you have, you know, the two different categories are inherently different. First, on an engineering standpoint, you have the PEMF machine that, or devices that have been designed with a specific therapeutic goal in mind. So it means that the researchers looked into experimenting with different frequencies, different, uh, even the wave, uh, the form of the wave, you know, there's square waves, sawtooth, and sinusoidal waves. And I'm not extremely well-versed, and I know many device manufacturers claim, oh, this is the best, that is the best. Maybe I don't believe that 100%, but the fact is that we do see, um, from what I understand in non-union fractures, it's especially, uh, impressive what the PEMF can do. So clearly there is a biological effect and that biological effect happens even if we are in the non-ionizing spectrum. And yet, you know, some people see that and say, okay, yes, I recognize this effect exists, but when they see other sources of non-ionizing radiation, like a cell phone, they say, oh no, that effect cannot happen. You can have both, right? You can, the reality is that, uh, the way I understand it is the research of, um, Arthur Pilla, uh, one of the biophysicists that has looked at PEMF and how it works, talks about calcium channels and, you know, the fact that the non-ionizing radiation does not really, uh, impact the cell. It will not break DNA bonds, you know, it's not ionizing and yet it can have subtle effects or even powerful effects on certain parts of the cell. So just the shuttle of certain ions across a cell membrane, and that alone can have downstream biological effects. And we recognize that in PEMF and yet in, you know, human made EMFs like a cell phone that can be lower intensity than many, uh, PEMF therapeutic devices to be fair, but the, the, um, the research on human made EMFs is not for, it's not something you want to test in a lab for, okay, for a certain amount of time that is 30 minutes or 60 minutes or even eight hours per day. It is what is the impact of chronic unabated exposure, like a cell phone in your pocket for 20 years, right? And, and, and that's really the key is that, you know, the research endpoints aren't even the same. One of them, it, the, the electoral pollution created by a phone is kind of a by-product, you know, if we could get away with not having it and having the phone directly talk to a cell tower without having this energy deposited in the user body, then everyone will be happy. Like even the industry would be happy because in the end we wouldn't be wasting this energy in a sense. But the reality is otherwise is that it, it generally emits in all direction except the millimeter waves that are in higher frequencies that have a certain direction to it, but there's a lot of energy that is lost and that in the end has the secondary effects. So, you know, just fundamentally you have two different products that have different uses, one of them is optimized for therapeutics. One of them is optimized for connectivity and for speed. The problem is that the engineers developing PEMF are not really the, you know, they don't talk to the engineers developing cell phones, even to this day, many scientists that I talked to said, well, there are, there are ways we can make the devices inherently safer. A part of it would be to maybe look at the PEMF research, maybe look at what frequencies are more compatible with the human body. At the moment, the frequencies are just determined because we have spectrum to sell and we want to make sure that operator A, B and C don't step on each other's toes and we ran certain frequencies of the spectrum, but no one is asking, okay, well, should we really emit that 2.4 gigahertz for wifi or is that something that we found causes more stress in biological systems? There's none of that because the first, if, if they admitted that there are biological effects, then it opens a can of worms. It opens a can of worms for the industry for liability, an industry that is completely unprotected from their reinsurers. You have, you know, Swiss Re and other major reinsurers at the beginning of the 2000s say, you know, it's not a question of if we're going to have cancer lawsuits, it's a question of when, and they essentially said, you know, we, we ensure the worst polluters in the planet, but not the telecoms. We don't want to touch your industry at all. So, you know, it's not a proof of harm, but it is a proof that at least those with the best attorneys and experts in risk assessment, see the telecom industry as an industry with a losing proposition because they do not start. They haven't started, you know, to self clean their act and to minimize emissions, which is really what they should be doing.

Andy Smith 15:07 
Yeah, so I've been in the PEMF industry for quite a long time and some people try PEMF therapy and they comment and say that it's actually too strong for them, while others sit and lay and they don't feel anything, you know, even at our lower intensities. We often hear the term EMF sensitive and it bounces around. Do you know kind of what that actually means?

Nick Pineault 15:30 
Yeah, well, you know, there's the term electro hypersensitivity that has been invented in the 19, uh, eighties and nineties, uh, and now, you know, one other term that, uh, is replacing it in a sense is EMR syndrome. There are some people that just have, uh, you know, measurable symptoms next to even very low intensity products, whether it's PEMF or, you know, cell phones or even the presence of electricity. That's something that has been quite controversial in research. But when you look at population level studies with just surveys and you ask people, you know, can you get, you know, symptoms from everyday uses of devices, you, you have an increase over time in the, in the last three decades, you have a steady increase in how many people recognize that they are impacted for what it's worth, you know, it's still, um, a big, uh, controversy on a scientific standpoint where people are trying to do provocation studies and they say, okay, uh, can you tell if a cell phone is off and on? But, you know, I think many of these researchers are looking in the wrong direction because that's not necessarily a switch, you know, a sort of sensitivity is just, um, a sort of a reaction that people have to these devices. So the reality is that it just looks like certain people have reactions that are almost like a sort of, uh, allergic reaction to electricity. And that's something that can be literally observed by some doctors where you have people who have a rash after exposure to certain devices. That scene, that's a histamine reaction. And then you have some researchers who are studying, you know, mass cell activation syndrome that say, maybe it has something to do with, you know, the body's reactivity to EMS. We don't know exactly to the truth. The truth is that there is an inherent, uh, de facto difference between certain people's sensitivity, the degree of sensitivity, and that has been seen in the medical research since the, the 1800s, since the beginning of our use of electricity, um, some doctors have just observed that certain people seem to react one way and then we have other people that react in another way. But I'm not, I'm not that surprised. You know, this is also something we see with how people are able to process or not process caffeine, certain pharmaceuticals, we have detoxification pathways that are quite, uh, that can vary wildly between certain individuals. So I'm not surprised that there are biological differences between certain people's sensitivities, but there's also another aspect to this. It just looks like for certain people, if they are exposed to environmental toxins and stressors, they can become in this sort of hypersensitive state, which is very difficult to recover from. And this is something that is even more, uh, research for the chemicals, multiple chemical sensitivity. It's a little bit less controversial of an idea, but the two go in hand in hand where a lot of people who say, you know, I smell perfumes. I get a handstand headache. I feel very sick in a new car and I feel sick from the pollution very easily. Those people tend to also react to EMFs and to different devices. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just something that needs to be developed because in certain physicians, uh, from the branch of environmental medicine. And I heard in the UK, ecological medicine, um, physicians are very well aware that certain patients just have a bad reaction from these devices. And the most obvious ones have figured it out because they put a cell phone to their head, they have a migraine headache, and if they don't, they do not. So, you know, the reality is that for some people, it's a very linear effect. And for other peoples, it's a sort of malaise that is harder to pinpoint two EMF sources, and it's harder to recover from because we are constantly bombarded by EMFs. So it's like trying to, you know, it's akin to someone with a gluten sensitivity that lives way too close to that bakery. And, you know, you have flour in the air as you walk around the city and there's no way you can avoid it. It's like that essentially for these people.

Andy Smith 20:02 
And from your experience in this industry, like is, if somebody is electrosensitive, is there a cure for that? Is there a way that they can reverse those effects or is it more about learning how to kind of, you know, pull yourself away from those EMFs?

Nick Pineault 20:17 
It's I think it's both a lot of physicians told me that these saw patients with extreme degrees of sensitivities and these patients gradually went away from civilization for a while because of course, you know, try to if you're triggered by a cell phone, try to go on the tube in London and see how many people have a cell phone or device in their home. Same thing here in Montreal, it's you're surrounded by devices that trigger you. So therefore, it's natural to say, okay, you know what, I'm going to live in the countryside, but what they size these patients, then, you know, over time, got even more sensitive in a sense or more reactive, and then they couldn't, they simply couldn't handle coming back in the city. So they didn't see avoidance as a cure, they saw it as a temporary relief of symptoms, the cure came in many different forms, and it's not something that is initially cookie cutter, it's really trying to lower the overall body burden of someone, including, you know, what you're getting from emails. But a lot of these people also have, to varying degrees, very high contamination in their body, heavy metals, for example, high lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and these environmental medicine physicians, some of them are able to help patients recover where their body calms down and is not as reactive anymore by detoxing them and trying to calm their nervous system. It just looks like if EMF is one thing that makes your nervous system jacked all the time and always triggered, then part of it is avoidance and part of it is calming down what is irritating to the nervous system, but it's not just EMFs. It might be even food triggers, it might be, in the end, some of these people are in a very bad state of health where a lot of triggers are present and EMF might be just one of the laundry list of triggers that is a problem for them.

Andy Smith 22:24 
No, thank you for that. That's a good explanation So we do test a lot of PMS devices and one thing that comes up repeatedly is electro smog You know some devices appear to have dirty electricity or others simply pulse raw power coming from the outlet So, you know, why might something why might using something that gives off a lot of electro smog be counterproductive when it comes to the therapeutic effects

Nick Pineault 22:48 
Yeah, this is a controversial talking point in a sense because we simply don't know at the moment. Like, I haven't seen a good comparison where, for example, let me take PEMF or red light, for example, which is in an explosion on a scientific standpoint, but also on a consumer devices development standpoint. You have a lot of companies that go from zero to tens of millions in sales, hundreds of millions in sales, and then they say we have the next best thing since sliced bread, our device is best, and then also they claim this is a low EMF device, which might mean, you know, that what the device is emitting is just a red light. It's not, you know, a magnetic field or an electric field. That would be a reflection of the fact that this device is plugged into a wall outlet. You know, in Europe, it would be closer to 220 or 240 volts. In North America, you would have the hundred and or sorry, sorry, I'm just I know this is this is completely incorrect. I'm talking about a 50 Hertz is the frequency in Europe that is different and then the 60 Hertz in North America. But the reality is that this electricity, you know, it's not therapeutic. It is a sort of byproduct of the of the fact that this device is plugged into a wall. Ideally, it would not be present because when you look at the EMF research, the wireless is not is not the only type of frequency that might be harmful to the human body. Scientists agree that the same thing that applied to wireless should be applied also to electric fields, magnetic fields and an overall reduction in our exposure even from household electricity might have benefits. So this is where everything gets modeled. The question is, OK, well, let's say I have a PEMF device that is emitting these electric fields and magnetic fields. But on top of that, I have the therapeutic frequency. Is it an overall benefit? Well, if you look at scientific studies, they don't really separate these things. And we can therefore at least, you know, pretend that all the PEMF literature or red light therapy literature is with high EMF devices. You know, with this electro smog, like you said, with this byproduct and they still see benefits. So the study endpoints, you know, don't include a group with low EMF devices and high EMF devices. So I think what the manufacturers can safely claim is that low EMF is best in the sense that you can. It will help you continue to lower your exposure to these emails that we think should be minimized. But it's a sort of precautionary measure. If people feel very, very sensitive, even the therapeutic devices might be a problem for them. I know that even with red light therapy panels that might be zero EMF or almost undetectable electric or magnetic field or electricity, they might still react. In fact, some of these people react to the sun, right? So they react to a wider way of frequencies and, you know, we don't know if the low EMF devices would necessarily be better. I think they're I would recommend them, but it's not like it makes a lot of people think, oh, it means that my red light panel or PEMF device is dangerous. It's not I don't think it's the right term. We could say that, you know, ideally all the manufacturers would ensure that if you have a therapeutic device that's supposed to emit one frequency with a specific time and all of this, you don't have this noise in the background. And I can I can, you know, hypothesize that all the therapeutic devices would likely work even more if you reduce the noise that's emitted at the same time as your primary frequency or, you know, therapeutic frequency that you're trying to emit anyway. But, you know, we haven't proven that. So I can say there is part of it is precaution, but a lot of it is marketing hype in the industry at the moment. But with a caveat, if you feel extremely electro sensitive, then maybe it's more important for you. And this is where, you know, even things like a low EMF sauna would be something that is recommended for people who feel extremely electro sensitive, because what they're trying to get is the infrared or near infrared. And ideally without the electric fields and magnetic fields that come from household electricity, which is possible if you get engineers mind to it. There are many, many ways with better grounding and shielding techniques that it can be achieved. And it's just a matter like doesn't matter to the manufacturers. And what they ask is, well, does it matter to our customers? And sometimes sometimes it does. And this is I perceive it as, you know, a step in the right direction where we're going to have more effective therapeutic devices. And then in the future, safer electronics and safer everything, because we don't have to be exposed to these this noise, this electrical noise.

Andy Smith 28:08 
And it's a really good point and we'll come on to that like you know a big thing for me when when we was developing the Our PEMF device accelerate device was that we didn't want to introduce Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to our device like You know particularly in PEMF devices because we PEMF, you know, you're trying to make these therapeutic low-frequency EMF devices which which are good for you But then I you know I understand you know if you want to do a software update or if you want to do some made-up program that the Developers have kind of you know put together for for PEMF devices You connect it to Wi-Fi you connect the mat by your Bluetooth on your phone You're then introducing your phone to this safe space of curated so, you know, yeah Hopefully I never eat my words and in 10 years time we develop a mat where we put Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in it But for me, it was a big part of our development And I really think PEMF devices should think twice when they're introducing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to their products That's designed to be a low-frequency therapeutic product But while we're on this subject, you know, a big topic topic in the biohacking world is turning off Wi-Fi at night I do it myself, you know I've got all of mine on on those little old-school timers all my all my roof Rooters around the house on these little timers that click off at 10 p.m So then at least you know, I know and and for me as well It turns, you know, the TV's no longer connected and stuff. So it's my it's my cue to get up to bed That's good. But you know Why why are people doing this in your opinion and what are the potential benefits of turning off Wi-Fi while while we're sleeping?

Nick Pineault 29:40 
Well, you know, once you, you agree to the idea that, okay, well, our safety guidelines are probably broken, so therefore, you know, what is the safe level of EMFs that it should be exposed to? And if the safe level is a question mark, then, you know, let's try to minimize all our exposures. The benefits that people might see, it's very interesting, you know, in the, in the sleep science, uh, in, in, in that entire silo of health impacts from EMFs, it's, it's very damning because 20 years ago, you had early studies on a few participants that tested the idea, is it possible to change sleep architecture as, as measured by EEG on healthy human participant, uh, male participants that do not feel electro sensitive. It has nothing to do with that. They don't think that EMFs can impact them. So they don't, you know, it's not the nocebo effect. And even the researchers didn't believe they would see an impact because in their view, that is, uh, an incorrect view of the cell phone is just a low power device and there's no way it can interfere with brainwaves. They found the opposite. What they found is, you know, you put a phone 30 minutes to the head and it had a measurable difference in their sleep architecture. In fact, they called this, uh, cell phone induced insomnia where participants taught that they were falling asleep after the 30 minute of exposure to the head, but in, in reality, they spent about an hour in a sort of, you know, a state between wakefulness and sleep, but it was not very effective. So they essentially lost an hour of good quality sleep after being exposed. So what happened after that is very frustrating because for 20 years, we barely had any follow-up studies to that. And yet many people use a cell phone before bed or a cell phone in bed or a cell phone near their bed stand, or they use earbuds that are, you know, air pods that are Bluetooth enabled. And we don't know to this day, what is the, the dose that can in fact interfere with your sleep. So that's for devices close to the body. And that's one thing that everyone should try to eliminate as much as they can before, you know, before getting their sleep on, but also wifi, which is, you know, it will make a measurable difference if you turn off your own wifi, because if you have wifi connectivity in any room in your home, it means that you're filling this room with signal, which is, you know, another word for electro pollution or electro smog. So essentially what you're doing, if you're turning off wifi is that you're just removing one of the multiple factors in your life that might interfere with sleep. But you know, what is so frustrating to me is that in these studies, 20 years ago, one of the sleep researchers said, we don't think it means that cell phones are dangerous, you know, our findings that there's this sleep induced insomnia, because the arousal effect of 30 minutes of exposure to the head is just equivalent to half a cup of coffee.  This is how he has put it. And of course, that's not a scientific conclusion. It's almost like a PR move. But I said, well, you know, how much sense does that make? It makes no sense to me because certain people are very caffeine sensitive and they did say that they're curious what would happen in other participants. For example, replace the healthy male participant with a child that uses cell phone before bed because some of them are eight years old and have an iPhone. How much is that impacting a smaller brain, right, or developing brain? And we don't have answers. We don't have answers to all these things. So for all I know, since the lack of data is something that just screams at me, I would say consider your phone and the signal that emits or Bluetooth or even the Wi-Fi in your apartment or home, something that could be disruptive to your sleep. So at a minimum, if you don't use it in the middle of the night, which is probably a very bad idea to do on a regular basis, just turn it off. So that's why using a timer, for example, is a good idea or a little bit of, you know, a little remote control you can use from your bed and just turn turn it off. Don't take any chances. Many people told me I feel like I sleep better. Some people told me I use, you know, a ring to track my sleep or something else to track my sleep. And I saw a measurable difference. That's their experience. We don't have large scale studies, but we should have them done because, of course, we have, you know, all of this discussion happens in a world where it is a public health crisis, how much people are not sleeping enough in duration and quality. So, of course, we should look at this as one of the many factors that is behind why are people not sleeping, you know, as much as they should.

Andy Smith 34:29 
Okay, and you mentioned this in your question actually a reminder of a question that we had on a previous podcast which was like is there actually a safe level of your meth exposure is there some kind of guidance that people can find or does that not exist.

Nick Pineault 34:45 
Well, I mean, the current guidance is so it's based on just science that is completely laughable looking at the wrong study endpoint, which was essentially we don't want to overheat tissue, but that's not what's happening. You know, those, uh, those studies around sleep were, were at levels that are below our safety threshold, just from real cell phones, unreal participants. And yet there's an, there's an effect on EEG. So, you know, if we ask engineers, like, do it's really, there's no regard towards, um, electromagnetic biocompatibility, you know, there, there's an entire branch of, uh, electrical engineering that's about, uh, electromagnetic compatibility, looking at the fact that two cell phones that are next to each other shouldn't, uh, create so much noise that now both conversations cannot be heard. Or you hear the other phone or all of a sudden one new tower is erected and now the wifi doesn't work. So that's electromagnetic compatibility. And we get that so right. There's so much money. There's trillions of dollars in that industry, making sure everything is not, you know, creating too much noise and works as intended, but literally almost no money is put towards, okay, what is the possible interference between wifi, Bluetooth cell phones, cell towers, and all the other stuff that we put in the environment and then the brain's ability to go through sleep cycles. Right. And, and, and, you know, it is an electromagnetic machine right here. And yet, you know, we look at almost none of that because of the prevailing thought that, oh, no, no, there's no potential, uh, impact. And yet we know from the EEG studies, that's completely wrong. We know from the biophysics show that calcium channels can be impacted sodium potassium channels can be impacted. So we know there are effects on certain bio electrical parts of the cell or at a larger scale organs, but we don't know what these effects are. Like what is the right dose of Bluetooth that wouldn't interfere with your sleep? We don't know. So in the end, since we don't know, just an overall reduction framework needs to be, to be used where, okay. I'm not saying that this amount is dangerous. It's not as, as easy as that, but it's, you know, any small amount that you can cut it's, it's, it's a benefit in your life. That's the way to put it.

Andy Smith 37:26 
Yeah okay and we also see you talking to Tim Gray who UK biohacker has been on the podcast previously about holding your phone away from your head when taking calls and you know why does that matter and is the head of particularly you know if you got to use emfs you know is it is it essential to use them away from from your head predominantly.

Nick Pineault 37:47 
Yeah, well, I think it's simply because of the, you know, the most studied, let's say, potential danger with EMFs is really cell phones to the head for extended periods of time, sometimes in, unfortunately, in certain scientific studies, they call heavy users 30 minutes per day, a phone call, which is, you know, in my view, that's not a heavy user. So that's one of the ways to fudge the science a little bit, but you know, for some people, it's literally four hours per day. You know, my dad as a realtor used to do that. And I said that, try to minimize your exposure. So he uses speaker phone or, you know, some people use Bluetooth earbuds and I don't think it's a good replacement for a phone. And that's just something that now not a lot of people do a phone call, like, I know, don't call me, just text me. Okay. Maybe it's a little bit of a better habit to have to use texting over calling. But the reality is that replacing one source of radio frequency radiation in the form of a phone with a Bluetooth anything is not a good replacement. And in scientific studies, one of the, you know, most potentially deadly use of a phone could be phoned to the ear for a lifetime and the development of glioblastoma, which is, you know, an extremely deadly form of brain cancer, probably the deadliest cancer out there. And if it's not that there are other indications that other cancers of the head region and neck region might be increased, or at least you might have an increased risk if you use a lot of EMF emitting devices, acoustic neuromas, paraded gland cancer, a thyroid cancer. There are some studies, but mainly it's, it's still a scientific debate. Is it a carcinogen? Is it not a carcinogen? But here's the thing, you know, I think we've fallen away so far from the precautionary principle that is essentially, I think it's, it's better followed in Europe, but not so much for EMFs. Unfortunately, it's, it's, it's your European union and other European countries are more ahead when it comes to chemicals, but with the EMFs, they're still behind, but in North America we're, we're even worse. The precautionary principle recognizes that sometimes we have a lack of science. But what do we do if there is scientific uncertainty, but there are some risks that have been identified? Well, what we're supposed to do with the precautionary principle is, okay, look, we don't have a definitive answer, but if there's a risk and that risk currently with cell phones is immense because you have essentially every human being on the planet using one, nearly, uh, well, you should err on the safe side of things and say, okay, let's tell users to adopt precautions. What precaution is this? No cell phone to the head or minimize how much time you're spending with a device in close proximity. So, but what we're doing is the opposite. What we're doing is the, the opposite of the precautionary principle would be saying, Oh no, everything is fine. And now start using EMFs even more, which is what most people are doing nowadays, because they are, um, operating under the, the assumption that everything is safe, which is the opposite of the truth.

Andy Smith 40:59 
And the thing that worries me, actually, you know, I say a previous life, but before I started my business like 13, 14 years ago, I actually did five years for a mobile phone company. So, you know, I work for the company Orange, I don't know if they're still going in some countries. But I was on the shop floor, I had a mobile phone, and for nearly eight hours a day, we'd be on phone to Orange customer services with customers setting new connections and that sort of thing. It does worry me what kind of damage I've done, you know, luckily, even by then, before, you know, before I started this industry, I used to kind of multitask and I'd have two or three customers on hold at a time and I'd put them on the side on loudspeaker. A lot of my colleagues, you know, they've been there 10 years now and they put it against their head and it does worry me what what they're doing. So, but but talking about phones, they've kind of evolved a little bit now and we have something called airplane mode, which is apparently, you know, the the savior of all. But what does airplane mode actually do in the phone to reduce EMF exposure?

Nick Pineault 42:00 
Yeah, so airplane mode essentially cuts the cellular antenna, but surprisingly, I don't know exactly, you know, the air, I need to look into that because it would make for a good article. Why was airplane mode invented? I don't even know, but it was probably just because of a fear of interfering with certain communication devices inside a plane where they can talk to control towers and which is. Super important to make sure that you don't crash because, you know, where other planes are, it's maybe radars and it's all the communications to the ground level. So that being said, now, especially in the last 10 years, Wi-Fi on planes is becoming ubiquitous. So when you hit airplane mode, you can still have the Wi-Fi on. You can still have Bluetooth on to connect to other devices, including, you know, connect to your wireless headphones or connect to some, you know, wearable device. And many people have the Wi-Fi antenna on while they're on airplane mode, and that's another source of wireless radiation. So the reality is that if you, you know, completely remove the the settler antenna, you still have the Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth problem. So this is why if you're carrying your phone around, you need to make sure that all three antennas are turned off, especially if it's in your pocket or very close to your body. That's another one of the worst sources of exposures for many people. What is ironic, unfortunately, and sad is that many people, you know, are not actively doing something on their phone when they carry it. Sometimes, you know, some of my even some of my friends, I have to tell them, like, you know, they're in their late 30s, early 40s, and they still have the phone in the pocket. And see, guys, you know, if you sit down and you have that phone, not only is it awkward and is, you know, uncomfortable, but it's just a bad habit, you should put it in front of you. Even a two feet separation would go a long way, but you have to think about it. A lot of people keep it there all day, every day as they're working and they're not, you know, expecting a phone call, they're not playing on the phone, they're not doing anything. But the phone is constantly looking for a cell tower if it's on airplane mode, but with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled, it's looking for a Wi-Fi device every couple of seconds to connect to. Or Bluetooth is looking for something Bluetooth. So these are examples of completely useless exposures. And this is the one that we need to focus on where they don't bring any benefit to your life, but they might come with risks.

Andy Smith 44:43 
Yeah, and it's a good point because I generally have a phone holder on all the desks. I have my home desk, my office desk, we're just moving offices, and I always make a point of having a phone holder, and I put it quite far away for myself. So every time you sit down, like I say, the phone comes out of the pocket, it goes in the phone holder. At least it's still a bit further away, so I'm reducing the aspect there. Just some little changes that can make beneficial to a lot of people's lives. When we're talking about the aeroplanes, plane travel is quite exhausting for many people. So I find, obviously, long haul, you've got jet lag and that sort of thing, but even if you're in the air for two hours, three hours, you seem to come down feeling absolutely zapped. Do you think, because the EMF, again, gets kind of bounced around a lot with a lot of EMF exposure in planes, do you think that plays a role in this, or do you think it's the other factors when we're traveling?

Nick Pineault 45:39 
I think it surely plays a role. Um, what is extremely concerning is, uh, what I've learned just from, uh, EMF biophysicist, uh, Dimitri J. Panagopoulos from, uh, the University of Athens is one of the arguably, in my view, the most important biophysicist in EMF dangers and what he looked at, at different animal models to try to model what happens if you have ionizing radiation, which is a source of, uh, very, you know, uh, known radiation source as you fly, because you are closer to, you know, space radiation. You get gamma rays and X-rays, and this is why, you know, we know that, you know, frequent flyers or flight attendants or pilots have increased cancer risks. That's part of their lifetime exposure to ionizing radiation. But what he looked at is what is the combination if you add wifi? And the problem is that it's, it's not even modeled in the ionizing radiation safety that the ionizing radiation plus the non-ionizing radiation in the form of wifi do not just, are not just additive. It's not one plus one equal two. It's more like one plus one equal, equal a hundred. And really what he said is that if, uh, authorities really cared about health, we would need to reduce the exposure from non-ionizing radiation. I think it was something by 136 fold. So in other words, you know, our exposures right now of wifi and planes and from, um, devices are impacting how much the ionizing radiation is impacting us and vice versa, because we don't look in, in the toxicology at the moment, it's not like all these researchers do a sort of, uh, total body assessment of all the potential exposures that would, um, in a sense, hit the same biological pathways of oxidative stress and, uh, DNA having to be repaired and the antioxidant pathways being attacked and having to you know, compensate with inner resources. So the reality is that because of that, it makes me conclude, geez, it's, it's very, very likely, or I would say in my view, it is happening that now traveling by airplane, when you have a combination of all these stressors is more difficult than the body than previously. That being said, I didn't want to initially, uh, I don't want to return to the era where you had, you know, an entire hot box of cigarette and cigars in the vicinity, you know, I was that worse. I don't know. Right. So chemicals plus ionizing radiation, plus this, plus that, all these factors need to be considered, but certainly it is a very bad idea to introduce, uh, very good amounts of ionizing radiation with how many devices in an airplane. It might be 400 phones, you know, that most of them would be on wifi. And then you encourage people to say, we have the wifi onboard, please connect to, you know, the, the, the entertainment, or we have tablets, or in certain cases, I've even looked at plane designs where some of these wifi routers are right here, you know, hidden somewhere very close to people. So it is a perfect storm. We don't know, you know, it doesn't mean I won't be flying. I will be flying to friends, you know, to meet you and others and in a few weeks, but is it part of the reason some people feel depleted? Surely it's a, it's part of what we call jet lag, you know, feeling bad after traveling, the light environment matters, but that non-ionizing spectrum also matters, the ionizing spectrum also matters, the chemicals and sometimes it's the bad food and bad food choices. I think all of them needs to be considered, but unfortunately for people who would like to travel, explore the world, or do go on business trips, it is more stressful to fly with all of this wifi, that's for sure.

Andy Smith 50:02 
And we you know talking about air we talking about travel i mean we we do things for air pollution in the plane so you know you see the airline steward spraying and. People wearing masks people are taking antiseptic wipes all these sorts of things that they've already put things in place for you know colds and flus and things when you're when you're traveling on a plane but. Do you think we're gonna get to a stage where people are looking at electromagnetic pollution in the same way and we might get to a point where like you said they actually tell us to turn our phones off because of the radiation and you know or. Should we as an individual be looking at this you know can can one person make a difference.

Nick Pineault 50:40 
Oh geez, that's a huge question. I think eventually, we are not in a day and age right now, and I hope it changes soon, but it is a very difficult uphill battle where the reality of these non-ionizing exposures are accumulating over time, and we need to completely change our safety guidelines. We are not there at all. If we recognize this, if health authorities recognize this, it would mean that it's a big change in the cell phone infrastructure, in consumer devices, and then in public exposures. It's one thing to have these exposures that is the same thing for chemicals. When you have the recognition that, okay, we think that cigarette smoke is dangerous, and it took decades of fighting to eventually have the scientists say, look, smoking on airplanes with all of these people in a compacted space is just so nonsensical, we have to ban smoking on airplanes. It was a radical idea. It was a very controversial idea to put forward, and it likely took decades before it happened, and it became policy. I think we are pretty much in that space where now we have everyone smoking and everyone thinks it's normal, and I do see a future, I hope sooner rather than later, but it will take a lot of time before we are able to recognize, look, we have to control these things, and there's a lot of ways that we can make them safer. I foresee a future where, you know, why not have a phone holder on planes where you put your phone and there's something here that's electronic that's like, you know, even a sort of wireless port that doesn't emit anything towards the user would be sufficient, and now it's connected to the internet, right? And outside the plane, you might have a sort of wireless exposure, but shielded in a way that it doesn't go towards the airplane. There's a lot of ways that we could make wireless safer or have more wired technologies because if you have a wire, you know that the EMF is in the wire and generally will stay in the wire, and that's really something that the scientists, activists and myself are pushing towards, like, let's use more internet cables at home, let's have even, you know, wired solutions in public spaces and coffee shops and, you know, where it's convenient, you should be able to plug in or not have wireless. But at the moment, we're still in an infrastructure that is based on wireless, and I feel like in the future, there are so many ways this could evolve. Even technologies like LiFi are promising where you could use, you know, light to communicate wireless, and it would be likely much more biologically compatible than using wireless, because these are frequencies that are inherently safer. So there's a lot of future development for this, but for the moment, just the recognition that there's a problem is kind of the first step.

Andy Smith 54:07 
Yeah, no, I get that. So, you know, what you're kind of saying there is that if the planes jumped ahead and, you know, started saying, we need you to turn your Wi-Fi off, it's going to raise questions like coming back to the smoking thing. If they were the ones to say first, no smoking on planes before it became a bit of a public health knowledge that smoking was dangerous, it's kind of like, oh, why is, you know, it's going to ask the questions. And yeah, it's a can of worms. We often hear that kids today are exposed to like vastly more levels of EMFs than their grandparents. We saw, you know, one article that said it's a billion times a billion more exposure, you know, so this isn't just a this isn't just a small amount. You know, as as parents, I'm a parent myself, I've got two young girls, you know, should we be more cautious about children's exposure? And if so, you know, why?

Nick Pineault 54:56 
Well, for sure, you know, for wanting all of our models that are already looking at the wrong thing, which is heating effects, but the models for safety are all based on adults. So, you know, never, never in the history of EMF safety testing, at least with the current safety standards that we have in North America and essentially adapted or mimicked across the world for consumer devices, never has there been a, you know, a thought that, okay, a four-year-old, a five-year-old, an eight-year-old might use a consumer device that emits these EMFs at a very close range. In fact, you have the original scientists that designed these standards for cell phone safety that said, well, we think now we've modeled them in, I think it was the head of a 10-year-old and we have 153% more exposure, so, you know, you, you bump the exposure by 50%. Why? Because, you know, if you have a smaller head, you have more penetration of the signal if you have a cell phone to the head. So what is it doing in an eight-year-old? And now we have kids that play with phones very close to their heads. And, you know, it is just a complete blind spot in EMF science. So it, so for one thing, the children have smaller skulls and also absorb more EMF radiation because their body generally has a higher water content. That's very, that's, that's not even controversial. What is controversial is, well, why don't we adapt the safety guidelines to the reality instead of to some idea that is from the 1980s, right? So our guidelines are completely broken and it's more like, it's likely that these dangers are exacerbated in children. Also, they have, you know, they haven't finished their brain maturation or they are more likely to get damaged to their nervous system that is not mild, mild needed yet. So you have so many indications that this could interfere with normal brain development. You even have a very concerning studies, especially from, from Yale and other research groups that prenatal exposure, exposing yourself while you are pregnant leads to more children with ADD, ADHD. And they think it's because of how it's impacting the brain development. So the indications are there in the scientific research that we should be more cautious. But since, you know, authorities are not recognizing the problem, we don't hear these messages. So therefore parents, you know, are just left to their own devices. And pun intended that like, okay, well, uh, you know, I don't know, my child is crying. Okay, let's hand him an iPad. And, and then there's something to be said about excessive screen time and not having too much parental control. But that's another area where parents are, you know, left to, you know, figuring things out. Uh, it's not like we've, we've heard a good messages on that either. I feel like maybe the public authorities are a little bit better on screen time, but you know, on EMF not so much. Or for parents, what I tell them is be very prudent towards these exposures. And if you do use an iPad or a device, you can pre-download the content and then put the device on airplane mode, turn off the wireless antennas and still have them watch a movie in a car ride. That's going to take two hours. Uh, I did it with my own child and I don't feel ashamed at all because it's tough to, you know, entertain a child, especially around four or five. They're very impatient and it's, it's tough. There's nothing, there's nothing, um, you know, particularly dangerous about a two hour movie in my view, especially if it's, if it's not something you do every single day, but if it's pre-downloaded, it means that it lives locally in the tablet, you don't have to, to have it streaming or you don't use, you know, the wifi, the integrated wifi in your car, where all of a sudden you have the entire car that is filled by wifi from the car dashboard to the tablet and back and forth, essentially you are recreating the problem with that wifi and airplanes we talked about. So, you know, these are just safer habits to develop, but they require using this technology with more caution and, you know, just with, with, you know, better, yeah, again, just more, more caution. It requires that you recognize there's a problem in the first place, which is not something a lot of parents have heard about, unfortunately.

Andy Smith 59:35 
That's good and it's good that you mentioned some practical solutions and i know you do that in your book as well which will kind of speak about the end. You talk about the children's development as well and this is something i heard on my other podcast that he was on. I was talking about autism and you know vaccines at the moment get quite a big blame in the autism is you know the huge rise in autism with children at the moment but. Do you think emf could be playing a role here.

Nick Pineault 01:00:02 
Well, you know, it's still speculative at this point, but there's, there's decent evidence that the mechanisms are there to contribute to different, you know, to, to different problems in, in children developing their nervous system and their brain. Uh, the best research we have is from too many years ago, 20 years ago, Dr. Marta Herbert, who's a, an ex research, uh, ex, uh, Harvard medical school. She has an incredible background and she told me, you know, two years ago, I interviewed her and she said to this day, we don't have a lot of, uh, new data that came out and she looked at all the potential mechanisms that could explain how EMFs interfere with brain development and she concluded. It is likely an agent that we need to look at, not only that, but if you talk about the fact that outer branches of science have evolved to show that certain environmental toxins can also interfere with brain development. The question is what is the synergistic effect between aluminum adjuvant or aluminum in food? Another problem. Aluminum in the air is another problem. Lead, mercury, the 200 and something chemicals that we have found in newborn, uh, cords blood 20 years ago. And especially in the last decade, more and more research groups are coming up with, well, children nowadays, they're born with this body burden of chemicals. What does it mean? And we don't know fully what that means. How much is that contributing to the fact that, you know, there's a chronic disease epidemic in children, especially in the Western countries, but now it's, you know, it's becoming more and more problematic. How much is, how much of that is EMFs? We don't know. We can speculate, but I would argue, you know, it's just another thing to think about and unfortunately for parents, to be fair, it's another thing to worry about. It's, it's, it's one of the multiple things that you have to think about in this modern era where you say, my God, so many children have food allergies and, um, you know, uh, do not develop as they should mentally and psychologically. And, you know, what can I do? The good news is there's a lot you can do, but it requires a lot of strength for parents to inform yourself and not become completely neurotic about it. So stay balanced, you know, in your education and, and how you look at it to not make your, your children, you know, fearful of everything, it's a challenge. It's difficult. Uh, and it, it, you know, for me, uh, in my everyday life as a dad, because my, my son will be eight year old, uh, next week, we, we do a little party here with kiddos running all around the place on, on Saturday, so I'm looking forward to that, but essentially we cut down wifi entirely. We only use ethernet cables for our computers or if he uses a tablet, it's going to be with an internet cable. So that's something we we've done, you know, nine years ago when my, when my, uh, wife became pregnant. So this is one of the ways that I'm able to offer him, uh, you know, the protection that I think he needs and then rest assured, I will freak out if he starts using AirPods at 15 years old. And I say, no, haven't you heard anything? I'm the EMF guy and I told, and I'll say, okay, well, you know, he's 15. So at this point I probably need to back off and just say, like, I don't think it's, it's good stuff for you. And, and, you know, at one point in a parent's journey, you will have to let it go and hope that everything you've done when they were younger, you know, it did help them anyway. And all you can do at this point, and I see 15, maybe it's 10 guys, they're becoming teenagers younger and younger. I recognize that, but all you can do is, is do your best and then preach by example. And that's something I tell parents who, you know, many parents are like 45, 50 years old, and they say, Nick, good luck, you know, controlling my children. My children are like 22 at this point. So what do I do? You, you know, you inform, you empower and you show what you do. And, oh, you know what? I stopped using these AirPods. I feel weird. Uh, I, or, you know, talk about sleep, sleep hygiene as best as you can and preach by example, that's all we can do really.

Andy Smith 01:04:35 
So someone listening to this, you know, we've talked about the dangers and what sort of thing and what are your methods are. If you had to give three practical takeaways from this, you know, whether it's for their children or if it's for themselves, what are the what are the three top tips you would give that can help reduce the EMF exposure, you know, the biggest impact.

Nick Pineault 01:04:55 
Yeah, it's it's really treatings very, very easy, but, you know, they're not easy to implement, to be fair, you have to think about it. So the first thing is before bed or by by your nightstand, is there anything emitting EMF? If it's a phone and, you know, many people tell me, oh, I'm confused about airplane mode or I need to, you know, my kids can, you know, reach me in the middle of the night or maybe my mom who's sick and all sorts of situations. And I tell them, okay, if it's too complicated, put your phone in another room and charge it there and stay, keep it open, but it's going to be, you know, 1015 feet from your body. So it's not that much of a problem and then turn off Wi-Fi if you can, if it's practical in your lifestyle, but make sure the room is a no EMF zone as much as you can. That's number one. Number two is the phone to the head. That's, you know, where we have the most science. It's the most concerned I am about EMF impact on potential development of a brain tumor. I do not wish that on everyone on anyone. So I would use speakerphone. I will use wired earbuds whenever you talk on the phone or just say, you know, I'm going to call you later when appropriate and then use speakerphone. As far as I'm concerned, I take all my calls in front of my computer. I have a VOIP, you know, a voiceover internet protocol. So I have a phone number, people call, it's on my computer and it's a wired computer. So I try to, you know, not make a habit of having many calls where I have to use a phone. And many people hate me for it, to be fair, like, Nick, I'm not able to reach you. And I say, well, just write to me on, you know, Facebook Messenger, I'll get it on my computer. So you have to reorganize your tools and your lifestyle around that. But, you know, it is for, it's even something on a productivity standpoint, it will make you less neurotic to not always be available also. So that's just a side note. And also when you carry your phone, make sure it's not, you know, in your pocket, women put it in, you know, in the, in the bra and the sports bra. I see that every other day. It's too close to the body. And, you know, if we have good data saying it might increase cancer risk to the head, could it increase cancer risk to the breast area, to the groin area? There are indications that it could. So again, just make sure it's on airplane mode or with wifi and Bluetooth off, or you carry it in a backpack, you carry it in your hand. And there are some phone cases that are, I would say, decent solutions to carry, carry them around. But these are really the three areas where I would have you focus.

Andy Smith 01:07:35 
And a good point you mentioned at the end there as well was that there's phone cases and things because we see a lot of companies selling these EMF blocking stickers for phones. I mean, I know what my opinion is on these, but I wanted to get your opinion from, you know, from an expert in this field. Do you think these EMF blocking stickers will do anything? You know, and if so, how are they supposed to do anything, you know, what's their technology behind it?

Nick Pineault 01:08:01 
I, you know, I haven't seen anything that has a decent science to explain. If it's not measurably reducing the amount of EMFs that a phone is emitting, how is it working? You know, and I haven't seen anything that is a sort of a miracle-less solution that all of a sudden would, they claim to nullify the impact of cell phone radiation, it makes no sense to me. There are some solutions, though, that, uh, will measurably reduce the emissions towards the user. And this is where the cell phone cases come at play. For example, where, you know, let's say you have a phone to the head and you have a special case, are you able to deflect the radiation away from the user to some degree, uh, these technologies exist. They will create a measurable difference. The question is, is it enough to not cause your phone to induce a brain tumor? And we don't have an answer. This is why, look, this is really why it is a slippery slope where I think the cell, cell phone cases are useful for carrying the phone, but even then I tell people it's not a complete solution. The complete solution is no emission because we don't know, for example, what is the safe threshold for fertility? So if your phone case is, isn't perfect and you use it in a way where it still exposes you a little bit, you know, can I feel good about recommending the phone case or will you fall into the, the idea that, oh, now my, my phone is completely safe and this is where, you know, I draw the line. So, uh, as far as the stickers goes, I, I think that most of them are, are way more marketing than any science. You know, if people feel good using them, good, but I, I, I just have a bad feeling about all of these products.

Andy Smith 01:09:51 
No good and let's just kind of wrap this up with a couple more questions but like 5G towers should you know should someone go as far as somebody lives next to a 5G tower you know there is actually apps I think in the UK now where you can see where these 5G towers are for people that are concerned about them. You know should we go as far as being concerned and wanting to move as far as we can away from these 5G towers you know is that level of concern there for you.

Nick Pineault 01:10:18 
It could be, there is sufficient evidence that if you're exposed to a tower at very close range, you could have health impacts that are even worse than a phone in a sense because the tower is further away and normally the intensity of the tower, it does impact your body, but it's more like living in a high pollution environment, which is the case if you live in London, which is the case if you live in Montreal. So here I am, you know, I chose a city environment, so therefore it comes with a certain amount of air pollution, same to be fair, same thing on the countryside if you live next to, you know, someone's spraying pesticides. So these are, you know, almost unavoidable exposures, but if the cell tower is so close that, I mean, you can almost reach your arm and touch it from your bedroom. And this has been the case in certain cities, especially in the U.S., but, you know, you're not necessarily impervious to it in the European Union or in Europe overall either, then it can be the equivalent of having multiple cell phones on your body all day, every day. So the reality is that in these cases, if you are concerned over the placement of a cell tower, you should have a professional survey your home, which is, you know, the U.S., but also it originated in Germany. So it is possible to find experts in the U.K. or throughout Europe, a little bit more difficult in Asia. I don't think it's as developed, but, you know, it's some something that deserves professional level readings with specialized meters to see, OK, well, are these towers, in fact, pointing towards me or are they pointing towards the ground? And I'm just, you know, stressing over it. But in the end, my own Wi-Fi and my own phone is even worse. Right. In many situations, the exposures that you're getting that are the most intense and probably matter the most in your entire life are the ones that you have control over your computer, your phone, your, you know, your use of Bluetooth. But the reality is that certain towers are so close to people that this is a definite concern in certain countries. You have, in fact, you can alert the authorities if certain cell towers have been placed in what you consider too close to your body. In France, there is there are precedents where cell towers have been moved away, for example, and they were in in they were overexposing people. Same thing happened in India and in different countries, even in the U.S., in rare cases, they were able to move them. But the reality is that, again, it is an uphill battle, like it's not something you're going to just call the company and they'll say, oh, don't worry about it. We're going to pay, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to move the towers, rebuild them somewhere else and hire professionals. You know, it's a huge deal to have to move towers. But in some areas, it's been just found that telecoms can install them way too close to people, and sometimes they are in direct breach of what is considered the safe limit in that country. So, you know, my my advice would be would say to be prudent, but not paranoid. Take care of your own devices. But if you have a cell tower that is eye level with you and at close proximity, so we're talking within, you know, 100 meters or less or even closer than that, then maybe consider having your home surveyed to see how much of a problem it is. Some people have found that, yes, I just don't feel well in this apartment. I'm wondering what's wrong with me. And sometimes it is too close of a proximity to a cell tower. And I would say 5G, regardless if it's a 3G antenna, 4G, 5G, LT, it doesn't matter that much, although 5G might be even worse just because of the nature of how the technology is built. But what matters most, I think, is just the sheer intensity of a cell tower can be way too overwhelming for the human body if it's at close proximity.

Andy Smith 01:14:36 
Okay, and you know correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any governments or any governing bodies and stuff have actually come out and you know stuck the flag in the ground and said you know emf dangerous yet but. We're getting closer I think like you know we see Robert F Kenny G jr now in the US talking about things like emf exposure and it's starting to get discussed more by public figures. You know is this a step forward do we think this is we're moving in the right direction.

Nick Pineault 01:15:04 
It is a step forward, I don't know how much it'll be able to do, but the fact that it is discussed, I know there's a there's a working group that is being formed to discuss the effects of EMR, electromagnetic radiation, another word for it. So it is a step in the right direction. You know, the FCC in the United States was supposed to regulate that, that's the Federal Communication Commission. In 2021, they lost in court and it was recognized that essentially what they did is reaffirm that, oh, our safety guidelines are perfectly safe, but without actually looking at the science that was presented in front of them, which was 11,000 pages of scientific evidence of harm. And they said, no, they essentially ignored it, put it in the recycle bin and then said, all is safe again, which is to be expected because it's it's an industry from group essentially completely captured. So if we have Robert Kennedy Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or anyone else, we look at the FCC and say, no, we think you've done a very poor job and if the FCC has to recognize, no, our safety guidelines are inappropriate. What happens in the U.S. might cause a precedent throughout the world. So this is why it matters. It's not just U.S. focused. It could be a big deal, but again, it is an extremely uphill battle. It is one of the industries that is the perfect example of regulatory capture at the FCC level and at the international level is the same thing at an organization called Ignerp that is that has been created in Germany. That is a group essentially controlled by industry at this point. So, you know, all the regulations are controlled by the industries that they're supposed to regulate. So this is really the main problem we have. And that's something people will be familiar with what's happening with pesticides, what's happening with, you know, whether it's Monsanto or anyone else, it is the way to do business for large corporations. It is a cost of business. You have to capture the regulators and you have to make it happen. It's kind of a, you know, part of the playbook. It was part of the tobacco playbook is still happening. And with wireless, it's especially bad. It's some people said this is worse than big pharma, in a sense, because they pour so much money to make sure that the regulators are captured. What gives me hope is if we can at least get some studies going because there was essentially zero funding after 2018 in the U.S. for any type of scientific inquiry, I think that some impact would be recognized. And at a minimum, what they can do is not force the elimination of technology, but, you know, just start to twist the arm of Apple and Samsung and Google and all these tech companies saying, guys, you need to figure out a way to make things safer. Well, some of the ways that scientists have proposed could these devices could be made safer is by using technologies that are that could be, you know, incorporated in new phones, just with the next iPhone version. Imagine a world where that proximity sensor that recognizes that my face is here could be used and it could be used to just trigger, you know, if you recognize that you are close to the body, you turn off antennas done all of a sudden. People cannot expect a call if it's in the front pocket or in the bra or in the pocket. But all of a sudden you have an entire population who doesn't have to be careful about their phone exposure in a pocket because automatically it turns off. So so the reason that the manufacturers will not go there is that there is the difference between being, you know, at the forefront of precaution and being recognized as, oh, wait a minute, now you're doing this. So it means in the past you've harmed users is so thin that it's a PR nightmare. So I don't know if we're going to see another company emerging saying now we have a safer phone for you and the other guys are evil, maybe. Or it's going to be the government that essentially says, look, we think there are immense dangers and we require phones to clean up their act just like they did with, you know, seat belts and car safety. And now it's starting even I mean, even in electric cars will get better over time and it will be maybe it will be the industry itself self regulating or maybe it will be top down. It will be governments that say, guys, this is unacceptable. You have poor battery placement. You have immense levels of EMS in your EVs and you have to tell your engineers for the twenty thirty two models, it has to be way lower. And this is how it works. It has worked that way. But the pressure needs to come from all angles, I think, and also from consumers, you know, asking for safer devices, having these discussions. And if there's a public sentiment that we need safer devices, there's going to be a market for it. So I think in the end, the industry is going to start realizing, OK, maybe we need to better use better engineering to make our devices. I think they could be made a thousand times safer within a few years.

Andy Smith 01:20:34 
Yeah, no, thank you. For today, we're out of time, Nick. It's amazing. This is such an important subject and that's why we've covered all the time so quickly. And there's hundreds of more questions I want to ask you. And I hope that in five years or if it has to be in 10 years, we're in a completely different world where this has been recognized and procedures have been put in place. But we mentioned your book earlier. If people want to take a deeper dive and if they want to look at some practical solutions to some of the things that, you know, everyday use, can you just introduce your book and then also, you know, how can people find you if they want to contact you or contact, you know, learn more about EMFs.

Nick Pineault 01:21:16 
Sure. So I wrote a quite funny and depressing, but also actionable book called The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs in 2017. It's still very relevant because not much has changed. So it's essentially the short version of EMF science, why it's nonsensical, what to do about it, simple action steps. And for my most up-to-date information, including, you know, I have many different types of free educational summits that I put together there on my website, TheEMFGuide.com.

Andy Smith 01:21:54 
cool thank you so much for that and thanks for your time today anybody listening to today's episode if you enjoyed it please subscribe and leave us a five star review on your favorite streaming platform because it really does help us get more great amazing guests like Nick to share the knowledge of you but Nick for today thank you so much again

Nick Pineault 01:22:10 
Thanks for having me.