“Why your Cell Phone Shouldn’t Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution” is the long subtitle of this book by Ann Louise Gittleman. Because my husband uses his old-fashioned cell phone (not a smart phone that constantly checks Email) as an alarm clock, I hoped this would persuade him to try something different but… no dice.

It prompted me to get a fabric catalog from LessEMF.com so I could make field-dampening pillow cases. (Haven’t done it yet.) You can also get meters to determine how much EMF you have or Stetzerizers to filter out the offending wavelengths (also called Graham-Stetzer filters).

Page 8 offers a chart of infrequences emitted by everyday things from microwaves to power lines.It goes on to explain

“Like everything else in our world, our bodies and every organ and tissue they contain have their own distinct frequency. The late Bruce Tainio… built the first frequency monitor in the world.. and determined that the average frequency of the human body during the daytime is 62-68 Hz. When the frequency drops to 58 Hz, cold and flu symptoms appear; at 55 Hz, disorders like candida take hold, at 52 Hz, Epstein-Barr, and at 42 Hz, cancer.”

The author talks about the work of Nobel Prize winner Gunter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D, who established that cell signaling includes frequencies (energetic signals) which are picked up by peptides. He also studied with Hazel Parcells, M.D., Ph.D. who taught Ms. Gittleman to think of each cell in the body as an electric battery broadcasting the pulsating rhythm of life. When you change the energy, you change how effectively the cells work.

Zapped directed me to AntennaSearch.com where I found these diagrams of the wireless towers near my house. I was relieved because it was so much less than the blasting RF I was exposed to when I worked in a TV station in San Francisco for seven years.

Antenna Search map results

My favorite product, one purchased by a friend of mine when she realized how much wireless pollution she was exposed to, is her “tin foil hat.” She wears it most nights, taking a break from time to time because it seems to be so effective that it interferes with dreams. Described in the catalog as, “Stretchy Silver-coated nylon skull cap with ear flaps is lightweight and breathes nicely. Comfortable enough to wear year-round while sleeping, thin enough to be worn under a conventional hat or all on its own.” The perfect gift for someone who has everything.

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Happily, I really liked Allegra Goodman’s “Intuition” (2006), which deals with fraud in a biotech lab. Ms. Goodman did some of her research in a lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, and she demonstrates how questionable results can make it onto the record, despite the good intentions of the scientist involved. It took me back to my years in Massachusetts when I was married to a candidate for a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering.

The others in his Environmental Engineering program included entomologists studying gypsy moths. He did not get the doctorate. After I left him, he got kicked out of the program for falsifying his data. I was not the one who turned him in. It was the pretty lab technician he was bonking, the one who already had a child out of wedlock when she met him. Sure, I knew he was falsifying data when he was about two years into the program. I saw him sitting at the table in our bedroom in Graduate Student Housing filling in lab data sheets. Sure, I knew he was cheating when I found women’s underwear smaller than my size on that same the bedroom floor.

I had been a biologist for my first two years of college and I knew the rules. I asked him what he was doing and he growled at me. I shrank back and disappeared.

When one does not have an independent source of support, when one is financially dependent on the person who is lying, one can make some destructive decisions. That is an underlying theme of “Intuition”.

Allegra Goodman draws clearly defined personalities that really drive the action. Dr. Glass, the marketing half of the research lab, is a successful, wealthy, practicing M.D. who “embraced mythology. He was an oncologist. He understood the uses of enchantment.”

The prime mover of the lab is Dr. Marion Mendelssohn, a brilliant researcher committed to finding the truth but who is hobbbled by her introversion. When they are hauled before a congressional committee to defend work in their lab, Dr. Glass spurs Marion to defend herself. “Stop acting guilty when you’re not. Stop dreading everything when you have nothing to fear.”

The strong characterization would make this novel a candidate for a movie, but the ending is a lot like true life. And not a Hollywood ending. In real life, the good guys don’t always win, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the bad guys win.

Sometimes being right costs you everything.

How important is it to be right? As my friend Beth once asked, “Would you rather be right or be happy?” I saw the dismay creep into her face as I struggled with what she thought was an easy question.

I identified with the researcher who was committed to the truth, to being right. And I laugh at my glee, realizing that my cheating husband was kicked out of his Ph.D. program because the slatternly lab tech turned on him.