I’m Patricia Burke, and I’ve been disabled by electromagnetically hypersensitivity since 2009. As a child, I knew that I was more sensitive than other people to loud noises, chemicals, synthetic fabrics, wool, medications, certain foods, media violence, and other stimuli.  My family moved to Southeast Asia in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  When I returned to US to finish high school, I was generally able to stay healthy through sports and time outside in nature. But I recognized even as a young person that I was sensitive to chemicals in body care and household products, etc., fluorescent lights in school, and flashes of light on television screens.

When I was 17 years old, I was lifeguarding in Hopkinton MA when the tree behind the beach was struck by lightning. I was running at the time, and only my left foot was on the ground. The strike went up my left leg and out the top of my head. After the lightning strike, I became even more attuned to factors that cause physical stress reactions for me.  I was unable to use a hairdryer, or sit under a ceiling fan, or spend time near HVAC equipment.  If I went to a mall with theft detectors, I would feel drained and become sick. When airports started using security scanners, I had to ask to be manually patted down.  Generally, I was able to hold my own in the world through self-care and with the support of knowledgeable teachers and health care providers.  I trained in four styles of yoga, eventually studying and teaching yoga based in the meridian system of oriental medicine.  My understanding of the meridian system gave me deeper insight into how the lightning strike affected me. (Eventually, I also came to understand how EHS impairs human health differently in different individuals through inborn constitution.)

In the late 1990’s, after teaching yoga for many years, I started to become sick constantly.  Whatever flu or a seasonal health ailment circulated, whether it was intestinal or respiratory, I would get sicker than everyone else and stay sick longer. In 2008, I relocated to California from the East Coast to preserve my health, not realizing that I would run headlong into wireless smart meter installation.  I moved 4 times in 2 years in CA, camping in a tent for months.  Eventually, I recognized that I would die if I did not get myself out of an environment where my nerves, brain and heart were being continuously assaulted by unnatural radiofrequencies out of thin air. I realize now that my health started to deteriorate when wireless infrastructure to support cellphones proliferated due to the Telecom Act of 1996.  But at the time, I assumed that if cellphone towers and antennas were installed next to people’s homes, they must have been proven safe. I was mistaken, as are most Americans. I did not know that the RF limits in the US are orders of magnitude less safe than those in many other countries. I met other people in CA who became extremely sick coinciding with smart meter installation, and it was horrifying to realize the industry, the government, and environmentalists were not only ignoring evidence of harm, but also dismissing, ridiculing, and attacking those reporting adverse health impacts.

I believe that when the appropriate epidemiology is conducted in the US, evidence will prove that there was a correlation with certain cohorts of individuals being diagnosed with chronic health challenges as well as acute illnesses coinciding with increased RF exposures. I also believe that evidence of damage to the environment will be overwhelming, including harm to bees and other pollinators and to certain trees and plants. As an EHS affected person, I am unable to access protected housing, employment, education, spiritual and social gatherings, public transportation, and health care.  I have missed weddings, wakes, funerals, christenings, graduations, my son’s PhD celebration, and countless family and community gatherings, due to the presence of microwave towers or antennas and the use of personal wireless devices by others.  I have moved 20 times in 7 years at significant cost and loss. The isolation faced by the EHS community intensifies the magnitude of suffering. Of all of the human rights abuses that the EHS community faces, the inability to create safety in the sanctuary of one’s home is perhaps the most violating, and discriminatory, because it essentially robs the individual of a zone where suffering can be contained or mitigated.  And, this is both preventable and unnecessary, because white zones can be created immediately, as has occurred in other countries where compassion and dignity has prevailed.

I have experienced first hand that EHS/MCS affected individuals become disempowered when they can no longer access community and resources, and I appreciate S.A.F.E.’s vision to create a platform that does not leave this marginalized population behind. By printing and mailing newsletters for those who need them, offering phone support, and compiling resources including contacts of knowledgeable and respectful health care providers, I would like to contribute to the necessary course correction that must unfold, so that technological innovation becomes re-aligned with a reverence for life. I believe the RF damages the aura and the electromagnetic field that surrounds living organisms in the same way that the earth’s protective ozone layer was assaulted by fluorocarbons. Because the electromagnetic field that surrounds all living things is the first line of defense for the organism, when radio frequencies diminish this protective and insulating layer, the individual’s nerves will then act as un-insulated or un-shielded wiring.  I also believe that the quality of the cerebral-spinal fluid, seminal fluid, and other protective, cushioning, and life-protecting substances in the body is being altered by microwave exposure.

As a society, we have the technological capability to be able to recognize, study, and protect against the phenomenon of EHS, rather than the current strategy of “deny, defend, and attack” to protect economic interests. We can and should be constructing and retrofitting homes and businesses to meet Building Biology Codes for AC and DC electric fields, magnetic fields, and radio frequencies, and filtering the water supply, instead of placing radio frequency devices including water meters on all plumbing devices. Many under-informed environmentalists believe that there is a dividing line in integrity between fossil fuels and renewable energy and energy efficiency, and have been loath to admit that industrial scale wind turbines, solar farms and smart meters are causing harm. Corporatocracy has infiltrated alternative energy. Profound damage is unfolding under the guise of sustainability due to a lack of discernment, fueled by propaganda.

I don’t feel that I am “allergic” to RF, I feel that I am more conductive of the frequencies in use than others, and perhaps more aware that my symptoms are directly related to RF exposure.  I believe that variations in salt and sugars (energy) may play a role, and that the gall bladder in particular is one of the electrical bodyguards of the human energy field.  I believe that RF exposure is fueling the surgical assembly line of gall bladder removals, which is akin to removing the warning light from the car dashboard. I believe that the EHS population will play a critical role in helping to realign human endeavor with Natural Law, and that this population possesses a tremendous amount of wisdom to share about wellness and health. I also believe that history will have a very difficult time understanding why Americans did not realize that skyrocketing rates of neurological disease and childhood illness were related to the explosion of use of wireless devices, and that we can in fact have technological convenience alongside health and environmental stewardship only if we begin and end with deep reverence for nature and for one another.

I used to be able to visit my sister’s family, until the new condo building went in across the street, and the developer put all of the smart meters on one wall, right across from her bedroom window. For an EHS individual, this is energetically akin to facing a firing squad.