[Excerpt from A Wellness Guide For The Digital Age]

smallerfileboy in car

Electric/Hybrid Cars 

Unfortunately, the energy-saving strategy of hybrid cars may have significant risks for human health. A hybrid vehicle combines a regular internal combustion engine and an electric motor powered by batteries. When you start the car, and at low speeds, the car runs just with the electric motor and battery. At high speeds the gasoline engine kicks in. The electric motor and batteries help the conventional engine work more efficiently, so far less fuel is used compared to even very efficient gas-powered vehicles. A good goal.

Electric/Hybrid Cars – The Concern:

Most of these vehicles:

  • Have big battery packs just behind the rear seat, with cables running underneath the passengers toward the front of the car. Some drivers have used Gauss meters to check inside their hybrid vehicles for the EMR levels from the flow of electrical current to the motor. They reported very high levels – hundreds of times higher than our scientists consider safe.
  • There are also anecdotal reports of drivers of hybrids complaining of new health problems including rising blood pressure, excessive fatigue while driving, and other symptoms of electro-hypersensitivity.
  • I hear they are developing hybrid trucks and buses – very big batteries. Good for global warming, but what about the health of the occupants? (Larry Gust) “The magnetic fields are approximately 10 times higher in hybrids than in conventional vehicles, depending on the measurement location in the car.”  
  • The back seat reading can be extremely high. Is this really where you want to put your baby’s car seat?
 
The health effects are just one of the concerns; as you will see in the next section, this kind of radiation has been shown to affect cognitive abilities including reaction time. Having the conductor, or driver, texting is an obvious distraction, but making transportation vehicles wireless presents other hazards. This is particularly worrying in a high-speed train, or in an aircraft. 
Cognitive impairment and cardiac problems in the cockpit at 37,000 ft?

More in Part 2 (coming in February 2014)