A Pennsylvania AMI Smart Meter Survey Reports Horror Stories

By Catherine J. Frompovich

Pennsylvanians literally have been screwed figuratively by their state legislature and legislators regarding the totalitarian approach and mandate to retrofitting health-harming utility [electric, natural gas and water] AMI Smart Meters, specifically through committee procedural actions of soon-be-retired PA House Consumers Affairs Committee Chairman, Robert Godshall, whose son, Grey, works as a Project Manager [per LinkedIn] for Exelon/PECO, the utility company whose utility district is much of SE Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia. Any conflicts of interest going on there?

Godshall kept “opt-out” from AMI SMs bills from being brought to the floor for a vote for almost 8 years! Maybe a total of 24 bills? Godshall deprived Pennsylvanians of their legal rights and, therefore, should be prosecuted for that, in many Pennsylvanians’ opinions!

Widget not in any sidebars

The questions all PA voters should be asking this November election cycle are, “How come you didn’t stand up to Godshall and demand U.S. and State Constitutional rights of Pennsylvanians were protected and enforced? Do you really deserve my vote? Other states provided smart meter exemptions!”

Numerous utility customers—probably in the hundreds—have filed formal complaints with the PA Public Utility Commission, only to be told by the PA PUC’s kangaroo Administrative Court, the law is the law and you must get an AMI SM or have your service terminated!

However, that law as placed in the administrative agency (PA PUC) regulations was not what was passed by the state legislature, the only legal authority to pass laws in Pennsylvania. When the PA PUC wrote that agency’s rules and regulations for utility companies, PUC based their regs upon what it claimed (incorrectly) the legislature passed, rather than what was voted upon.

There is absolute proof for the above statement, which is found in the PA Senate and House Journals of the days when HB2200 was discussed and argued with numerous legislators stating “smart meters were not to be mandatory.” Therefore, HB2200, aka Act 129 (2008), was an opt-in bill and the language stated so. See HB2200 §2807(f)7(2).

The other definitive proof comes in the form of the last paragraph of the March 23, 2017 letter from Dave Hixson, PA Public Utility Commission, Office of Communication in Harrisburg, PA, addressed to Mr. Thomas A. McCarey wherein Hixson admits the PUC’s obvious deliberate mistake:

As I stated in my earlier email correspondence with you, the Commission believes that it was the intent of the General Assembly to require all covered electric companies to deploy smart meters system-wide.

Believes? The language could not be any clearer!

Do you need any more proof than the above? And still, no one has been fired nor prosecuted for such malfeasance of public duty and trust. Why?

Numerous utility customers, and/or members of their families, have experienced dramatic health anomalies and issues since the retrofitting of non-ionizing radiation-emitting microwave energies that AMI SMs send into their homes, offices and places of business. Those folks are not an anomaly, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized that health problem; it’s called “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” (EHS) for which the medical term is “idiopathic environmental intolerance” (IEI).

Statistically, it’s a global problem with high percentages of people affected in various countries. Here are some statistics showing the percentages in a few countries:

26% of the USA population (Caress & Steinemann, 2003)
19% of the Swedish population (Johansson et al, 2005)
27% of the Danish population (Berg et al, 2008)
32% of the German population (Hausteiner et al, 2005)

It is now 2018. With all the microwave devices deployed besides AMI SMs, can you imagine how many more humans are affected negatively?

As a result of the above, several Pennsylvanians decided to survey utility customers about their health experiences after having had one or more AMI SMs, in some cases—I know of one person who has 3: electric, natural gas and a power outage generator—retrofitted onto “their” home, in order to determine what, if any, health reactions were occurring within the Pennsylvania population.

I was contacted during the initial strategy talks for determining the survey questions, and also vetted the final survey format before it was sent via email to utility consumers. Accordingly, the Petition had a Preamble which stated:

There is a growing body of evidence that exposure to radiation from wireless “smart meters” is putting peoples’ health at risk. Those people who believe that their health has been adversely affected by “smart meter radiation” have so far been unable to obtain relief from either the Pennsylvania state legislature or the PA Public Utility Commission. It is our hope that you will fill the survey, as it will help us the take political action on the state level to offer protection to consumers and relief to those who have suffered health losses. The public deserves safe electric meters, rather than state-mandated smart meters and the radiation they emit.

Here are some of the survey stats that were verified by an actuary:

• 62% of those who answered the survey said they took steps to mitigate the adverse effects they were experiencing from the AMI SM retrofitted on to their utility service

The analysis of adverse health conditions, when numerically tabulated for results, found interesting data:

• First place had a tie: Concentration and Memory/Learning
• Second place had a four-way tie: Insomnia, Stress Anxiety, Depression and Irritability
• Third place: Fatigue
• Fourth place had another four-way tie: Headaches, Tinnitus/ear ringing, Cardiac symptoms, Arrhythmia
• Cancer of the blood was reported by one person
• Other symptoms were reported by over 45% of people
• However, only 7% of respondents said they had NO symptoms

The survey underwriters, during tabulation of results, noted several observations they passed along for inclusion in this report.

• One of the things that stands out from the survey is the proportion of people who have taken steps to minimize the impact of meters. 62% of respondents answered yes to this question. Protection took the form of placing guards around the meter including aluminum coverings, steel coverings, aluminum plates, faraday cages and faraday cages in the house. One person put up a grounding mat on the wall. A couple of people said they moved the meter further from the house. One person paid $5,000 to move a meter from the house and put up a shield.
• Other people mentioned their resistance to smart meter installation as part of minimizing the impact. One person tried to get their city to outlaw them.

Interesting Comments on Illnesses

• My sinuses have been stuffed and I sneeze and blow my nose all day long EVERYDAY since they rolled the meters out in my neighborhood!!! My oldest cat has what seems to be like an upper respiratory infection ever since they put the meters in our neighborhood since Nov 2017 and it is now Apr 2018 and my health and the cat’s health has [sic] NOT gotten any better!!! My hubby has started to show signs of cold like symptoms as well.
• One person reported vertigo, migraines and ringing when visiting people who had meters.
• Some people who have so far successfully resisted meters complain of health problems from other people’s meters such as one person who reported ringing in the ears/tinnitus due to all installed sms on other houses.

However, when I looked through the completed survey results, I made some notations I thought readers would be interested in knowing as responses to various questions.

Question 1 asked if the recipient had an AMI SM or meter installed since 2013. One person answered that question with,

“I have fought PECO and PUC for 6 years and the lawyer from PECO called 2 weeks before my hearing and asked if I would accept an Aclara meter which transmits every 4 hours instead of every 5 mins and does not have 2 way communication. I accepted because if I didn’t PECO would shut off my service.”

Question 2 asked, “Is your electric meter located near a living or sleeping area?” This person’s answer caught my attention:

“I moved all around Pennsylvania and again I lived in houses and apartments and the pain is exactly the same: eye problems, skin problems, hair loss, vertigo, diarrhea, gas, nausea, back pain, joint pain, arthritis symptoms. I watched my pets suffered and couldn’t help them. Lastly I watched my senior parents suffer in silence, my two children were extremely affected and hurt and they have to take pain pills to sit in a high tech wifi radiation microwave environment Phila Schools. No one understands that some people cannot tolerate technology; go old school put everything back inside the wires. [….] I want to live off grid, no technology, no cell phone, no smartmeters, that’s how bad my body feels. I apologize for my writing, I am frustrated and I am tired suffering and I have to watch my children, my senior parents and my parents suffer and I could not help myself and I couldn’t help them.

Question 6 asked, “Have you taken steps to minimize the impact of smart meters? If so, what?”

In reading the completed surveys, I found several comments that impressed me; here are a few:

a. Had the meter moved to the back side of the house with an aluminum plate behind it

b. Paying 5,000.00 to move meter from house & putting up a shield

c. Because it is not near a sleeping area, my concern is a fire or power surge (this happened to my mom when hers was installed). We already take steps to minimize EMFs (turn wifi off at night, airplane mode, belly armor blankets). If it was near a sleeping quarters I would take (very expensive) steps to shield the EMFs and dirty electricity. Very concerned about a house fire though since I do not think our current electrical system can handle a smart meter and we cannot afford to rewire our house at the moment.

d. I couldn’t afford to do anything because I feel terrible and everywhere technology and my body is severely affected by it. Me and my children, a portion of the population, are highly sensitive to technology. They need quiet zones off grid apartments and houses. I am now homeless and sick also apartment buildings are loaded with smartmeters. I actually moved in with family in apartments and it felt like torture. Please reduce the power lines its too many celltowers in the lights on poles puts off high frequencies. We need to live in an emf microwave weapon wireless celltower weapon free zones.

e. Faraday cage in bedroom

f. Faraday cage on meter…not working

g. I buy no “smart” appliances which enable the smart meter to transmit my personal usage to PECO. Disabled my microwave oven, use no cordless or cell phones, shut off computer at night and plan to hard wire it

h. We BEGGED peco not to install it. We had to move the beds away from the wall and the piano, musical instruments and computer.

Now that the western part of Pennsylvania is being inundated with utility companies forcing AMI SMs on customers, there is mounting resistance.

If Pennsylvanians don’t raise a huge ‘stink’ in Harrisburg, especially after Chairman Godshall no longer chairs the House Consumer Protection Committee, we never will get the humanitarian relief that is needed, and attested to, by the survey results above.

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)