A deep dive into the non-thermal biological mechanisms from low-frequency AC magnetic fields turning San Francisco's NFL athletes into the league's most fragile.
Please please please let this be the bombshell we've been hoping for to get the Niners back to SF where they belong. This article is so well researched and makes absolute sense. Teams normally fluctuate with the injury bug but the Niners are consistently the most injured team. This makes absolute sense. Now we need to get the billionaires on board
Great work and research on this article. It's wild to see how many people want to wave this off as "nothing to see here". Glad you are shining a light on the situation
Interesting read and certainly an avenue worth exploring. For context I have a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, with a focus in biomechanics. I spent my PhD studying ligament injuries in sport under one of the top researchers in the US, and have numerous publications in the field. I’d be curious to see the primary sources you are referring to with regard to the actual underlying degradation of the tissue. This is a complex issue to investigate, and likely requires a confluence of animal studies, studies in cell biology, and epidemiological data similar to what you have cited, to gain a clearer perspective. A handful of your pubmed citations led me to 404 error pages, I was wondering if you could provide the name of the paper, or fix the links. I’d like to read them before you release part 2! Thanks for the write up, looking forward to more!
The late Dave Stetzer was an expert on ground current and polluted power quality. https://www.stetzerelectric.com/research/ is his research repository. This is the transcript of his evidence in support of the Michigan Attorney General's case against Consumers Energy Company on behalf of dairy farmers and lost milk production. It's not just humans.
Can you imagine if there were a lawsuit brought against this utility for lost income to the team and players? or against the US govt for its inadequate exposure guidelines?
Thank you Patricia. I am not hopeful about a lawsuit, given all the work that Andrew Marino did in the 1970s when they first started installing high voltage transmission lines through peoples property. But maybe I am wrong and the country is ready to have that discussion again.
HI Peter, thanks so much for this article. It's not just SF and not just football - (Jason Tatum and the Celtics) There is also another explanation via Chinese medicine: the Gall Bladder Meridian which runs along the outside edges of the torso and legs (IT band) contracts deeply in the case of stress, to enable not spraining an ankle in the case of running over rocks while fleeing a tiger.
Gall Bladder is also an electrical bodyguard designed to detect from something found in nature - a lightning strike.
Long before the process of conscious thought, the meridian system will brace for impact acting to protect the brain and the heart - via deep contraction. The bones in the skull can actually tighten up - not known to Western mainstream medicine.
This biological electrical intelligence also allows fish to school and birds to flock together.
And, it detects RF, magnetism, etc., like all the meridians and the fascia. Epidemic Gall Bladder removals are like removing the warning light on the car dashboard.
Before his death Joe Esposito in OK was also tracking brain tumors in baseball pitchers being subjected to radar to measure their throwing speed.....We need to do better by our athletes and ourselves. I wrote about Gall Bladder pretty far down in this article and there is a drawing of it also: https://patriciaburke.substack.com/p/emfrf-do-fish-have-amnesia-and-other Thank you
It is possible, but you would have to measure. Also, keep in mind, lots of different types of EMF radiation in our modern world, so it could be another exposure. Most of us are all chronically dehydrated at the cellular level to some degree, unless we know better and know how to mitigate.
Well written and carefully researched. Good links to studies as well. Makes an iron clad case. I hope this has been shared with the NFL as I imagine it has. They should take this very seriously considering the money involved in professional sports. Maybe the visibility will caused the broader public and media to finally understand the threat to the public with the rampant proliferation of cell towers and wi-fi in our schools.
The first shot on Google that includes the substation is 7/27/2002. The most recent previous image was March of 2000. So it popped up somewhere between those two dates.
If this is causal, you would expect to see a significant increase in injuries in the 49ers relative to the mean of the league after that time period. Starting the analysis myself now to see what I find
Also - I love all the science, but I think it would be helpful to go back and accurately update the articles with the date range that the substation was built. I mentioned your first article to my friends (a few of whom are both huge niners fans and very nerdy - we all grew up in the south bay), and their first response was "uh that's bogus, they started practicing in Santa Clara way before 2014..." It made it easier for them to not take the science seriously.
Again, huge supporter of your work! Would love to help however I can.
Awesome. There must be a ton of variables here that affect it - for example, it'd be really great to know more about the substation operations. The substation could have changed something that they do in a way that increased the soft tissue damage at some point.
Love that you're doing this. Gutted by Kittle's injury yesterday. Feel free to ask for help in your posts, I think a lot of people want to support this investigation.
Researching the history of the substation, and the timing of any upgrades, plus the increase in load over time (my understandoing is that there’s lots of high electrical demand infrastructure build up around there since 2014)
Compiling a list of all NFLers (and ex-NFL) who have show that they are sympathetic to this hypothesis
Local bay area media contacts who might be interested in digging into the story.
Holy shit is THIS why the @49ers have never expressed any public interest in assessing their horrifically excessive injury rate relative to other NFL franchises???
Is it because they can’t extract themselves from their lease in Santa Clara in a financially expedient way?
As a Personal Trainer/Health professional and lifelong niners fan every year I talk about the niners injuries with my lady. I guessed the players stretching was not up to par. Amazing findings by you op. Thank you. The organization really needs to investigate more. One related question I have is what were Kyle Shanahan's player injuries like with other teams he (or on staff with his dad) coached in places like Washington. I'm with the other commenters. Team should be in San Francisco. Warriors make more sense in the South Bay than the niners.
It's also worth looking at the 2021 (I think) Astroworld festival mass casualty event. Several people died and many more suffered extreme effects. The official explanation was a 'crowd crush' but this made no sense. They died of cardiac arrest according to the PM (many were being treated on scene with defibrillators) but in a crowd crush people generally die of compression asphyxia (such as the Hillsborough disaster).
Many in the crowd complained of intense feelings of doom, breathing difficulties, bleeding eyes/ nose/ throat, vomiting etc ..... all symptoms associated with microwave exposure. Despite feeling like they were suffocating they were all screaming help, which again contradicts a 'crush' scenario and sounds more like oxygen deprivation or low O2 in the blood (60GHz)?
Some festival goers reported seeing people drop to the ground throughout the day in wide open spaces (ie not a crowd crush). They literally just passed out instantly....... only to come round and get up and wander off within moments, not quite sure what had happened to them.
A ridiculous story about a man injecting people in the neck was given from the outset by officials, only to be retracted within hours. The whole event stinks of a cover up./ muddle up. None of the official explanations accounted for what actually happened according to all the witnesses and autopsies.
The stadium was 5G equipped and the crowd were standing on plastic or rubber mats. The crowd were all young and all were filming with their smartphones during the concert. Perhaps they were unable to ground themselves and a charge built up?
Since the 49ers have been practicing in Santa Clara at the same facility since 2003 long before the stadium was there something else that happened starting in 2014?
Thanks for all this, Peter. Plausible sounding on its face and absolutely worth investigating further. (There may be multiple causes for the Niners' high injury rate, yet there's merit in objectively looking into whether EMF might potentially be one contributor.)
Check out the table in this article of "adjusted games lost" (AGL) due to injuries during the 2010 through 2022 seasons:
("Adjusted games lost doesn’t just add up total injuries. It accounts for both absent players and those playing at less than 100%, and it gives more weight to injuries to expected starters and situational players than to expected backups.")
Except for 2013, which doesn't quite fit the pattern, the 49ers AGL was vastly higher from 2014-on than it was in 2010, 2011, and 2012, at least suggesting a higher rate of consequential injuries to team members beginning with the first season they moved to Levi's Stadium.
Maybe you can contact Aaron Schatz, formerly of Football Outsiders (and now at FTN Fantasy), whose organization compiled that table?
Hoping you and Aaron have a productive discussion.
I don't know if similar data might be available for the league, prior to the start of this table in 2010 - and if the AGL formulas could then be applied to those years, as well - but it clearly would be useful to establish a longer baseline.
The raw data from which the AGL stats were calculated would also be very helpful; perhaps there are statistical approaches and/or AI tools which can further suss out whether the Niners 2014-on injury experiences are truly outliers, both during the team's history and across the league.
Also, lauding Emmett Balassone's excellent question elsewhere in these comments, and your receptivity to considering that.
It's true that the 49ers have been practicing at the same field in Santa Clara since 2003, long before Levi's Stadium opened in 2014. That adds a new wrinkle to my now seemingly simplistic take on pre- and post-2014 comparisons of injury and injury severity rates.
I've just watched your interview with Keith Cutter who is a dear friend of mine. You are on to something here Peter. I'm reading the old literature about EMFs, Paul Brodeur, Robert Becker, Sam Millham and the other "usual suspects" and all this makes sense. I was injured by that synthetic poison which made me become electro hypersensitive so I know what I'm talking about. Not long ago I tested a motorcycle and measured 130 mG on the seat and all around the riders feet and thighs due to the alternator. I mean cars are bad enough but bikes are much worse. It would be interesting to find out how many of those 49ers also regularly ride a bike, which would further increase their exposure to magnetic fields. Let me know your thoughts please :)
Yes, and imagine a poor delivery guy who possibly spend 8-10 hrs a day on a motorbike. You have the best consumer grade gaussmeter, the AlphaLab UHS2, so investigate your surroundings. An electrical substation or a power transmission line are only the tip of the iceberg but the rabbit hole is very deep.
It is an extremely compelling argument and you have documented it well. As a life-long 49er fan, it is not easy to hear, but I have to believe there is enough to support the theory presented. Nicely done!
Please please please let this be the bombshell we've been hoping for to get the Niners back to SF where they belong. This article is so well researched and makes absolute sense. Teams normally fluctuate with the injury bug but the Niners are consistently the most injured team. This makes absolute sense. Now we need to get the billionaires on board
I'm with you. Candlestick had a lot more charm and grit.
Great work and research on this article. It's wild to see how many people want to wave this off as "nothing to see here". Glad you are shining a light on the situation
Hi Peter,
Interesting read and certainly an avenue worth exploring. For context I have a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, with a focus in biomechanics. I spent my PhD studying ligament injuries in sport under one of the top researchers in the US, and have numerous publications in the field. I’d be curious to see the primary sources you are referring to with regard to the actual underlying degradation of the tissue. This is a complex issue to investigate, and likely requires a confluence of animal studies, studies in cell biology, and epidemiological data similar to what you have cited, to gain a clearer perspective. A handful of your pubmed citations led me to 404 error pages, I was wondering if you could provide the name of the paper, or fix the links. I’d like to read them before you release part 2! Thanks for the write up, looking forward to more!
Links fixed
Thank you!
I will fix the links. Thank you. Next installment will have more detailed references to the underlying mechanisms.
The late Dave Stetzer was an expert on ground current and polluted power quality. https://www.stetzerelectric.com/research/ is his research repository. This is the transcript of his evidence in support of the Michigan Attorney General's case against Consumers Energy Company on behalf of dairy farmers and lost milk production. It's not just humans.
Can you imagine if there were a lawsuit brought against this utility for lost income to the team and players? or against the US govt for its inadequate exposure guidelines?
Thank you Patricia. I am not hopeful about a lawsuit, given all the work that Andrew Marino did in the 1970s when they first started installing high voltage transmission lines through peoples property. But maybe I am wrong and the country is ready to have that discussion again.
HI Peter, thanks so much for this article. It's not just SF and not just football - (Jason Tatum and the Celtics) There is also another explanation via Chinese medicine: the Gall Bladder Meridian which runs along the outside edges of the torso and legs (IT band) contracts deeply in the case of stress, to enable not spraining an ankle in the case of running over rocks while fleeing a tiger.
Gall Bladder is also an electrical bodyguard designed to detect from something found in nature - a lightning strike.
Long before the process of conscious thought, the meridian system will brace for impact acting to protect the brain and the heart - via deep contraction. The bones in the skull can actually tighten up - not known to Western mainstream medicine.
This biological electrical intelligence also allows fish to school and birds to flock together.
And, it detects RF, magnetism, etc., like all the meridians and the fascia. Epidemic Gall Bladder removals are like removing the warning light on the car dashboard.
Before his death Joe Esposito in OK was also tracking brain tumors in baseball pitchers being subjected to radar to measure their throwing speed.....We need to do better by our athletes and ourselves. I wrote about Gall Bladder pretty far down in this article and there is a drawing of it also: https://patriciaburke.substack.com/p/emfrf-do-fish-have-amnesia-and-other Thank you
Yes you are correct. This is much bigger than the 49ers, they are just the canary in a coal mine.
Thank you for that explanation from TCM. I suffer from IT band contraction myself.
Thank you Patricia for all your hard work!
The school where I teach is near a large substation. Maybe that’s why I suffered a hamstring avulsion while running with my cross country team?
What school?
It is possible, but you would have to measure. Also, keep in mind, lots of different types of EMF radiation in our modern world, so it could be another exposure. Most of us are all chronically dehydrated at the cellular level to some degree, unless we know better and know how to mitigate.
so… How do you rehydrate Your cells?
I'll answer that in part 4
Well written and carefully researched. Good links to studies as well. Makes an iron clad case. I hope this has been shared with the NFL as I imagine it has. They should take this very seriously considering the money involved in professional sports. Maybe the visibility will caused the broader public and media to finally understand the threat to the public with the rampant proliferation of cell towers and wi-fi in our schools.
Thank you. Wait until the next installment...
They've practiced on those fields since the 1980s. When was the substation built? I think that would add a lot of credence to this.
The first shot on Google that includes the substation is 7/27/2002. The most recent previous image was March of 2000. So it popped up somewhere between those two dates.
If this is causal, you would expect to see a significant increase in injuries in the 49ers relative to the mean of the league after that time period. Starting the analysis myself now to see what I find
Also - I love all the science, but I think it would be helpful to go back and accurately update the articles with the date range that the substation was built. I mentioned your first article to my friends (a few of whom are both huge niners fans and very nerdy - we all grew up in the south bay), and their first response was "uh that's bogus, they started practicing in Santa Clara way before 2014..." It made it easier for them to not take the science seriously.
Again, huge supporter of your work! Would love to help however I can.
Ravi,
You are right. I plan on adding and essay to address this issue, rather than editing the original. I’ve jusg been swamped since going viral!
Awesome. There must be a ton of variables here that affect it - for example, it'd be really great to know more about the substation operations. The substation could have changed something that they do in a way that increased the soft tissue damage at some point.
Love that you're doing this. Gutted by Kittle's injury yesterday. Feel free to ask for help in your posts, I think a lot of people want to support this investigation.
Thank you Ravi!
I think the most helpful things would be:
Researching the history of the substation, and the timing of any upgrades, plus the increase in load over time (my understandoing is that there’s lots of high electrical demand infrastructure build up around there since 2014)
Compiling a list of all NFLers (and ex-NFL) who have show that they are sympathetic to this hypothesis
Local bay area media contacts who might be interested in digging into the story.
Feel free to email me: hello@sunlightislife.com
This is good information. Thanks Mark
Holy shit is THIS why the @49ers have never expressed any public interest in assessing their horrifically excessive injury rate relative to other NFL franchises???
Is it because they can’t extract themselves from their lease in Santa Clara in a financially expedient way?
I can’t believe that.
Let’s find out!
This is the goal... to find out! (Well, and the keep the players healthy, and WIN)
As a Personal Trainer/Health professional and lifelong niners fan every year I talk about the niners injuries with my lady. I guessed the players stretching was not up to par. Amazing findings by you op. Thank you. The organization really needs to investigate more. One related question I have is what were Kyle Shanahan's player injuries like with other teams he (or on staff with his dad) coached in places like Washington. I'm with the other commenters. Team should be in San Francisco. Warriors make more sense in the South Bay than the niners.
That is a good question. I am over my head on the football part of this story, though, so better answered by someone else!
It's also worth looking at the 2021 (I think) Astroworld festival mass casualty event. Several people died and many more suffered extreme effects. The official explanation was a 'crowd crush' but this made no sense. They died of cardiac arrest according to the PM (many were being treated on scene with defibrillators) but in a crowd crush people generally die of compression asphyxia (such as the Hillsborough disaster).
Many in the crowd complained of intense feelings of doom, breathing difficulties, bleeding eyes/ nose/ throat, vomiting etc ..... all symptoms associated with microwave exposure. Despite feeling like they were suffocating they were all screaming help, which again contradicts a 'crush' scenario and sounds more like oxygen deprivation or low O2 in the blood (60GHz)?
Some festival goers reported seeing people drop to the ground throughout the day in wide open spaces (ie not a crowd crush). They literally just passed out instantly....... only to come round and get up and wander off within moments, not quite sure what had happened to them.
A ridiculous story about a man injecting people in the neck was given from the outset by officials, only to be retracted within hours. The whole event stinks of a cover up./ muddle up. None of the official explanations accounted for what actually happened according to all the witnesses and autopsies.
The stadium was 5G equipped and the crowd were standing on plastic or rubber mats. The crowd were all young and all were filming with their smartphones during the concert. Perhaps they were unable to ground themselves and a charge built up?
Here's an interesting story of renewal after moving from higher to lower AC magnetic field exposures, in this case reversal of leaky gut syndrome: https://keithcutter.substack.com/p/leaky-gut-syndrome-healed-after-reducing?r=16nbbo
at the risk of starting a riot. was 5G installed?
C-band and millimeter wave microcells were installed in September as part of a massive upgrade for the Superbowl.
Can you imagine aging 3 months in one afternoon/evening?
I won't miss the energetic assault.
I wonder how many medical emergencies there will be.
Silicon Valley is the heart of 5G, soon to be 6G and the wireless carriers are working on upgrading to 10G.
This is true.
Since the 49ers have been practicing in Santa Clara at the same facility since 2003 long before the stadium was there something else that happened starting in 2014?
This is a fair question. I am going to address is in a post-script to the series.
Excellent question!
Thanks for all this, Peter. Plausible sounding on its face and absolutely worth investigating further. (There may be multiple causes for the Niners' high injury rate, yet there's merit in objectively looking into whether EMF might potentially be one contributor.)
Check out the table in this article of "adjusted games lost" (AGL) due to injuries during the 2010 through 2022 seasons:
https://www.milehighreport.com/2023/3/10/23632711/injuries-caused-disaster-broncos-2022-season
("Adjusted games lost doesn’t just add up total injuries. It accounts for both absent players and those playing at less than 100%, and it gives more weight to injuries to expected starters and situational players than to expected backups.")
Except for 2013, which doesn't quite fit the pattern, the 49ers AGL was vastly higher from 2014-on than it was in 2010, 2011, and 2012, at least suggesting a higher rate of consequential injuries to team members beginning with the first season they moved to Levi's Stadium.
Maybe you can contact Aaron Schatz, formerly of Football Outsiders (and now at FTN Fantasy), whose organization compiled that table?
Thank you for this source. I will reach out to him.
Hoping you and Aaron have a productive discussion.
I don't know if similar data might be available for the league, prior to the start of this table in 2010 - and if the AGL formulas could then be applied to those years, as well - but it clearly would be useful to establish a longer baseline.
The raw data from which the AGL stats were calculated would also be very helpful; perhaps there are statistical approaches and/or AI tools which can further suss out whether the Niners 2014-on injury experiences are truly outliers, both during the team's history and across the league.
Also, lauding Emmett Balassone's excellent question elsewhere in these comments, and your receptivity to considering that.
It's true that the 49ers have been practicing at the same field in Santa Clara since 2003, long before Levi's Stadium opened in 2014. That adds a new wrinkle to my now seemingly simplistic take on pre- and post-2014 comparisons of injury and injury severity rates.
Here's a history of 49ers training facilities:
https://ninernoise.com/posts/san-francisco-49ers-training-camp-location-history-fun-facts
I've just watched your interview with Keith Cutter who is a dear friend of mine. You are on to something here Peter. I'm reading the old literature about EMFs, Paul Brodeur, Robert Becker, Sam Millham and the other "usual suspects" and all this makes sense. I was injured by that synthetic poison which made me become electro hypersensitive so I know what I'm talking about. Not long ago I tested a motorcycle and measured 130 mG on the seat and all around the riders feet and thighs due to the alternator. I mean cars are bad enough but bikes are much worse. It would be interesting to find out how many of those 49ers also regularly ride a bike, which would further increase their exposure to magnetic fields. Let me know your thoughts please :)
130 mG is no joke. I never thought about motorcycles. That is a good lead!
Yes, and imagine a poor delivery guy who possibly spend 8-10 hrs a day on a motorbike. You have the best consumer grade gaussmeter, the AlphaLab UHS2, so investigate your surroundings. An electrical substation or a power transmission line are only the tip of the iceberg but the rabbit hole is very deep.
It is an extremely compelling argument and you have documented it well. As a life-long 49er fan, it is not easy to hear, but I have to believe there is enough to support the theory presented. Nicely done!