Dr Neil Cherry
(1946 -2003)

People around the world who have known Dr Neil Cherry personally or have been familiar with his work will be deeply saddened to learn that he died on 24 May 2003.

For eighteen months he had been coping with increasing mobility problems caused by Motor Neurone disease, but his mind remained as clear as ever and even in the last week of his life he was still focussed on the science that had been such an absorbing passion in his life. Though he could no longer use his computer he could still speak and until the day before he died he was supervising the editing of chapters of his latest book.

Knowing how long and persistently he had worked towards the development of windpower his wife Gae arranged for some strong-armed friends to drag his wheelchair up the steep slope at Gebbies Pass to let him see the erection of the first windmill by Windflow, the company of which he was Chairman of the Board. The brass plate on the mill reads Neil.

He continued to serve science and the health and welfare of people around the world when many others would have given up the struggle, and through all his illness, as through all his career, he had wonderful support from his wife Gae.

The papers written by Dr Cherry will continue to be available on this website.

Dr Neil Cherry, held the position of Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Lincoln University, and had a professional scientific background in physics, biophysics, meteorology, Agricultural and Human Biometeorology, renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental epidemiology.

Environmental Health involves assessing the health impacts of environmental toxins and proposing solutions based on efficient, smart and safer technology, engineering, planning and strategies that are consistent with the quadruple bottom line. The quadruple bottom line takes into account environmental, social, financial and cultural factors.

Professor Cherry had skills of teaching and research on the climate, health effects of weather on plants, animals and people and the health effects of air pollution and viruses, the academic area of Biology, Biophysics and Environmental Epidemiology. Dr Cherry was also an elected Regional Councillor on Environmental Canterbury, since 1992. From 1995 he had been the Chair of the Regional Planning Committee. Thus he was responsible for developing plans to clean up the environment. He was frequently involved in resource consent hearings for applications seeking to release contaminants to the environment.

Dr Cherry had been very familiar with environmental law and its linkage to scientific evidence. The main New Zealand law applied to the plans and resource consents is the Resource Management Act (1991) [RMA]. The RMA law requires decisions to avoid, remedy or mitigate any potential or actual adverse affects of activities on the environment. In the RMA the Environment includes people and communities. Effects include cumulative effects and Any potential effects of low probability that have a high potential impact , Section 3, RMA.

Back in 1994 Dr Cherry was invited by a local primary school (Opawa) to present information on the possible health effects of a cell site that was proposed to be installed next to the infant department of the school. He explained to the school meeting that the law contains the precautionary approach of having to deal with potential adverse effects on the environment including people and children. Integrating his knowledge from classical physics involving resonant absorption, showed that the frequency of the cellphone radiation produced a half wavelength that match the child's size. Therefore children were highly vulnerable for any possible health effects. He therefore recommended that the school declined the offer. The school voted by over 80 percent to reject the offer to install a cell site adjacent to the infant teaching block.

Since this time most of Professor Cherry's research had been focused on the health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation. In November 1994 he was an expert witness in the first cell site base station appeal in New Zealand assisting the local residents to win the case by the court rejecting the request by BellSouth for a 200µW/cm² public exposure standard. The court set the allowable level at 2µW/cm², based on evidence of childhood leukaemia at 2.4µW/cm², the law requiring it to be avoided. Dr Cherry had been surprised to find how much published science there is to show that across the electromagnetic spectrum the ELF fields and RF/MW radiation damage the cellular DNA, alter cellular calcium ions, reduce melatonin, and altar many cellular functions. Radiofrequency and Microwaves, including cell phone radiation, are genotoxic shown by many independent studies published since the first in 1959. Therefore they are carcinogenic. Microwaves also open the Blood Brain Barrier, letting natural and external brain damaging chemicals into the brain and CNS. Dr Cherry also discovered that epidemiological studies of exposed workers and the residents confirm, through classical public health assessment, that electromagnetic fields and radiation are a Ubiquitous Universal Genotoxic Carcinogen, causing increased rates of Cancer, Cardiac, Reproductive and Neurological health effects in exposed human populations, with a safe level of zero exposure.

Dr Cherry's standing and credibility was confirmed on 1 January 2002 by the award of a Royal Honour of Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit (O.N.Z.M.). The citation for his award shows that it is for his services to Science, Education and Community, including his research and teaching work on Environmental Epidemiology and the health effects of electromagnetic radiation.

Dr Cherry's own research, published in the Natural Hazards journal, Cherry (2002), shows that a natural electromagnetic signal, called the Schumann Resonances, generated by a tropical thunderstorms, and radiating around the world in the resonant cavity created between earth s surface and the bottom layer of the ionosphere, is resonantly absorbed, detected and responded to by the brain because of the ELF frequency matching the frequency range of the spectrum of the brain EEG rhythms.

The Schumann Resonance signals provide synchronization of the ELF, daily and annual functions of the brain. The latter two are in support of the normal diurnal and seasonal solar activity. This provides the biophysically plausible mechanism to explain how sunspots on the sun, solar storms and sunspot cycles modulate cancer, cardiac, reproductive and neurological effects through modulating the melatonin/serotonin cycle in human populations. This confirms the importance of and sensitivity of the melatonin protective activity, including being a highly potent antioxidant being with naturally produced (by breathing) oxygen free radicals.

Cherry (2002) predicted that since electrical workers and physiotherapists are occupationally exposed to electromagnetic fields that are about a million times higher than the Schumann Resonance signal, would have higher rates of cancer, cardiac reproductive and neurological effects. Multiple independent epidemiological studies confirm that this is true. It is also scientifically sensible and proven that placing a cellular telephone next to your head, producing a signal around a billion times stronger than the Schumann Resonance signal, causes serious alterations of brain activity, leading to elevated rates of a road accidents, headaches, nausea, dizziness, loss of concentration and memory, DNA damage and enhanced cell death rates, and significant increases in brain cancer rates. All of this is confirmed by many published studies. Biological organs, including the brain, are flexible, variable and adoptive biological organs. For the brain s electromagnetic thinking activity to be coherent and stable enough for intelligence to develop, Dr Cherry had concluded that the ELF synchronization of the brain electromagnetic activity by the Schumann Resonance Signal in a has provided a mechanism that allowed intelligence to develop.

To find the information on this site that allows you to investigate the above claims you may wish to read the abstracts of relevant papers and reports. To find the abstracts and for access to the shopping cart for full download of the papers go to Purchase & Download Papers