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You are here: Home / Technology / Is 5G Worth the Risks?

Is 5G Worth the Risks?

April 26, 2019 by Iishana Artra, PhD 8 Comments

In recent months there’s been a lot of talk about 5G – the next generation of wireless technology. 5G is being touted as a necessary step to the ‘internet of things’ – a world in which our refrigerators alert us when we’re low on milk, our baby’s diapers tell us when they need to be changed, and Netflix is available everywhere, all the time. But what we’re not hearing is that evidence-based studies worldwide have clearly established the harmful effects of human exposure to pulsed radiofrequency radiation from cell towers, cell phones and other devices – and that 5G will make the problem exponentially worse.

Most people believe that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) carefully assesses the health risks of these technologies before approving them. But in testimony taken by Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, the FCC admitted it has not conducted any safety studies on 5G.

Telecom lobbyists assure us that guidelines already in place are adequate to protect the public. Those safety guidelines, however, are based on a 1996 study of how much a cell phone heated the head of an adult-sized plastic mannequin. This is problematic, for at least three reasons:

  • living organisms consist of highly complex and interdependent cells and tissue, not plastic.
  • those being exposed to radiofrequency radiation include fetuses, children, plants, and wildlife – not just adult male humans.
  • the frequencies used in the mannequin study were far lower than the exposures associated with 5G.

5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation uses a ‘cocktail’ of three types of radiation, ranging from relatively low-energy radio waves, microwave radiation with far more energy, and millimeter waves with vastly more energy (see below). The extremely high frequencies in 5G are where the biggest danger lies. While 4G frequencies go as high as 6 GHz, 5G exposes biological life to pulsed signals in the 30 GHz to 100 GHz range. The general public has never before been exposed to such high frequencies for long periods of time.

 

 

This is a big deal. It turns out that our eyes and our sweat ducts act as antennas for absorption of the higher-frequency 5G waves.[1] And because the distances these high-energy waves can travel is relatively short, transmitters will be required closer to homes and schools than earlier wireless technologies: the build-out will add the equivalent of a cell tower every 2-10 houses.

But former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made it clear the Telecom-dominated FCC does not put health first: “Stay out of the way of technological development,” he said. “Unlike some countries, we do not believe we should spend the next couple of years studying… Turning innovators loose is far preferable to letting committees and regulators define the future. We won’t wait for the standards.” In response to questions about health concerns, Mr. Wheeler said: “Talk to the medical people”.[2]

Good idea.

The “medical people” have conducted over 2,000 international evidence-based studies that link health impacts with pulsed radiowave radiation from cell towers, routers, cell phones, tablets, and other wireless devices. These studies tell us that RF radiation is harmful at even low and short exposures, and that it impacts children and fetuses more rapidly than adults. Among the findings are that RF radiation is carcinogenic, causes DNA damage, affects fertility and the endocrine system, and has neurological impacts. Pulsed electromagnetic frequencies have also been shown to cause neurological symptoms: depression, anxiety, headaches, muscle pain, attention deficits, insomnia, dizziness, tinnitus, skin tingling, loss of appetite, and nausea. [3]

The U.S. Government has known of these risks since at least 1971, when the Naval Medical Research and Development Command published a bibliography containing 3,700 references reporting 100 biological and clinical effects attributed to microwave and radio-frequency radiation.

Recent findings, such as the $30 million 2018 U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) Study, have corroborated the findings of all well-designed heart and brain cancer studies of people with 10 or more years’ exposure to cellular radiation from cell towers and cell phones. They all agree: RF radiation causes cancer.[4]

What has been the response to these findings?

Scientists are urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to update its classification of RF from a Group 2B Carcinogen to a Class 1 carcinogen – making RF and 5G comparable to arsenic and asbestos. Annie Sasco, former Chief of WHO’s Research Unit of Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention, says, “Enough is enough, how many more deaths would be needed before serious action is taken? Evidence just continues to accumulate.”

Ronald Melnick, the designer of the NTP study, says that the study “shows clear evidence of a causal link between cancer and exposure to wireless cell phone signals.” He adds that “An important lesson that should be learned from the NTP studies is that we can no longer assume that any current or future wireless technology, including 5G, is safe without adequate testing.”[5] Meanwhile, 231 scientists from 42 nations have signed the 5G Appeal, which urgently calls for a moratorium on the technology. Steps are being taken to slow the deployment of 5G in Italy, Belgium, Israel, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, and in the states of California, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Oregon.

But so far, not enough political leaders have been willing to heed the warnings. Or perhaps they are deferring to President Trump, who said that 5G antennas “must cover every community and they must be deployed as soon as possible…. No matter where you are you will have 5G and it is going to be a different life. I don’t know that it will be better… but I can say that technologically it won’t even be close.”[6]

Wireless technology has become so ubiquitous that most of us have been lulled into believing it is safe. Now, the hazards are about to be ratcheted up dramatically. More citizens and legislators need to join those who are actively resisting the reckless push for 5G.

 

Photo by Douglas Fehr on Unsplash

 

[1] “The Human Skin as a Sub-THz Receiver – Does 5G Pose a Danger to It or Not?”, and “The Modeling of the Absorbance of Sub-THz Radiation by Human Skin” (Betzalel 2017, Betzalel 2018) https://principia-scientific.org/study-human-sweat-ducts-act-as-antennas-for-5g-radiation/

[2] “5G network being pushed on the public with zero concern for safety”, Nexus Newsfeed.com

[3] “Electromagnetic and Radiofrequency Fields Effect on Human Health”, American Academy of Environmental Medicine.

[4] These peer-reviewed published papers are compiled in the BioInitiative Report, which you can view at BioInitiative.org.

[5] Melnick, Ronald, “There’s a clear cell phone-cancer link, but FDA is downplaying it”, The Hill, Nov 13, 2018.

[6] “Remarks: Donald Trump discusses deployment of 5G wireless networks”, Factbase, April 12, 2019.

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Filed Under: Development, Health, Technology Tagged With: corporations, development, health, technology

Author: Iishana Artra, PhD

Iishana Artra, PhD is a public health and safety advocate and EMF testing professional in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Comments

  1. Greg Horrall says

    April 26, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    Absolutely not worth the risks from the standpoint of humanity and the rest of the earth’s living things, but the corplex financial brain sees 5G as the next great “productivity revolution” (profit-making tech advancement) and will therefore almost certainly succeed in implementing it anyway. We who are aware can tell others, protest, and try to avoid buying the new 5G stuff as much as possible, and hope that it will fall to the wayside, but I’m not betting on success with that.

    Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” with its “ice nine” and Nick Bostrom’s paper on “The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” are must-read warnings for us all. Keep protesting and de-cooperating (not buying) as much as possible any and all techs like this…5G, particle experimenters, genetic engineering, nuclear, nano, etc. Unfortunately, something like this is almost inevitably going to get us unless the whole system breaks down so that there simply isn’t enough “excess” human and earth resource capital to enable the ongoing march of progress.

    Reply
  2. Suzie Blue says

    April 26, 2019 at 11:36 pm

    no way. do your research and you won’t want 5G it’s dangerous for our health, affects our fertility and has not been tested. A bunch of Sydney doctors took the government to court stating it has negative effects on our health. They won the case and Sydney isn’t going 5G. The Gold Coast has already and Toowoombah but obviously no one bothered to check out the health concerns.

    Although I haven’t researched this myself, I have been told it was developed initially as a weapon due to the affects on our brain. So could be used against the population to make us docile. But check this out yourself for credibility

    Reply
  3. Helen Watkins says

    May 2, 2019 at 6:15 am

    I am absolutely dreading 5G coming and we should all be standing up and saying NO TO 5G
    It is going to have catastrophic effects on all life….blanket covering the planet with no escape from it.

    Reply
  4. Chris says

    May 5, 2019 at 8:09 am

    Rf at high power densities ie near commercial transmitters is harmful. Its unlikely output powers of small local equipment will be more than a few milliwatts resulting in extremely low local power densities.
    Main danger from RF is from the heating effect of the water molecules in our bodies this peaks at around 2.4ghz as far as I can recall. IE microwave ovens frequency.
    Personally I have no time or need for 5g and can see no advantage to me from it. Much like Facebook or Whats app etc. We are quite connected enough with face to face communication (talking) becoming rarer, this being replaced by “smart ” phone communications which seems highly addictive…

    Reply
  5. Matt James says

    May 6, 2019 at 11:07 pm

    Great article -well written and informative.
    I’ve just started a UK petition on this following your article.

    Can you help me out by signing this petition?
    http://chng.it/9nhJvSpw

    Reply
  6. Ronald H says

    May 17, 2019 at 10:59 pm

    I don’t mind if we don’t and won’t have 5G, even though I work in Tech field, esp the IoT and robots, and some AI.

    However, IoT is usually mistaken as “fridge alerts me when milk low”. This is boring use case from society viewpoint. We couldn’t the “growthism via too much capitalism”; however, “IoT”, it happens to be the “soul mate”(metaphor) of new emerging economy called “Collaborative Commons”, or aka Zero Marginal Costs society, IoT if not “over-used”, just enable us to connect “things”, a building using too much energy or urban cars wasting 20 hours a day as idle metal box. IoT if properly used (governed), enables us to “deeply” share precious stuff whose environmental costs never accounts in corp P&L. Above is not originated from me, but the 60 years old professor Jeremy Rifkin et al. Tech per se is a neural tool, it is up to us little human, in front of mother earth, to carefully use, with good reasons. Shape the future together : )

    Reply
  7. Michael Verrenkamp says

    June 5, 2019 at 9:30 am

    The frequency fear of 5G is just that, fear and nothing more. There are many problems with a system like this from interference with weather satellite readings, to the encouraging additional use of pointless digital gadgets, making our communication system ever more complex by adding hundreds of thousands of new potential failure points… but physical health risks aren’t one of them.

    For there to be a cancer risk you need to have atomic damage, that is the ionizing part of ionizing radiation. That starts just after the violet part of the electromagnetic spectrum, I think it is about 4,300,000 Ghz – WAY beyond what 5G is doing. 5G is about a 300,000 times lower than visible light, and way below that of ultra violet light. If it can do damage then we should ban light globes and any exposure to the sun.

    Shame to see a this turn up on here, this site is better than this.

    Reply
    • Iishana Artra says

      June 29, 2019 at 5:05 am

      We have learned a great deal over the past 50 years of EMF science. The most recent breakthroughs include the $25million 10-year National Toxicology study showing cellphone radiation causing cancer, which corroborates the Ramazzini study’s findings for cell towers, as well as corroborating dozens of other studies. Science shows not only that pulsed radiowave radiation impacts biological life in at least 7 different ways, but is also beginning to explain how it does, as well as the fact that ionization can begin to occur after a longer period of exposure than was considered in the past. As humans are electrical systems also, we experience interference from non-ionizing and ionizing radiation. An excellent overview is given by Dr. Martin Pall in his research papers and this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBsUWbUB6PE.

      Reply

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