Story at-a-glance
- 5G relies primarily on the bandwidth of the millimeter wave, known to cause a painful burning sensation. It’s also been linked to eye and heart problems, suppressed immune function, genetic damage and fertility problems
- FCC admits no 5G safety studies have been conducted or funded by the agency or telecom industry, and that none are planned
- The FCC has been captured by the telecom industry, which in turn has perfected the disinformation strategies employed by the tobacco industry before it
- Persistent exposures to microwave frequencies like those from cellphones can cause mitochondrial dysfunction and nuclear DNA damage from free radicals produced from peroxynitrite
- Excessive exposures to cellphones and Wi-Fi networks have been linked to chronic diseases such as cardiac arrhythmias, anxiety, depression, autism, Alzheimer’s and infertility
Exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF) and radiofrequency (RF) radiation is an ever-growing health risk in the modern world. The Cellular Phone Task Force has a long list of governments and organizations that have issued warnings or banned wireless technologies of various kinds and under various circumstances, starting in 1993.
A long list of organizations representing doctors and scientists are also among them, including an appeal for protection from nonionizing EMF exposure by more than 230 international EMF scientists to the United Nations in 2015, which notes that:
“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines.
Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”
A call for a moratorium on 5G specifically was issued in September 2017 by more than 180 scientists and doctors from 35 countries, “until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry,” noting that “RF-EMF has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment,” and that “5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on top of the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. for telecommunications already in place.”
In an article on the Environmental Health Trust’s website, Ronald Powell, Ph.D., a retired Harvard scientist of applied physics, notes “there is NO SAFE WAY to implement 5G in our communities; rather there are only ‘bad ways’ and ‘worse ways,'” and rather than argue about who should have control over its deployment, we should focus on preventing its employment altogether.
Health Concerns Over 5G Abound
Wall Street analyst Sunil Rajgopal recently warned mounting health concerns may delay the implementation of 5G, Fortune magazine reports. Some countries have already taken steps to slow 5G deployment due to health risks, Rajgopal notes. The question is, can it be stopped?
5G testing was recently halted in Brussels, Belgium, and Switzerland is delaying its 5G rollout in order to create a system to monitor radiation. Syracuse, New York, is also attempting to set up some safeguards and has “negotiated the right to conduct on-demand safety inspections of 5G antennas,” to allay public concerns.According to Forbes:
“In New Hampshire, lawmakers are considering establishing a commission to study the health impacts of 5G networks. And Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco, last year banned new 5G wireless cells.”
Many other areas, however, have chosen to trust the Federal Communications Commission and the wireless industry trade association, CTIA, which has created a “Cellphone Health Facts” website citing research showing no risk. However, if you believe the FCC is assessing health risks, you’d be wrong.
At a recent senate commerce hearing (above), the FCC admitted that no 5G safety studies have been conducted or funded by the agency or the telecom industry, and that none are planned. In a speech given at the National Press Club in June 2016, Tom Wheeler, former FCC chairman and prior head of the wireless industry lobbying group, made the agency’s stance clear when he said:
“Stay out of the way of technological development. 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 light of the more than 2,000 studies showing a wide range of biological harm from EMFs, assurances from the FCC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that wireless radiation exposures, including 5G, is safe, seem disingenuous at best. As noted in a recent Counterpunch article:
“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.”
What Level of EMF Can Humans Withstand?
EMF exposure at many biological impacting frequencies, such as those that run cellphones and Wi-Fi, has increased about 1 quintillion times over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, EMF exposure is so widespread these days, it’s virtually impossible to conduct controlled population studies anymore, as no population is truly unexposed or unaffected. This lack of a control group makes it very difficult to determine what the real-world effects are.
That said, one controlled exposure study has been done, revealing it’s nowhere near as harmless as people think. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were two populations in the United States — rural and urban. Urban areas were by and large electrified, while rural areas were not electrified until around 1950.
Dr. Sam Milham, an epidemiologist, painstakingly analyzed mortality statistics between these two populations over time, clearly showing there was a wide difference in mortality from heart disease, cancer and diabetes between these two groups. Then, as rural areas became electrified, the two curves merged.
Today, we not only live and work in electrified surroundings, we’re also surrounded by microwaves from wireless technologies. Soon, 5G may be added to the mix, making exposures all the more complex and potentially harmful. As noted by Counterpunch:
“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 …
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.”
Health Concerns Linked to 5G Exposure
The added concern 5G brings is the addition of the millimeter wave (MMW). This bandwidth, which runs from 30 gigahertz (GHz) to 300GHz, is known to penetrate up to 2 millimeters into human skin tissue, causing a burning sensation.
This is precisely why MMW was chosen for use in crowd control weapons (Active Denial Systems) by the U.S. Department of Defense. MMW is also used in so-called “naked body scanners” at airports.
Research has shown sweat ducts in human skin act as receptors or antennae for 5G radiation, drawing the radiation into the body, thereby causing a rise in temperature. This in part helps explain the painful effect. As noted by Dr. Yael Stein — who has studied 5G MMW technology and its interaction with the human body — in a 2016 letter to the Federal Communications Commission:
“Computer simulations have demonstrated that sweat glands concentrate sub-terahertz waves in human skin. Humans could sense these waves as heat. The use of sub-terahertz (millimeter wave) communications technology (cellphones, Wi-Fi, antennas) could cause humans to percept physical pain via nociceptors.
Potentially, if 5G Wi-Fi is spread in the public domain we may expect more of the health effects currently seen with RF/ microwave frequencies including many more cases of hypersensitivity (EHS), as well as many new complaints of physical pain and a yet unknown variety of neurologic disturbances.
It will be possible to show a causal relationship between G5 technology and these specific health effects. The affected individuals may be eligible for compensation.”
MMW has also been linked to:
- Eye problems such as lens opacity in rats, which is linked to the production of cataracts, and eye damage in rabbits
- Impacted heart rate variability, an indicator of stress, in rats and heart rate changes (arrhythmias) in frogs
- Pain
- Suppressed immune function
- Depressed growth and increased antibiotic resistance in bacteria
