“5G has the potential to be a revolutionary force; boosting the economy, increasing connectivity and changing the way we communicate which will impact every industry –purposely designed so that industries can take advantage of cellular connectivity in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before, and to scale upward as use of 5G expands. Think about this process for a moment: engineers from rival inventing companies, rival product makers, rival wireless network operators, all from different countries and continents, discussing, testing, striving to perfect tens of thousands of different technical solutions that ultimately make up a standard like 5G.” – Qualcomm, WEF, How 5G will change the world
Is 5G a safe standard or a set of Tech industry specifications not yet mindful of its wider impact?
In the absence of open-mindedness and a multi-disciplinary transparent engagement on scientific research of an all-pervasive 5G technology, regulatory proposals and policies may very well be driving a negative synergy, a catastrophe not yet seen. “The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has in 2011 classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.“ – Yet gaps in ethical research on humans remain as well as effects of rapidly increasing man-made sources of EMFs as it interacts with multiple other pollutions in the human environment. Medical research even questions it as the tipping point for increases in neurological deaths in the Western World…
What is the legal remedy if people get sick from 5G and wireless tech?
Swiss Reinsurance noted in 2019 “To allow for a functional network coverage and increased capacity overall, more antennas will be needed, including acceptance of higher levels of electromagnetic radiation. In some jurisdictions, the rise of threshold values will require legal adaptation. Existing concerns regarding potential negative health effects from electromagnetic fields (EMF) are only likely to increase. An uptick in liability claims could be a potential long-term consequence. […] Growing concerns of the health implications of 5G may lead to political friction and delay of implementation, and to liability claims. […] As the biological effects of EMF in general and 5G in particular are still being debated, potential claims for health impairments may come with a long latency.” Given the reluctance of the insurance industry to underwrite emergent tech it is surprising to see 5G technology being rolled out.
Can lessons gleaned from past experience point a positive way forward?
We see parallels in history with slow responses to emerging scientific alarm bells; Asbestos has led to a growing epidemic of people entering their sixties with asbestos related diseases; similarly with fiberglass linked to a known carcinogen. Latterly the Volkswagen scandal showed not even the most esteemed companies can be trusted to acknowledge inadvertent negative impacts on human health of economic activity. Clearly, no lessons were learned in the evolution of public health and public liability since the 1930s. However, to downplay or ignore the risk to health and safety while not violating the law, had caused actual harm to public health and violated public trust… Caveat vendor had replaced caveat emptor.
5G Connectivity and Coverage
A GSA report show that 38 countries in the world already had 5G networks installed as of August with many more having mobile technology deployed in part. At the forefront is North America, Europe and East Asia. It is also expected that 5G will reach 1 billion users worldwide in 3,5 years compared with 4 years for 4G, and 12 years for 3G.
How does a 5G revolutionary standard hang with health effects?
With this backdrop the health effects of 5G infrastructure hangs in the balance as dated exposure limits and standards (from the 1980s) remain in situ despite the changes in new technology as 5G for the first time employs millimetre waves which is in addition to microwaves used across 2G – 4G. That is notwithstanding the body of evidence of 500+ peer-reviewed studies which found harmful biological or health effects from exposure to RFR at intensities too low to cause significant heating. Premised on this research a further 250 scientists who published more than 2000 peer-reviewed papers on the biological and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for stronger exposure limits. The evidence is in (as noted by Swiss Re) EMF affects living organisms at levels well below the international and national guidelines and includes damage to humans, animals and plant life with some naturally more at risk than others. The adverse health effects of 5G mobile networking tech under real life conditions leads many to the compelling question that many societies have started to ask.
Is it right to be deploying 5G cellular technology that requires the installation of thousands more new masts or cell antenna sites close to where they live, work and play?
The siting of cellular phone base stations and other cellular infrastructure such as roof-mounted antennas, especially in residential neighbourhoods is already a contentious subject in land-use regulation. The trend is away from landline systems in favour of wireless communications while targeting the youth who are more likely to embrace new technologies but who are unwittingly at higher risk of EMF exposure. Cellular phone technology has changed significantly over the last 2 – 3 decades. Cell tower studies as early as [Santini, 2001] show a progression of sensitivity symptoms experienced by people living less than 300 meters of cellular base stations giving rise to electrohypersensitivity (EHS) and rapid aging. The status quo is difficult for regulators to manage and control as recommendations of scientists have largely been ignored with government focused on Brexit, thereby giving rise to a strong contrarian current developing. The most vocal being that we should support the recommendations of scientists and medical doctors who signed the 5G Appeal that calls for an immediate moratorium on the deployment of 5G and demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety.
One of the consequences of the rise in tensions between a once open-minded and inclusive Britain and the recently morphed Brexit leadership of specious messages and non-disclosure in Covid19 pandemic, is misinformation. This is reflected in a negative synergy where the public is taking the lead in vandalism of 5G masts globally, away from a once evolutionary consultative process that brought about occupational CEMFAW in 2016 for health & safety.
Arguably countries ranked highest are more aware of the need for balanced argument and less susceptible to oversimplified messages that new technologies are deemed automatically scientifically safe and as they might not want to forfeit any inalienable human right to life.
The costly exercise of governments putting the cart before the horse –industry rolling out 5G ahead of and in spite of scientific caution and risk assessments – at a time of deep mistrust by public in government and its institutions can be redressed by democratising the process and making it more inclusive of multi-disciplinary scientific debate that transcends a linear telecommunications industry view. The built- and natural environments are interconnected and biological systems are integrated, so effects can be complex. Minimising exposures offer an under-addressed opportunity for “smart” buildings to be healthy in all settings.
Surely, public health & safety demand a higher-wider consideration and consultation plane than a single-minded focus of digital communication and increased connectivity?
In the UK the government has committed to extend mobile coverage to 95% of its landmass by 2022 though Ofcom did estimate the cost of providing universal coverage to all of UK landmass by mid-2018. “Not-spots” will not exist, so neither will EMF-free zones in the UK, unfortunately. The roll-out of mobile services and infrastructure is led by private operators who take commercial decisions about where to build masts and deliver services.
In an ideal world one would want to see credible science and risk assessment meet for the greater good of all, instead of short-term commercial interests of mast installations using permitted development as a convenient short cut to revenue generation from mast licenses as never before. This puts public health and the environment at the mercy of the telecommunications industry.
It is a terrible failing in the essential purpose of any government to leave “at risk individuals” unprotected and vulnerable to man-made EMFs 100% of the time and without respite. It leads to EHS of which some biological effects of EMF are in fact irreversible. 5G wireless technology must realise the potential to sustainably connect all, or ultimately destroy all.
Furthermore, it should be noted that in a real life situation humans are often simultaneously subjected to the full EMF spectrum from different sources. So the biological effects of multi-source and multi-frequency EMFs have yet to be explored and fully understood. To date, there is no available information on cumulative effects of such combined exposure. It may be driving a negative synergy. What is more, the potential hazard from EMF radiation emitted by telecommunication appliances remains an issue for many customers and public institutions around the world. Here the science is instructive in that the development of EMF-based therapeutic systems should be accompanied by intensive parallel studies on the impact of EMF on the vital functions of biological systems and carcinogenicity. Besides, to disregard contrarian scientific voices is unscientific and makes one to wonder about the retrograde brand of science dictating progress in the 21st century.
Mitigation and Adaptation
It is one thing to skew development toward the greater telecoms industry that resulted in a “revolutionary 5G standard” where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. However, on closer inspection and guided by evolutionary hindsight, there is a closed-minded reverse corollary, or negative synergy, where the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
What is most disconcerting is not the increased temperature of public sentiment or conspiracies – as the media would have one believe – but the growing chasm in shutting down scientific argument. This act alone is criminal given that it is science (not politics or the media or the tech industry) that illuminates our way by making the invisible world of man-made EMFs visible – on which wireless and 5G technologies are based. So even if the horse has bolted the stable in respect of 5G deployment and new tech proliferation, the risk remains unchanged which is another red flag in the slow response from lawmakers and regulators. Today, we have no choice but to recognise that radiation mitigation lags 5G deployment and without proper risk assessments, it leaves the public highly exposed and vulnerable in every sense.
Heeding lessons from history, the need for open-minded dialogue is more pressing than ever if only to preserve the health and safety of the next generation who, unlike decision-makers, will have grown up with full exposure to man-made EMF related products and who will bear the brunt of the full effects masked by a higher latency today as it did with Asbestos in the 1930s.
Science warns that the costs of negative externalities from EMF are irreversible and will have to be borne during or after the harmful effects on health or the environment become known. Nonetheless, history shows it will also be judged on the basis of what companies should have done, should have known, and should have disclosed – as happened 40 years on with asbestos in the 1970s. The asbestos industry was increasingly judged guilty of not meeting this new, higher, retroactive standard and required it to pay punitive damages for its failure to do so. Similarly, regulators must choose when and who will pick up the cost bearing in mind the tech industry is but one of a few that boomed during a trying corona virus pandemic and must be held to account for the full cost of 5G and the wireless new product life cycle.
About Danielle Charles, Founder of Retail Market Practise and EMFstrategy.com – An EMF-literate Commercial Property Marketing Professional with expertise in Mindfulness (MBSR) and Mitigation strategies for holistic healthy living premised on sustainability principles. This is rooted in a business eco-system risk SIIRSM and values perspective of self-regulation and checks & balances – with society as an equal stakeholder – via customer experience/ satisfaction approaches. Please feel free to consult me for EMF Risk mitigation in the built environment (corporate & residential) or as Business/Marketing sounding board.
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