There is increasing concern among scientists and doctors about 4G and 5G cell tower and cell phone radiation. Unfortunately, the cell phone and telecommunication industry, and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) are fighting tooth and nail to prevent consumers from hearing about the concerns, and preventing the enactment of any safeguards to human health.
All concerns are pooh-poohed and dismissed by the FCC and wireless industry. The FCC is supposed to regulate the industry and protect us, but it hasn't happened. As a recent Propublica report documents:
"Federal law and FCC rules are so aligned with the industry that state and local governments are barred from taking action to block cell towers to protect the health of their citizens, even as companies are explicitly empowered to sue any government that tries to take such an action." (This means that companies such as Verizon have more legal rights than persons in the United States.)
One could say that the FCC is protecting the wireless industry at any cost. By the way, when someone says there is "no evidence" of harm - look at who is paying for or doing the study. Industry wireless/cell phone studies find "no harm", while non-industry studies generally find harm to health. Of course, the wireless industry sponsored research won't find harm - that was the whole point of the "research".
For over a decade concerns have been raised over the carcinogenic (cancer-causing) effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted from cellular phones, and 4G and 5G towers. Back in 2011 the World Health Organization already said that based on research, they are "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (cancer causing).
Numerous studies are finding harmful health effects: Increased risk of brain tumors and other cancers (esp. gliomas and salivary gland tumors), effects on memory function and the nervous system, behavioral disorders, and harmful effects to human sperm. One large review/analysis of studies found that: "cellular phone use with cumulative call time greater than 1000 hours (about 17 min per day over a 10 year period) increased the risk of tumors by 60%".
By the way, more than 20 other countries are listening to the scientific and medical research and have protections for consumers. (Why does it not surprise that once again the US is lagging behind other countries in consumer safeguards?)
Some recommendations: Don't sleep with your cell phone near your head or body. Don't carry (or carry less) your phone in your pants pockets or in your bra (near breasts). Try to keep the phone away from direct contact with your body. Use headsets. Plug in your laptop when using (rather than wireless).
1) Some excerpts of very interesting (and sure to make you angry) piece of investigative journalism from ProPublica: How the FCC Shields Wireless Providers
The wireless industry is rolling out thousands of new transmitters amid a growing body of research that calls cellphone safety into question. Federal regulators say there’s nothing to worry about — even as they rely on standards established in 1996.
But a growing body of international research asserts that there is reason to worry about harms — many of them unrelated to cancer — from wireless radiation. Henry Lai, an emeritus professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, has compiled a database of 1,123 peer-reviewed studies published since 1990 investigating biological effects from wireless-radiation exposure. Some 77% have found “significant” effects, according to Lai. By contrast, an earlier review by Lai found that 72% of industry-sponsored studies reported no biological effects.
One branch of research has studied radiation impacts on test animals, mostly rats and mice, but also guinea pigs, rabbits and cows. Another has examined epidemiological patterns, looking for health effects on human groups, such as heavy long-term cellphone users or people living near cellphone towers. Studies have found impacts on fertility, fetal development, DNA, memory function and the nervous system, as well as an association with an array of cancers. Several investigations reported a significantly increased risk of brain tumors, called gliomas, among the heaviest cellphone users. And the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, in 2011 classified wireless radiation as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Individual studies underline the value of simple precautions, which include using a headset or speaker and keeping the phone away from direct contact with your body. In 2009, Ashok Agarwal, director of research at the Cleveland Clinic’s American Center for Reproductive Medicine, found that exposing human semen to cellphone radiation for an hour caused a “significant decrease” in sperm motility and viability, impairing male fertility. He advises patients to avoid carrying phones in their pants pockets.
Epidemiological studies show a rise in behavioral disorders among children whose mothers were heavy cellphone users while pregnant, while lab research found hyperactivity and reduced memory in mice exposed in the womb to cellphone radiation. “The evidence is really, really strong now that there is a causal relationship between cellphone radiation exposure and behavior issues in children,” said Dr. Hugh Taylor, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine and past president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The period of fetal brain development is a “very vulnerable time,” he said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has written that the FCC’s safeguards “do not account for the unique vulnerability and use patterns specific to pregnant women and children.” It urged the agency to adopt measures “protective of children,” warning that their thinner skulls leave them “disproportionately impacted” by cellphone radiation, and called for better consumer disclosure about exposure risks.
Both the FCC and Food and Drug Administration websites dismiss the existence of any special health risk to children. And the agencies don’t counsel people to limit their exposure. Instead they list safety steps, while insisting they’re really not necessary. The FCC’s “Wireless Devices and Health Concerns” page, for example, notes that “some parties” recommend safety measures, “even though no scientific evidence currently establishes a definitive link between wireless device use and cancer or other illnesses.” It then states, in bold: “The FCC does not endorse the need for these practices.” Only then does it list “some simple steps that you can take to reduce your exposure” to radio-frequency energy from cellphones.
“The industry doesn’t want you to pay any attention to that stuff because that just creates anxiety among users,” said Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California-Berkeley, who advised the city in its fight. “They want you to think these devices are perfectly safe.”
By contrast, more than 20 foreign governments have adopted protective measures or recommended precautions. France requires new phones to be sold with headsets and written guidance on limiting radiation exposures; it also bans phones marketed to small children and ads aimed at anyone younger than 14. Greece and Switzerland routinely monitor radio-frequency radiation levels throughout the country. Britain, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, India and South Korea urge citizens to limit both their own exposure and cellphone use by children. The European Environment Agency does too, noting: “There is sufficient evidence of risk to advise people, especially children, not to place the handset against their heads.”
When the FCC’s rules on radio-frequency emissions from phones and transmitters were adopted 26 years ago, just 1 in 6 Americans owned cellphones, which they typically used for short periods. Today, 97% of adults own a cellphone, and they use the device for an average of five hours a day. More than half of children under 12 own a smartphone.
Then and now, the FCC’s rules targeted just one health hazard: the possibility that wireless radiation can cause immediate “thermal” damage, by overheating skin the way a microwave oven heats food. Most experts agree that risk is nonexistent under any but the most unusual circumstances.
Meanwhile, the FCC doesn’t even consider “biological” impacts: the possibility that wireless exposure, even at levels well below the FCC limits, can cause an array of human health problems, as well as harm to animals and the environment. The FCC’s approach matches the industry’s long-standing position: that wireless radiation is simply too weak to cause any nonheating damage.
Of course, the wireless industry has every incentive to take this position. Going back to the 1990s, the industry has recognized the financial peril posed by health concerns over radiation, and it has pressed the public and government to reject them altogether.
In 1994, for example, Motorola swung into action when it learned of troubling research by Lai and a University of Washington colleague, Narendra Singh, who found that two hours of exposure to modest levels of wireless radiation damaged DNA in the brains of lab rats. Such changes can lead to cancerous tumors.
Motorola’s then-PR chief described a strategy to discredit the findings in a pair of memos that were later leaked to Microwave News. Motorola’s approach would serve as a template for the industry’s response to troublesome research over the three decades that followed. The researchers’ methodology would be challenged for raising “too many uncertainties” to justify any conclusions. The scientists’ credibility would be questioned and their findings dismissed as irrelevant. Finally, friendly academics, “willing and able to reassure the public on these matters,” would be recruited to rebut the findings. [Sounds like the tobacco industry, doesn't it?]
2) State of New Hampshire report of health and other concerns over this whole topic, published Nov. 1, 2020: Final Report of the Commission to Study The Environmental and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology
3) Dr. Devra Davis (an award winning scientist with more than 200 publications and 3 books) has long been talking about health concerns with the 5G towers that will soon be popping up everywhere without any examination or concern for health risks. Environmental Health Trust