The authors of a peer-reviewed study published Tuesday warned about the risks of exposure to radiation from 5G technology and said their research shows existing exposure limits for wireless radiation are inadequate, outdated and harmful to human health and wildlife.
By Michael Nevradkis Ph.D.
The authors of a peer-reviewed study published Tuesday warned about the risks of exposure to radiation from 5G technology and said their research shows existing exposure limits for wireless radiation are inadequate, outdated and harmful to human health and wildlife.
The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) conducted the study, which was published in Environmental Health.
The ICBE-EMF called for an independent assessment of the dangers and impacts of wireless radiation, a campaign to inform the public of the health risks associated with radiation and “an immediate moratorium on further rollout of 5G wireless technologies until safety is demonstrated and not simply assumed.”
In an ICBE-EMF press release, Dr. Lennart Hardell, an oncologist, author of more than 100 papers on non-ionizing radiation and lead author of the study, said:
“Multiple robust human studies of cell phone radiation have found increased risks for brain tumors, and these are supported by clear evidence of carcinogenicity of the same cell types found in animal studies.”
In interviews with The Defender, Hardell and Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, discussed the study’s findings, the ICBE-EMF’s new initiative to raise awareness of the risks of 5G and explained who is most susceptible to the potentially harmful effects of wireless radiation.
According to Moskowitz, exposure to cellphones and other wireless devices should be limited, especially for pregnant women and children.
Hardell and Moskowitz — both of whom are associated with ICBE-EMF and its study — also blamed regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) for ignoring the risks — despite hundreds of studies indicating the dangers of exposure to wireless radiation — and called for legal action and increased public pressure.
The ICBE-EMF describes itself as “a multi-disciplinary consortium of scientists, doctors and related professionals who are, or have been, involved with research related to the biological and health effects of electromagnetic frequencies up to and including 300 GHz.”
Founded in 2021, the ICBE-EMF — which says it “is dedicated to ensuring the protection of humans and other species from the harmful effects of non-ionizing radiation” — arose from the International EMF Scientist Appeal, a petition signed by more than 240 scientists representing more than 2,000 published papers.
According to the new ICBE-EMF study, the radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits established in the 1990s by the FCC and the ICNIRP “were based on results from behavioral studies conducted in the 1980s involving 40-60 minute exposures in 5 monkeys and 8 rats” — after which “arbitrary safety factors” were applied “to an apparent threshold specific absorption rate (SAR)” of 4 watts per kilogram.
According to a fact sheet accompanying the study’s release, this means that “no adverse health effects from RFR exposure” were claimed to exist “below the … SAR of 4 watts per kilogram for frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 6 GHz.”
The paper argues these radiation exposure limits were based “on two major assumptions” — that any biological effects of exposure to wireless radiation “were due to excessive tissue heating and no effects would occur below the putative threshold SAR,” and “twelve assumptions that were not specified by either the FCC or ICNIRP.”
The limits set by the FCC and ICNIRP also ignore “the past 25 years of extensive research on RFR” which, according to the study, “demonstrates that the assumptions underlying the FCC’s and ICNIRP’s exposure limits are invalid and continue to present a public health harm,” and “are based on false suppositions.”
These harms, which have been observed even “below the assumed threshold SAR,” include “non-thermal induction of reactive oxygen species, DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, carcinogenicity, sperm damage, and neurological effects, including electromagnetic hypersensitivity,” plus “increased brain and thyroid cancer risk … read full article
