In an exceptionally short period of time, cellular technologies have become a dominant fixture of modern-day life. When the first clunky cell phones became commercially available in the early 1980s, only the military and “affluent geeks” could afford the four-thousand-dollar price tag.1 A mere three decades later, more than three-fourths (77 percent) of all Americans willingly spend hundreds of dollars for sleek smartphones (a proportion that has more than doubled since 2011),2 and more and more people rely on their smartphones as their sole computer.3 Global projections indicate that over six billion people worldwide will be using a smartphone by 2020.4
Most current cell phone carriers offer fourth-generation (4G or 4G LTE) wireless cellular service, which represents the latest iteration in the “exponential evolution” that began with analog first-generation (1G) service in the early 1980s.5 Each subsequent decade has ushered in a new generation of mobile networks, with 2G going digital in the early 1990s, 3G emerging in the early 2000s and implementation of 4G/4G LTE unfolding in the early part of the current decade.
With the advent of the dramatically faster 4G service—the first generation designed primarily for data rather than voice—mobile phone users have been able to stream video and music to their heart’s content.6 Yet, with perpetually data-hungry consumers flocking to newer applications such as virtual reality and videoconferencing, it appears that even 4G is being stretched to its limits.
As the telecommunications industry anticipates “billions of users, billions of devices and billions of connections,”7 it is avidly preparing for the next generation of cellular service, called 5G, which is likely to be ready for rollout well before 2020.8
THE NEW FRONTIER: MILLIMETER WAVE TECHNOLOGY
Far more than a simple technological upgrade, 5G represents a significant and risky turning point with major implications for health, privacy, property values and local control.9 To fully understand what 5G portends, it is helpful to grasp a few basics about the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) are expressed in terms of units called hertz (cycles per second), abbreviated as Hz, where the higher the frequency, the smaller the wavelength. The spectrum begins with direct current and extremely low-frequency (larger wavelength) radio waves, and continues with microwave radiation, infrared and ultraviolet light, X-rays and gamma rays. Household appliances are at the extremely low-frequency end of the spectrum, generating EMFs in the range of three to three hundred Hz. Microwave radiation—emitted by all current wireless devices—ranges from three hundred megahertz (MHz) to three hundred gigahertz (GHz). (A MHz equals one million Hz and a GHz equals one billion Hz.)
Unlike prior generations of cellular service, 5G will transmit using not just low-band frequencies but also a form of extremely high frequency microwave radiation called millimeter waves (approximately thirty to three hundred GHz). Millimeter waves offer a “glut” of previously untapped spectrum that the telecom industry is eager to exploit, for at least two reasons.10 First, the “good” spectrum is “just about used up,” according to the communications technology editor at Electronic Design, resulting in “spectrum shortages and conflicts.”11 The tech editor observes that “spectrum is like prime real estate”; millimeter waves can “take the pressure off the lower frequencies” and “provide that precious coveted spectrum needed for expansion.”11 A Samsung-funded wireless expert rhapsodizes, “The beauty of millimeter waves is there’s so much spectrum.”10 Second, millimeter wave technology promises “blazingly” and “insanely” fast data capacity.12,13 Even in advance of its widespread rollout, techies are celebrating 5G’s potential to usher in light speed connectivity14 that is “orders of magnitude” beyond 4G.15
WHETHER WE WANT IT OR NOT
5G’s cheerleaders are particularly delighted with one unique feature of millimeter wave technology, which is that the antennas needed to transmit and receive signals can be very small. At the same time, millimeter waves have one key limitation, dictated by the laws of physics: higher frequencies have much shorter transmission ranges.11
The industry has a proposed technological fix for this problem. In telecom parlance, the industry plans to achieve the desired level of performance through “good receiver sensitivity,” “high transmit power” and “high-gain antenna arrays [that] boost the effective radiated power” and significantly increase range.11 Stated more simply, 5G will “pepper” cities—and eventually countries—with powerful small cell antennas.15 This will involve pervasive neighborhood-wide and city-wide placement of 5G small cell antennas and “distributed antenna systems” (DAS) on utility or light poles and other public infrastructure—beaming intense microwave radiation within feet of bedroom windows, schools, day care centers, nursing homes, offices and more. The antenna arrays could include “dozens or even hundreds of antenna elements.”16
To enable the widespread deployment of small cell antennas, mobile carriers have been wooing states and the federal government to pass enabling legislation, frequently without any public input. Representatives often receive substantial financial Sup>port from the telecom industry and thus have been only too happy to oblige their patrons by fast-tracking bills through the legislative process. The previous administration’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Tom Wheeler—once a major wireless industry lobbyist—revealed himself to be fully on board with the 5G juggernaut when the FCC raced to approve 5G technology in 2016. Wheeler bragged, “You ain’t seen nothing yet” and breezily noted that 5G “will open up hugely disruptive new value propositions for the users of networks.”17 Harvard University ethicists have described the FCC as a “captured agency dominated by the industries it presumably regulates.”18
The vast majority of the legislative bills promoting 5G infrastructure (already passed or about to pass in eighteen U.S. states) will strip authority from local governments—and citizens—over public rights-of-way.19 In other words, municipalities and residents will be unable to say no when utilities mount 5G antennas on lampposts and utility poles in their yards, businesses and schools.
In response, numerous communities around the U.S. are organizing to halt preemption and maintain local control. In Ohio, for example, Governor Kasich signed a bill in December 2016 that removed cities’ authority “to regulate and control placement of ‘micro-wireless facilities’” [small cell antennas] and required them to “make city-owned poles and other structures in the right-of-way available to private wireless companies at a nominal cost.”20 Fans of the bill were pleased that it “eliminated the problems associated with discretionary local zoning review,”21 but Ohio’s municipalities strongly disagreed. Over eighty municipalities, including the city of Cleveland, filed lawsuits to challenge the bill, citing concerns about “local government rights, constitution authority and control of city property.”22
The unfurling of 5G technology is taking place in the context of the broader wireless takeover. For example, wireless networking (WiFi) went from a “niche technology” at the beginning of the new millennium23 to consumers’ preferred method of accessing the Internet, with WiFi in seven out of ten U.S. broadband households as of early 2017.24 According to market researchers, WiFi households are wireless junkies, averaging “more than 30 percent more computing devices than non-WiFi households.”24
CANCER AND OTHER HEALTH EFFECTS
The rapid proliferation of all these sources of electromagnetic radiation—cell towers, cell phones, cordless phones, WiFi, smart meters and so on—is exacting a high price on our health. There are now thousands of scientific studies documenting myriad adverse bioeffects of microwave radiation, in particular. These biological effects include cancer, DNA damage, cardiovascular problems, increased stress hormones, sleeping disorders, depression, headaches, irritability and impaired fertility.25
Studies assessing cancer and wireless radiation are particularly disturbing. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the microwave radiation from all wireless devices as a possible human carcinogen in 2011. In 2016, the U.S. National Toxicology Program released results of the world’s largest, gold-standard study on wireless health risks (conducted on rats, which are the preferred animal model for studies of carcinogenicity in humans), finding cancer in 5.5 percent of the exposed group and no cancer in the control group.26
Other recent studies highlight strong evidence of a relationship between brain cancers and long-term cell phone use; increased incidence of at least ten other cancers concurrent with the promulgation of wireless technologies, including invasive breast cancers in young women carrying cell phones against their breast; and tumor promotion in response to very low levels of exposure to wireless radiation.25
5G technology will likely turn this serious health risk into a public health crisis. Ubiquitous deployment of small cell antennas will unleash unnatural and round-the-clock millimeter microwave radiation that is far more potent than anything previously experienced from the electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, the U.S. military uses millimeter waves—which travel only a short distance—as a non-lethal weapon for crowd control because the waves affect the surface of the body and cause a burning sensation of the skin at higher levels of power. The lower-powered but chronic exposure that most of us will experience outside of our homes, schools and businesses is expected to cause very serious health effects, including higher rates of skin cancer, cataracts, cardiac irregularities and fetal abnormalities.27 Moreover, millimeter wave radiation has effects on microbes and may prompt increased antibiotic resistance.16
Studies already show a substantially increased prevalence of neurobehavioral symptoms and cancer in populations living less than five hundred meters from current mobile phone base stations.28,29,30 What will happen when clusters of powerful small cell antennas are sited within feet of everyone, everywhere? Retired U.S. government physicist Dr. Ronald Powell cautioned in a letter to the FCC that 5G would “irradiate everyone, including the most vulnerable to harm from radiofrequency radiation: pregnant women, unborn children, young children, teenagers, men of reproductive age, the elderly, the disabled, and the chronically ill.”27 5G’s proponents apparently are heedless of Dr. Powell’s objections as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics’ warnings to limit children’s exposure to wireless radiation, warnings that numerous other countries—but not the U.S.—have taken seriously.31,32 The upshot is that many Americans will no longer be safe in their own homes, particularly in the urban areas where 5G technology will be rolled out first.
INTERNET OF THINGS
Tech writers like to attribute the impetus for 5G to consumers’ “really high expectations for wireless services” and their desire for “a high level of reliability, low levels of latency [lag time] and constant connectivity—anytime, anywhere.”7 Although consumers certainly do appear to be captivated by speed and shiny gadgets, less credulous observers suggest that 5G’s true beneficiaries actually will be the telecom giants and electric utility companies, rather than consumers.
John P. Thomas of Health Impact News explains that 5G technology “is part of a long-term plan to integrate telecom activities with electrical service providers. …The 5G network will be the nerves and sense organs of a massive organism that has a central brain somewhere, which controls all forms of information exchange and electric utilization/production.”33 Referring to what is now called the Internet of Things (IoT), Thomas adds that with the help of 5G technology, “[smart] appliances and smart meters will constantly communicate with one another all day long and all night long—they will never stop transmitting microwave radiation.” Even worse (from the consumer’s standpoint), “the fusion of 5G with the electrical grid will require everyone to buy new appliances that are smart meter enabled or have our existing appliances retrofitted with microwave transmitters.” In short, 5G will enable “a whole new cellular architecture”10 and an “inescapable” technological blanket.9
UNCONSCIONABLE HAZARDS
Given what we already know about wireless risks,34 it is not surprising that EMF-savvy scientists are urging extreme caution with regard to 5G and its novel use of millimeter waves. Public health expert Dr. Joel Moskowitz of U.C. Berkeley describes 5G wireless infrastructure as a “massive experiment” and warns of the research indicating that “skin nerve endings are a likely target of [millimeter waves] and the possible starting point of numerous [adverse] biological effects.”16
It is both astonishing—and unconscionable—that the FCC has given the telecom industry the green light for 5G without seriously evaluating the long-term effects of millimeter wave radiation on human or animal health. Consumers would do well to return to hard-wired technologies whenever possible, including corded landlines and wired Internet connections (which are faster, more secure and safer anyway). Other steps that citizens can take to protect themselves and their loved ones include checking the status of 5G legislation in their state (the Environmental Health Trust provides a comprehensive summary)19 and contacting legislators to express concern (see sample letter below); following recommendations35 for using cell phones more safely; using wireless devices as little as possible—and always limiting children’s exposure; powering off all wireless devices at night to allow the body to recover; and asking themselves whether the putative benefits of 5G are worth trading away health and privacy.
SIDEBARS
ECOSYSTEM EFFECTS OF 5G
Pervasive 5G antennas will have costly impacts on agriculture and the environment. International scientists have expressed alarm about the documented effects of microwave radiation on bees, other pollinators and plants.36 Because of their size, bees will be especially vulnerable to millimeter wave radiation. Radiofrequency fields in the MHz range also “disrupt insect and bird orientation.”36 As for plants, agri-environmental researchers state that “plants form the building blocks of all ecosystems and disruption to their pollination and subsequent reproduction is likely to result in similar declines in plant species diversity and knock-on effects to the animals and birds that rely on them.”37
SAMPLE LETTER TO LEGISLATORS
Dear Representative/Senator:
Please oppose 5G legislation. Fifth-generation mobile systems, known as 5G facilities, would place clusters of small cell antennas within feet of single-family homes and on multifamily homes, schools, day care centers, recreation centers and more. Research shows that 5G millimeter wave radiation will make people sick, especially unborn children, young children, pregnant women and individuals with chronic illness. The adverse health effects caused by 5G facilities are likely to include cancer, infertility, headaches, insomnia and more.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as a Group 2B carcinogen based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use. Dr. Olle Johansson, neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute (which awards the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine), has stated that the proof of harm from radiofrequency electromagnetic fields “is overwhelming” and that “children can never be allowed to be victims of…a WHO-classified possible carcinogen.” Dr. Ronald Powell, a Harvard-trained physicist who worked at the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, shares similar concerns about the potential for widespread harm from radiofrequency radiation.
I know that the telecommunications industry provides significant financial Sup>port to many legislators, but our representatives should be paying attention first and foremost to the health of babies and children and the strong warnings about 5G being issued by international experts.
Sincerely,
[Name]
REFERENCES
1. Davis D. Disconnect: the truth about cell phone radia</Ition, what the industry has done to hide it, and how to protect your family. New York, NY: Dutton, 2010.
2. Smith A. Record shares of Americans now own smartphones, have home broadband. Pew Research Center, 12 Jan 2017. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/12/evolution-of-technology/.
3. Bonnington C. In less than two years, a smartphone could be your only computer. Wired, 10 Feb 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/02/smartphone-only-computer/.
4. Lunden I. 6.1B smartphone users globally by 2020, overtaking basic fixed phone subscriptions. TechCrunch, 2 Jun 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/6-1b-smartphone-users-globally-by-2020-overtaking-basic-fixed-phone-subscriptions/.
5. Maxwell R. 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G: the evolution of wireless generations. Phone Arena, 13 Sep 2013. https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-4g-wireless-577577.
6. Cassavoy L. What is 4G wireless? Lifewire, updated 21 Aug 2017. https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-4g-wireless-577577.
7. Greenemeier L. Will millimeter waves maximize 5G wireless? Scientific American, 23 Jun 2015. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-millimeter-waves-maximize-5g-wireless/.
8. Siegal J. Verizon’s 5G service is faster than Google Fiber, will begin to roll out in 2017. BGR Media, 8 Sep 2015. http://bgr.com/2015/09/08/verizon-5g-wireless-service-2017/.
9. Freeman M. 5G and IoT: total technological control grid being being rolled out fast. https://wakeup-world.com/2017/04/10/5g-and-iot-total-technological-control-grid-being-rolled-out-fast/.
10. Bleicher A. Millimeter waves may be the future of 5G phones. IEEE Spectrum, 13 Jun 2013. https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/millimeter-waves-may-be-the-future-of-5g-phones.
11. Frenzel L. Millimeter waves will expand the wireless future. Electronic Design, 6 Mar 2013. http://www.electronicdesign.com/communications/millimeter-waves-will-expand-wireless-future.
12. SDxCentral. What is 5G? Everything you need to know—a definition. https://www.sdxcentral.com/5g/definitions/what-is-5g/.
13. Villas-Boas A. Your internet speeds will be insanely fast when 5G arrives. Business Insider, 4 Mar 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/5g-speed-network-lte-2017-3/#-2.
14. Dr. Jockers. Are 5G phones safe for your health? http://drjockers.com/5g-phones-safe-health/.
15. Gartenberg C. What is 5G? The future is fast. The Verge, 24 Feb 2017. https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/24/14701430/5g-network-explained-mobile-data-cellular-millimeter-wave.
16. Moskowitz JM. 5G wireless technology: millimeter wave health effects. 7 Aug 2017. http://www.saferemr.com/2017/08/5g-wireless-technology-millimeter-wave.html.
17. Cox K. FCC chair on 5G future: “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Consumerist, 7 Sep 2016. https://consumerist.com/2016/09/07/fcc-chair-on-5g-future-you-aint-seen-nothin-yet/.
18. Alster N. Captured agency: how the Federal Communications Commission is dominated by the industries it presumably regulates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
19. Environmental Health Trust. List of US state bills streamlining wireless small cells/DAS/nodes on rights of way. https://ehtrust.org/list-us-state-bills-streamlining-wireless-small-cellsdasnodes-rights-way/.
20. Klein B. City joins litigation against state law: Council approves $6K to stop ‘micro-wireless facility’ provisions. The Delaware Gazette, 27 Mar 2017.
21. Thompson TS. Ohio enacts small cell deployment measures: limits local governments. Broadband Deployment Law Advisor, 19 Dec 2016. http://www.broadbandlawadvisor.com/2016/12/articles/broadband-deployment/ohio-enacts-small-cell-deployment-measures-limits-local-governments/.
22. Cleveland 19 Digital Team. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson addresses lawsuit against wireless equipment bill. Cleveland 19, 20 Mar 2017. http://www.cleveland19.com/story/34952903/mayor-jackson-to-address-lawsuit-against-wireless-equipment-bill.
23. A brief history of Wi-Fi. The Economist, 10 Jun 2004. http://www.economist.com/node/2724397.
24. Hamilton L. WiFi is by far the most common way U.S. broadband households access the internet: report. CED Magazine, 10 Jan 2017. https://www.cedmagazine.com/data-focus/2017/01/wifi-far-most-common-way-us-broadband-households-access-internet-report.
25. Environmental Health Trust. Top experimental and epidemiological studies on wireless radiation. https://ehtrust.org/science/top-experimental-epidemiological-studies/.
26. Environmental Health Trust. Myths and facts about the National Toxicology Program cell phone radiation cancer study: correcting the misinformation. https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/NTP_Myth_Fact.pdf.
27. Russell C. A 5G wireless future: will it give us a smart nation or contribute to an unhealthy one? The Bulletin, Jan/Feb 2017.
28. Khurana VG, Hardell L, Everaert J, et al. Epidemiological evidence for a health risk from mobile phone base stations. Int J Occup Environ Health 2010;16(3):263-267.
29. Gandhi G, Kaur G, Nisar U. A cross-sectional case control study on genetic damage in individuals residing in the vicinity of a mobile phone base station. Electromagn Biol Med 2015;34(4):344-354.
30. Levitt BB, Lai H. Biological effects from exposure to electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell tower base stations and other antenna arrays. Environ Rev 2010;18(1): 369-385.
31. American Academy of Pediatrics. AAP responds to study showing link between cell phone radiation, tumors in rats. AAP News, 27 May 2016. http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/05/27/Cancer052716.
32. Parents for Safe Technology. Worldwide precautionary action. http://www.parentsforsafetechnology.org/worldwide-countries-taking-action.html.
33. Thomas JP. New 5G cell towers and smart meters to increase microwave radiation—invade privacy. http://healthimpactnews.com/2017/new-5g-cell-towers-and-smart-meters-to-increase-microwave-radiation-invade-privacy/.
34. Belyaev IY. Dependence of non-thermal biological effects of microwaves on physical and biological variables: implications for reproducibility and safety standards. Eur J Oncol Library 2010;5: 187-216.
35. American Academy of Pediatrics. Cell phone radiation and children’s health: what parents need to know. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/all-around/Pages/Cell-Phone-Radiation-Childrens-Health.aspx.
36. Environmental Health Trust. Bees, butterflies and wildlife: research on electromagnetic fields and the environment. https://ehtrust.org/science/bees-butterflies-wildlife-research-electromagnetic-fields-environment/.
37. University of Leeds. Consequences of pollinator declines. http://www.agriland.leeds.ac.uk/about/Consequencesofpollinatordeclines.php.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Fall 2017.
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This is the best summary of the microwave pollution issue that I’ve seen. It takes the reader from the basics of EMF to the coming 5G network and its dangers. Everything is well documented with citations to studies and other articles. The fervor of greed behind this proliferation of wireless ignores the consequences it will have on all living things. Government has been co-opted by the wireless industry and serves as an appendage of it. There is no one left to enforce the truth.
Your comment, Mr. Schuller said it best. This is the best article and well documented information that has been written explaining 5G in detail for even the layman can comprehend. I am saving it to pass along to others where it will hopefully wake people up. There’s no escaping it now. It’s 2019, February, and I’ve seen them all around my neighborhood, and on my way to work.
Thank you for your comment. Take care and be well.
Susan Morgan
We already have the Covert Roll out of 5G in Gateshead in the UK. Its has annihilated the small flying insect and bird population. Many Many reports of illness. Miscarriages, Bleeding Noses, Neurological disorders, sleeplessness. This is a Humanitarian Crime.
What can we do to fight 5G?
The fight against 5G must be carried out on a person-to-person basis. Each one teach one. You can only protect yourself if you take the trouble to protect others. Go to the various EMF sites and find posters and leaflets that explain 5G, in particular the symptoms of electrohypersensitivity. Print them out and carry them with you everywhere you go. Hand them to people you meet, leave them in shops and on trains and buses. Every day should be an “Explaining-the-dangers-of-5G-and-why-it-must-be-stopped day”. The opposition is going to turn into a tsunami. But YOU have to do the work to make that happen. Every individual must stand up and take responsibility for this. Please don’t think that the 5G rollout will be resolved by a quick click on a petition. Drop everything else in your life right now and stop 5G before it happens.
I agree, where can I get these leaflets. I’m in for the battle. WW1WGA
WWG1 WGA…World Wide Government 1 world government all.
Throw Both Parties the Hell out on the street
How in heaven’s name can we stop this???
the 5G rollout is beginning right now in Palo Alto, CA. any suggestions on how to fight it, get the community organized, etc?
We the people need to do something about this. We are being distracted while shit like this happens
So…what, if anything could this do to an already deadly virus? Is it not true that Huawei rolled out 5G in China and completed that huge station in the area near Wuhan? Sorry. I dont know the name of it. Ive just seen the pictures. Many of the symptoms people are having are similar to the effects of radiation. It does something to the O2 molecules which could cause problems with the lungs and other organs like the heart and kidneys. A headache and dry, unproductive cough is just a couple of the symptoms we are seeing in this virus. Hearts are also being affected. This also might explain why a perfectly healthy person might be walking around and suddenly fall to the ground and die. President Trump has banned Huawei from the US. Maybe someone here might have some additional thoughts on this. This theory is being tossed around on a few social media channels.