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“We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

blogs.scientificamerican.com

241–250 of 613 posts

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#241
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly the protection is the inverse square law. Provided you're not holding the device next to your head the exposure is tiny.

5G requires far more towers than 4G or 3G before it, and if biological damage is possible accumulated risk when measured over an entire population can still be problematic. Ultimately this isn't simply an issue of "personal risk." If there's no danger, there's no danger. But if there is and you live in a major city simply not owning a cellular device may only lower your exposure.

No it doesnt. It can work with more on 60GHz, or it can work with the same amount on the same frequencies as 4G.

And in either way - more towers, less power per tower.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#242
post #48

It seems theoretically impossible for non-ionising radiation produced by 5G or any other radio emitters to cause cancer as there's no known mechanism for it to induce carcinogenic damage, so a priori we should expect that 5G is safe until shown otherwise. Joel Moskovitz was co-author on a meta-analysis ( https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2008.21.6366 ) that claimed to find a link between mobile phone use and brain…

> his was a meta-analysis of case-control studies, which is the weakest form of study ... Moskowitz even notes this in the discussion of his paper Sounds like he's noting that the link found is (as you say) weak to non-existent. Which supports the claim in this Scientific American article: that studies are inconclusive and as such we have no reason to believe the technology is safe. Also worth pointing out here (as I…

If the link is "weak to non-existent" and our a priori thinking is that it should be perfectly safe, shouldn't we default to it being safe? I'm not against also running studies to make sure we haven't missed something, but this seems like an unfair standard that we don't apply to other forms of things we expect to be safe a priori.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#244

I'm amazed at how many people here actually decline to click on the links in the article, which would guide one to a large list of scientific publications, with links to the original publications themselves. Yet they are very ready to call "more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields" "wackos" or "cranks with a PhD", call…

So I started checking the articles in the link, seeing the ones that reported positive effects:

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29725476 The article only measures exposition, no conclusion on effects other than a literature review.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29268055 Can't get the full article, but I only see mentions of a 900MHz source (inside 3G frequency band) and no mention of power. Also it's a biochemical study on rats. Slim evidence.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25747364 One author, talks about wildlife orientation.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26017559 This study talks about the effect of intensive radiation (3x the FCC limit for mobile phones, during 8 months) and it looks like it's actually beneficial for Alzheimer's disease. Funnily enough, it links in the abstract a lot of studies showing either inconsistent or no association between RF and cancer.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4427287/ An study from the department of ¿Psychology and Psychiatry? that finds changes in EEG activity due to mobile phone use, only when the phone is placed near the ear. Little mention of whether the RF radiation can interfere in the EEG measurement.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738972 Mentions the CERENAT study, which shows increased risk with really heavy mobile phone usage (as in calls). The only one with actual positive effects and looking like a serious study.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25885019 Decreased nasal mucose in rats. No mention of whether thermal effects were at use here.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25918601 Finds decreased sperm quality, but also discusses other studies finding no effect, and also says "A point of limitation in this study is the inability to assess [...] whether sperm affections are time related or not".

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531835 This one is about nicotine sulfate + RF exposition in frog embryos, and doesn't find effects of RF alone.

That's just off the first page and a half. Probably someone should do a more thorough review, but it does not give me any assurance that most of the studies with reported positive effects are done by people not in the related fields, have no relation to the problem or do not answer the actual important questions.

> And nobody knows why. However everybody who points to a possible answer is shot down without much investigation. Sad, really.

Mobile phones are not the only thing that has changed radically in the last years.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#245
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the exposure is a bit like a bell curve. Right besides the tower you're in a blind spot, then it gets more intense as you move out of the blind spot and then it gets lower as you move further away.

5G requires more towers, closer to their end users. To quote the article: > 5G will require cell antennas every 100 to 200 meters, exposing many people to millimeter wave radiation. 5G also employs new technologies (e.g., active antennas capable of beam-forming; phased arrays; massive inputs and outputs, known as MIMO) which pose unique challenges for measuring exposures.

No it wont require, it will be able to work on the same frequencies as 4G does.

It can use more towers at higher frequencies in really really crowded areas or industrial setups, but those work at lower power outputs, and penetrate the body less (due to higher frequencies).

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#246
post #198
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the huge ones, many times the height of the house, are uh, really many times the height of the house above the house. According to [0], the maximum magnetic field from 275kV-400kV overhead power line (this would be measured much closer to the line than you could possibly get to without climbing the towers) is 100uT. Standing next to a running vacuum cleaner about 800uT. A standard clinical MRI is typically 1.5T,…

Even if current levels of radiation are harmless, it does not mean that the same applies to 5G. Studies funded by the 5G industry are 10 times more likely to say there are no side effects on human, which is suspect and an indication that is an attempt to manipulate science going on - https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-cell-phone-radiation-c... The leading independent organization on cancer causes says that current…

> Even if current levels of radiation are harmless, it does not mean that the same applies to 5G.

Good thing I'm talking about overhead powerlines and not 5G then. Unless your reply was meant for someone else.

Although I believe the chance that 5G is harmful is basically nil, mostly due to my EE degree and a basic understanding of "non-ionizing radiation" and "ionizing radiation", it is probably about 100X more rational than complaining about overhead powerlines.

Seriously I just don't get it what problem do people have with overhead powerlines. Saying overhead powerlines cause cancer is like, on par with calling aircraft contrails "chemtrails" and saying they are part of a nefarious government plot. There are plenty of real nefarious government plots, but you hear people talking again and again about chemtrails because they don't understand aircraft engines or heat or water. Just like there are real issues in the health system, but again and again people cut off the legs of their own argument by going off about overhead powerlines.

Lastly, WTF are those sources? Is nutritionfacts.org a leading independent organization on cancer causes? That is a 5-minute long video of someone doing zoom-highlights on excerpts from studies from 2011. The first comment is someone saying the WHO is bought-out by corporate interests, although, the WHO is like the main ethos argument from the video.

Do you use a cell phone? How do you hide from the other people using their cell phones, or the Wi-Fi rays coming from your computer? If you have a new router, 802.11ad already communicates in the 60Ghz band, that's a pretty big number if big frequency numbers are scary.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#247
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this take is a little unfair. Sure, calling scientists “wackos” with reviewing the publications is extreme, we also know there is a massive body of scientific evidence looking at the link between RF waves and cancer that has pretty much found zilch at this point.

If you'd read some of the research linked in the article, you'd perhaps found this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25749340 which clearly shows a link. Here's a longer list for you: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138357421... though a lot of those studies are about DNA damage and not cancer per se. Though DNA damage is known to increase cancer risk. So no, not zilch, not at all.

A finding from your link.

"the biological activity of any specific type of EMF is inversely proportional to its frequency and proportional to its intensity"

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G requires more towers, closer to their end users. To quote the article: > 5G will require cell antennas every 100 to 200 meters, exposing many people to millimeter wave radiation. 5G also employs new technologies (e.g., active antennas capable of beam-forming; phased arrays; massive inputs and outputs, known as MIMO) which pose unique challenges for measuring exposures.

Isn't the amount of radiation you receive from the towers tiny in comparison to the radiation of your phone?

The radiation you get from pussy is tinier than your dick. Think about it. No harm done.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#249
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly are they "bad for the environment"? Would you prefer we revert to manufacturing plastic VHS tapes, then distribute them by diesel trucks like we used to in the good old days? Would you prefer people get their morning news on broadsheets made from the bleached pulp of rainforest trees? Or would you like to go back to the good old days of AM radio when the inadequacy of the receiver electronics was compensa…

I believe he's implying we don't need to share all that information, period. I agree. Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle is a hierarchy. Reduction is far more effective than the other two.

One of the use cases I saw somewhere for 5G was "smart wine glasses".

Like glasses with sensors in them so the waiter at a restaurant would know where he needed to go to refill someone's glass.

This was in a context where it definitely was not an ironic jab at the overuse of technology.

I don't know if the product actually exists, but honestly. Honestly. Smart wine glasses! I think it's just like... a really, really dumb idea. And if that's the kind of thing that 5G is going to enable, I absolutely do think we should consider it a threat to the environment.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#250
post #109
post #45

With every new generation of cellular technology, this question comes up. This started as early as CT, then DECT, GSM, 3G, 4G and now 5G. After 30+ years of having consumer grade wireless telephony we are still debating whether the radio signals have any negative effect on living beings. If we can't draw any conclusion from a sample size that big, then I must conclude that the effects of EM-radiation are so minimal (…

> I must conclude that the effects of EM-radiation are so minimal Cancer rates are rising and we're not sure why. Is that acceptable?

If there was an outbreak of cancers at the right side of the head (the place where we usually hold our phone while talking on it), we'd know. But there aren't.
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