Is 5G a health risk? You will hear that 5G is dangerous. But, “to date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use,” says the World Health Organization.
A separate recommendation by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, sometimes cited as arguing that mobile signals are “possibly carcinogenic” actually says only that “there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch.”
The key words are “could be” and ten “some” risk. The U.S Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration,, looking at worker exposure to radio frequency signals (people who work on the cell towers, for example), says “for normal environmental conditions and for incident electromagnetic energy of frequencies from 10 MHz to 100 GHz, the radiation protection guide is 10 mW/cm.2 (milliwatt per square centimeter) as averaged over any possible 0.1-hour period.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission notes that “even though no scientific evidence currently establishes a definite link between wireless device use and cancer or other illnesses, and even though all cell phones must meet established federal standards for exposure to RF energy, some consumers are skeptical of the science and/or the analysis that underlies the FCC’s RF exposure guidelines.”
“Accordingly, some parties recommend taking measures to further reduce exposure to RF energy ,” says the FCC. “The FCC does not endorse the need for these practices, but provides information on some simple steps that you can take to reduce your exposure to RF energy from cell phones.”
Some measures to reduce your RF exposure include:
- Use a speakerphone, earpiece or headset to reduce proximity to the head (and thus exposure). While wired earpieces may conduct some energy to the head and wireless earpieces also emit a small amount of RF energy, both wired and wireless earpieces remove the greatest source of RF energy (the cell phone) from proximity to the head and thus can greatly reduce total exposure to the head.
- Increase the distance between wireless devices and your body.
- Consider texting rather than talking
Also, keep in mind that power levels for cell phones and even cell towers are quite low.
Consider that a cell tower radio emits energy 100 to 5,000 times lower than a TV transmitter, for example. Some liken the power level to that of a light bulb.
Still, if you really are concerned about the possible health effects of using mobile phones, use them less. Text instead of holding the phone against your head and talking.
Radio signals weaken (attenuate) logarithmically, by powers of 10, so the power levels decay quite rapidly.
Basically, doubling the distance of a receiver from a transmitter means that the strength of the signal at that new location is 50 percent of its previous value. Just three meters from the antenna, a cell tower radio’s power density has dropped by an order of magnitude (10 times).
At 10 meters--perhaps to the base of the tower, power density is down two orders of magnitude. At 500 meters, a distance a human is using the signals, power density has dropped six orders of magnitude.
And that is for macrocell towers that transmit at higher powers. Small 5G cells will have lower output powers, and have to be characterized as well. But the general rule of thumb is that output power really matters: high power is of more concern than low power.
Are cell phones and cell towers “safe?” Yes, but It is a question that seems to recur. The issue is non-ionizing radiation, electromagnetic energy in the radio regions used by AM and FM radio, TV broadcasts, generated around power lines, Wi-Fi, cable TV, which uses radio waves in the copper portions of plant, and cell phones.
Non-ionizing radiation differs from ionizing radiation in the way it acts on materials like air, water, and living tissue, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“Unlike x-rays and other forms of ionizing radiation, non-ionizing radiation does not have enough energy to remove electrons from atoms and molecules,” CDC says. Non-ionizing radiation can heat substances, as does a microwave oven.
So it is perhaps understandable that people instinctively worry about millimeter waves for wireless communications that are in frequencies similar to those used by microwave ovens. The word “radiation” is likely the biggest cause of fear, since we do not normally refer to light as radiation; over-the-air TV or radio signals; electricity or Wi-Fi as involving “radiation.”
Still, some insist that all or some of these forms of signal can cause human maladies. Scientists have been studying non-ionizing radiation for many decades, without being able to find conclusive proof that such signals cause harm to humans, as we encounter such signals in real life, many claims notwithstanding.
Hazard is not the same thing as risk; correlation is not the same thing as causation; questions are not the same as answers. Driving in autos poses some risk of hazard (accidents), but people take the risk of injury because the benefits outweigh the hazards.
It is possible to correlate many things in life (there is a non-random and positive correlation of things) without necessarily being able to say there is any causation at all. One might correlate sales of ice cream cones and sunglasses, but there is not a causal relationship. A might be found with B, but A does not cause B. But people easily make the cognitive leap that correlated items and events must be causally related.
We might speculate about some as-yet-undefined harm that might happen from any number of present issues, without being able to state, on the basis of good science, that there is, so far, any evidence of harm.
Warranted or not, there has been public concern about a great many things such as “toxins in baby bottles, food, and cosmetics; carcinogenic radiation from power lines and cell phones; and harm from vaccines and genetically modified foods,” notes Harriet Hall, a doctor who writes about pseudo-science issues. “When looked at even the least bit critically, many of the scares that get high-profile attention turn out to be based on weak or erroneous findings that were hardly ready for prime time.”
All that is worth keeping in mind about the curious--possibly spurious--concern over the effects of 5G cell towers. Some worry about humans using cell phones as well, a related but separate matter from cell towers and their possible ill effects.
Sometimes the generalized concern is electromagnetic radiation in general. EMF includes many types of invisible electrical or magnetic fields. No known health effects are expected if your exposure to EMF falls below the levels in the following guidelines, according to the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.
More specifically, the debate about 5G signals is the effects of non-ionizing radiation, any form of electrical or magnetic energy that can cause tissue to heat. Here are some common sources of non-ionizing radiation, and energy levels. Note that EMF from the sun is two orders of magnitude (100 times greater) greater than EMF from a mobile phone base station, for starters.
natural electromagnetic fields (like those created by the sun): 200 V/m
power mains (not close to power lines): 100 V/m
power mains (close to power lines): 10,000 V/m
electric trains and trams: 300 V/m
TV and computer screens: 10 V/m
TV and radio transmitters: 6 V/m
mobile phone base stations: 6 V/m
radars: 9 V/m
microwave ovens: 14 V/m
“Power” is one issue; distance the other really important issue, as radio waves used by cell towers and mobile phones decay (get weaker) according to an inverse square law.
For every doubling of distance away from the source that is emitting a signal, the signal decays to 25 percent of the original quantity. That means the strength of the EMF signal, decays very rapidly. Inverse square laws apply to many forms of energy, including sound and radio signals.
In fact, radio signals decay so rapidly that the actual cell tower, transmitting at full power, when a user is 50 feet away from the tower, is exposed to two orders of magnitude more power density from the smartphone than from the cell tower. But all the levels are very small, millionth of watts per square centimeter.
While cellular towers emit much higher power levels than cell phones, due to the inverse square law the amount of energy a person can absorb from them can be quite low.
“At ten meters, about as close as a person can get to a cellular antenna, the specific absorption rate of a 50 Watt GSM transmitter is .365, or just around the level of one of the lowest radiation cell phones on the market,” according to one test by Cnet.
Proponents of the “5G is dangerous” view do point out some matters of relatively uncontested physics. Everyone agrees that the decay rate of cell tower signals decays very rapidly with distance. And we might all agree that, generally, it is the phone itself, rather than the cell tower radios, that produces the highest signal levels, as humans live their normal lives.
With the caveat that I do not agree about the potential danger, here is a look at non-ionizing radiation from cell towers and phones, as viewed by a proponent of the view that such signals are dangerous. As you recall from the earlier graph, 50 meters away from a macrocell tower the signal really has decayed to levels even those who worry believe is “safe.”
The chart suggests exposure levels of 1 mW per square meter are a risk. But the University of Washington notes that “power densities on the order of 100 mW/cm2 can result in the heating of biological tissue.”
In other words, the Brightsandz standard is 10,000 times the level others believe is the point where tissue heating is a concern. Of course, the issue is avoid any tissue heating.
Recall the Department of Labor safety recommendation of no more than 10 mW per square centimeter squared, again signal about 1,000 times stronger than what Brightsandz believes is dangerous.
Again, with the caveat that I believe the science from controlled experiments to be correct, for most people, the phone itself will generally be the device that tends to represent the non-ionizing radiation issue, even if the power levels are quite low. If you believe there are areas of concern, it is the phones, not the towers.
The bottom line is that after decades of research, there still is no clear evidence that people using cell phones face health risks. That is not to say there is no risk: no technology has zero risk.
But as with any technology, people have to choose using technology with some risk because the benefits are deemed high.
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