The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) recently concluded a study, which it published in Environmental Health. This ensures that existing exposure limits for 5G wireless radiation are inadequate, outdated, and harmful to human health and wildlife.
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 the further deployment of 5G wireless technologies until safety is proven and not simply fictitious”.
In an ICBE-EMF news 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 an increased risk of brain tumors, and these are supported by clear evidence for 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 findings of the study, 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 cell phones and other wireless devices should be limited, especially for pregnant women and children.
Hardell and Moskowitz, both associated with ICBE-EMF and their 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 of hundreds of studies indicating the dangers of wireless radiation exposure, and called for legal action and increased public pressure. The ICBE-EMF describes itself as “a multidisciplinary consortium of scientists, clinicians, and allied professionals who are or have been involved in research related to the health and biological 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”, grew out of the International EMF Scientist Appeal, a petition signed by more than 240 scientists representing more than 2,000 published articles.
According to the new ICBE-EMF study, the radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits set in the 1990s by the FCC and ICNIRP “were based on the results of behavioral studies conducted in the 1980s involving exposures of 40 to 60 minutes in 5 monkeys and 8 rats”, after which “arbitrary safety factors” were applied “at an apparent threshold specific absorption rate (SAR)” of 4 watts per kilogram.
According to a fact sheet accompanying the study publication, this means that “no adverse health effects are claimed to exist from RFR exposure” “below the… SAR of 4 watts per kilogram for frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 6 GHz”. The document argues that these radiation exposure limits were based “on 2 main assumptions”: that any biological effect of wireless radiation exposure “was due to excessive tissue heating and no effects would occur below the putative SAR threshold”, and “12 assumptions that were not specified by the FCC or ICNIRP”.
The limits set by the FCC and ICNIRP also ignore “the past 25 years of extensive RFR research” which, according to the study, “demonstrates that the assumptions underlying the FCC and ICNIRP exposure limits are not valid and continue to pose a public health hazard” and “are based on false assumptions”.
These damages, which have been observed even “below the assumed SAR threshold”, include “non-thermal induction of reactive oxygen species, DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, carcinogenicity, sperm damage, and neurological effects, including electromagnetic hypersensitivity”, in addition to “increased brain” and “the risk of thyroid cancer”. Despite these documented risks, the study explains that in 2020, the FCC and ICNIRP “reaffirmed the same limits that were set in the 1990s”, limits that “do not adequately protect workers, children, hypersensitive people and the general population from long-term or long-term RFR exposures”.
According to the ICBE-EMF press release, the FCC and ICNIRP “have inappropriately ignored or dismissed hundreds of scientific studies documenting adverse health effects at exposures below the threshold dose declared by these agencies,” which “is based in the science of the 1980s, cell phones were once ubiquitous”.
Scientists talk about the risks of wireless exposure
Hardell and Moskowitz told The Defender that wireless radiation poses a greater risk to pregnant women and children. Moskowitz said that people who are electromagnetically hypersensitive are also at special risk. Both recommended, however, that all people minimize their exposure to wireless radiation as much as possible.
