There has always been a small group of people who have peddled scare stories about the health effects of mobile telephony. Since the outbreak of the covid-19 these seem to be gathering more speed and gaining currency.
Of course we do not know everything about the side effects but the weight of scientific evidence so far refutes many of the rather exaggerated, outrageous and irresponsible claims being made. Remember: the Railways were opposed and considered dangerous by Queen Victoria and much of the landed gentry. The people of Cape Coast mobilised opposition to the construction of the railways on the basis that it would kill their children, Duh!
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As someone who works in the industry I thought should share with you here what we know. This won’t be a quick skim read so if you are interested please take your time and scour the materials I am sharing carefully to provide the basis of informed debate and discussion
1. First, all vendors from Apple and Samsung at the device end to Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson at end infrastructure end of the business are required adhere to basic restrictions Radio Frequency on Electromagnetic Frequency transmission set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Click here https://www.icnirp.org/
If you don’t read anything in this rather dense 44 page document I strongly recommend reading “Appendix B :Health Risk Assessment Literature” on pages 37-42 at least on the topical issue of health and transmission
2. The European Union’s Commission on Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) has “a standing mandate to provide an independent update of the scientific evidence available, including the assessment of health risks that may be associated with exposure.” In a statement by in May 2019 by the EU Commission said the “Committee has already produced five relevant opinions which have not provided any scientific justification to revise the limits set by Council Recommendation 1999/519/EC. The 5G networks are expected to have similar or lower levels of emission than 4G networks. Combined with 4G a modest cumulative increase is possible in dense areas, still far below the limits. These limits are based on independent guidance issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Therefore an impact assessment is not considered necessary. The ICNIRP is reviewing its guidelines after public consultation. The Commission is looking forward to the conclusions. The SCHEER may reassess the situation depending on the outcome of this review.” The ICNIRP review referenced here is what is posted in (1) above
3. The Australians are one of the early adopters of 5G technology. Here is a statement by the Australian Government’s Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency which says “Contrary to some claims, there are no established health effects from the radio waves that the 5G network uses”. Full statement available here
4. Here’s is a view of the Canadian government https://www.ic.gc.
5. Public Health England, the executive agency in the UK responsible for public health protection among other things. It says: “The health effects of exposure to radio waves have been researched extensively over several decades, and very many publications can be found in scientific journals and elsewhere. Coordinated research around the world has addressed concerns about rapidly proliferating mobile communications technologies from around the year 2000.
Independent expert groups in the UK and at international level have examined the accumulated body of research evidence. Their conclusions support the view that health effects are unlikely to occur if exposures are below international guideline levels.”
5. There are similar studies by other government agencies in New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Norway etc. Here is a sampling of those published in English https://www.pmcsa.ac.
6. The WHO’s assessment of the health effects of EMF is here https://www.who.int/peh-
Finally here is a summary of many studies on mobiles and Healthcare http://www.mwfai.org/docs/eng/
I hope this informs our debates and sure we should remain vigilant and demand the highest levels of health protection. But let’s do it responsibly and not behave like the people of Cape Coast did in the 1920s
Ekow Nelson
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