Well, sorry to disappoint you – again – conspiracy theorists, but once again it doesn’t look like your local 5G towers are secretly beaming Covid germs into your body. No doubt Bill Gates is somewhere in his mountain lair, stamping his feet in fury and ordering Anthony Fauci back to the drawing board.
In all seriousness, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether mobile phone radiation could cause harmful health affects. After all: radiation. The very word is enough to trigger a reflexive quiver of fear.
But there’s radiation and there’s radiation. We live in a sea of radiation, much of it natural. The really worrying stuff, the Chernobyl scary stuff, is ionising radiation. Ionising radiation is high frequency, therefore high energy radiation. Such radiation is sufficiently energetic to strip electrons off any atoms they strike (i.e., ionise them). If those atoms happen to be part of your body’s cells, especially the DNA in your reproductive cells, biological calamity ensues.
Radio frequency (RF) radiation, such as used in mobile phones, operates at relatively low frequencies. Sure, ‘five gigahertz’ (which is what ‘5G’ means) sounds like a pretty big number, but to put it into perspective, visible light (i.e., sunlight) has a frequency in the range of 400,000 GHz to 790,000 GHz. X-rays are around 25,000,000,000 GHz. Deadly gamma rays are vastly more energetic than even that.
Having put things into a bit of perspective, let’s turn to the latest study into 5G and human health.
Researchers at Germany’s Constructor University recently decided to provide more evidence that our smartphones aren’t secretly poisoning us. What’s more, their study published in the May issue of the journal PNAS Nexus showcases just how innocuous 5G’s electromagnetic fields really are.
Cellular networks operate and transmit information within predetermined frequency ranges. All 5G networks currently operate under 6 gigahertz (GHz), but that will expand to encompass 24.3 to 27.5 GHz and 39.5 to 43.3 GHz ranges in the coming years. While very strong electromagnetic fields can potentially cause physiological damage, the frequencies used in 5G can’t penetrate the body beyond a few millimeters of skin. Despite this, the team from this study conducted a fully blinded experiment that exposed human cells to not only 5G frequency ranges, but also far more powerful electromagnetic fields.
The researchers focused on the two most common cells in human skin: fibroblasts and keratinocytes. These make up connective tissue and the majority of the epidermis (outer skin).
Over a series of tests, the researchers exposed the sample cells to 27 and 40.5 GHz frequencies at multiple strengths for both two and 48 hour intervals. According to the authors, this is the first-known study to use methods including whole-genome RNA sequencing and methylation array for analyzing both the genetic and epigenetic effects of 5G frequencies on human cells.
The results conformed to what previous studies had found.
Even at 10 times the recommended exposure limits, the team did not find a single change to gene expression or methylation profiles beyond what can be expected from chance.
But, wait! Didn’t Joe Mercola, or RFK Jr or David Wolfe, or someone, cite studies which proved how dangerous 5G is?
The authors also made sure to note that although a handful of previous studies offer contrary claims, those experiments did not control for temperature. Because of this, it’s extremely likely that any of their recorded “effects” from 5G exposure were the results of heat alone.
“[O]n the one hand [our results are] very well in line with biophysical facts: at the frequencies tested here, the quantum energies are far too low to have photochemical or even ionizing effects,” the authors wrote in their conclusion. “On the other hand, it shows how important it is to precisely control, document and, if necessary, compensate for the temperature effects caused by the exposure.”
The researchers hope their latest findings will “close this debate” on 5G, particularly any claims to “possible nonthermal biological effects of exposure.”
So, why has 5G gotten such a bad rap?
Mostly, it seems, plain ol’ technofear. There’s hardly a new technology comes along without some fool/s shrieking that it’ll roon us all! 5G also had the pure bad luck to be rolled out in 2019 – just months before Covid was leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Well, that just had to be more than a coincidence, for the conspiracy-minded.
And, like most conspiracies, the hardcore believers will no doubt refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
