Editorials
Wireless 5G Technology: Health Cost of Worshipping Convenience
Paul H. LeMay, Vancouver
Volume 33 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 30, 2019
Over the past several decades, our “modern” technological society has undergone a rather remarkable mobile communications revolution. And it’s pretty hard not to notice. Throngs of young and old holding smart phones in nearly every social setting one can imagine – on buses, in shopping centres, inattentively walking along the street, texting friends while sitting on exercise equipment that others are waiting to use, and even sneaking a peak at incoming messages while in church.
Yet despite the obvious convenience this now nearly ubiquitous network of connectivity has given us, many of us are completely ignorant of the growing body of science telling us that we should be much more concerned than we are.
Over the past several decades, our “modern” technological society has undergone a rather remarkable mobile communications revolution. And it’s pretty hard not to notice. Throngs of young and old holding smart phones in nearly every social setting one can imagine – on buses, in shopping centres, inattentively walking along the street, texting friends while sitting on exercise equipment that others are waiting to use, and even sneaking a peak at incoming messages while in church.
Yet despite the obvious convenience this now nearly ubiquitous network of connectivity has given us, many of us are completely ignorant of the growing body of science telling us that we should be much more concerned than we are.
One reason for this ignorance is that we have been psychologically reassured by governments, mobile telecom service providers and even presumably well-informed health authorities that it is safe to use. Yet despite such assurances, some 1,670 non-industry funded peer-reviewed scientific studies (as collated by PowerWatch in 2018) have shown grave biological effects of prolonged exposures to radio frequency emitting devices such as smart phones, cordless phones, WiFi, so-called smart meters, and nearby cell phone towers. These effects include cognitive decline, early onset dementias, neuropsychiatric effects (such as sleep impairment and anxiety); DNA damage, autism, significant drops in human fertility, sudden cardiac death, heart arrhythmias, and various types of cancer.
Indeed, many well-informed observers would say the verdict on whether wireless radiation can actually cause cancer was effectively settled when a watershed paper by University of Toronto epidemiology professor emeritus Anthony B. Miller and three others was published in Environmental Research in November 2018. Based on their review of 60 studies in association with the Epidemiology Working Group of the Expert Forum on Wireless Radiation and Human Health at Hebrew University, the authors concluded the current International Agency For Research on Cancer (IARC) classification for radio-frequency radiation (RFR) as a Group 2B carcinogen (the same grouping as lead), should be upgraded to a Group 1 carcinogen (the highest causal classification on the books).
What that means is that the Miller paper could eventually prompt the World Health Organization to issue much more serious health warnings about its use. When this happens, as national, provincial and local governments will be compelled to adopt these same standards, as will school boards, universities and public libraries. Once that happens, the mobile communications industry as we now know it could crash to the ground, unless of course, safer alternatives, such as wired-only fiber-optic network and/or infrared LiFi technologies, are deployed.
But you wouldn’t know it from the telecom industry’s avaricious appetite to deploy the next generation of faster millimetre-wave wireless tech (i.e. 5G), one that will require hundreds of thousands of small cell antennae on utility poles that will radiate into nearby homes everywhere on a 24/7 basis without any prior safety testing or advanced public notice or consultation. Naturally such plans have prompted many people of conscience to ask whether these plans are actually in our best longer term interests, be it in terms of health, cyber-security or privacy.
To help remedy the public’s lack of knowledge about this situation, a volunteer ad-hoc group of concerned BC citizens called Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Humans, invited Martin Pall, a professor emeritus in biochemistry and basic medical science from Washington State University, and one of the world’s experts on the damaging health effects of wireless radiation, to British Columbia in June and July to present a series of public education talks.
This he did in seven BC communities, including Salt Spring Island, Victoria, Duncan and Nanaimo. Among his most sobering warnings? The deployment of 5G wireless tech will not only be 10 to 100 times stronger than current 4G tech; its overall health harms could result in the effective cognitive collapse of social order in a matter of months rather than years.
Surprisingly, and despite being given ample opportunities to host Dr. Pall, none of BC’s three largest universities chose to allow him to present the scientific evidence on their campuses. Indeed, one UBC bio-ethics officials said they were passing on the opportunity because they had checked with their own “experts” on campus who said there was nothing to worry about.
The fact UBC is receiving millions of research dollars from telecom giants Huawei, Rogers and Ericsson for 5G wireless deployment on campus might well have had something to do with that choice.
A similar non-interest response came from the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Doctors of BC. Aren’t these the entities that are supposed to be devoted to protecting the health of British Columbians based on evidence-based knowledge?
Why such a widespread failure of conscience? Aside from the obvious cognitive dissonance effects this growing body of scientific knowledge appears to be having on those occupying institutional positions of power, there is another dimension of this matter .
The human desire to connect with each other is a profoundly deep need. The harshness of solitary confinement in prisons helps to underscore that point. Yet it also helps to explain why we may be especially blind to the downsides of our current infatuation with wireless tech. As people who aspire to walk the Christian path, this is precisely where we need to ask ourselves a few brutally honest questions.
If the technology we are currently using is actually harmful not only to ourselves, but to all creatures unlucky enough to find themselves within its radiating sphere of influence, can we honestly say we are genuinely aspiring to radiate love in the world? This is where we need to wake ourselves from our growing addiction to the god of convenience, in favour of the God of Love. To do otherwise could literally destroy not only our own lives, but all of those around us. Choices rarely get as stark as that.
ICN Board member, Paul H. LeMay, BA (Psych), is an independent science writer and the co-author of two books with a psychiatrist entitled "Primal Mind, Primal Games". He is also a founding member of the citizens’ ad hoc group Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Humans.
Paul H. LeMay, Vancouver