
5G Radiation Dangers (2016) - ashitlerferad
http://beta.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cellphone-5g-health-20160808-snap-story.html
======
KaiserPro
"It’s unclear how many smaller base stations would be needed for 5G service.
But it’s widely believed that there would need to be exponentially more
because of the limited distance the signals can travel"

Lets unpack this: 1) there is and has been lots of modelling to work out if
the frequency bands are viable for business.

2) Where on the exponential curve is it? double? Quadruple? don't use terms
that one clearly doesn't understand.

3) "Widely believed" is not a good source. Fucking talk to the scientists that
are doing the moedelling. Do you honestly think that the entire international
mobile industry is going to just guess as to how many Basestations are needed?

4) "more because of the limited distance the signals can travel" Do you know
what this means? propogation is limited, which means that exposure is more
than likley to be less. Its simple physics that propagation on the 4-6Ghz
bands is nowhere near as much as 700Mhz. ([https://gsacom.com/5g-spectrum-
bands/](https://gsacom.com/5g-spectrum-bands/))

5) once again, if range is limited, so is exposure.

Once again a lack of basic science, combined with clickbate has continued to
undermine valid criticism and replace it with bone headed stupidity.

If you are worried about 5G, why the fuck do you use Wifi? wifi is both 2.4
ghz, and 5 ghz.

~~~
piker
> If you are worried about 5G, why the fuck do you use Wifi? wifi is both 2.4
> ghz, and 5 ghz.

Assuming one chooses to use Wifi in one's home, perhaps the criticism is still
valid because such choice is just that--a choice. By contrast, one is forced
to expose oneself to radio waves legally propagating in public spaces.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm conflicted about this, because on the one hand, people should have a
choice about things that happen to them. On the other hand, if you let them,
you get things like this, or anti-vaccination movements. What can one do?

~~~
pasta
Anti-vac is a public issue.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So will be anti-RF, if you let many people get deadly scared of radio waves.

------
ko27
If non-ionizing low temperature radiation can be harmful to humans, does that
mean we can get health issues just from standing near another human body which
emits EM radiation at a far higher frequency and energy density?

~~~
jjoonathan
Isn't there a pretty well-established (but small) link between temperature and
cancer?

There's probably a reason why all the RF cancer studies go to the effort of
specifically controlling it and specifying that the effects they are
interested in are athermal.

~~~
robbiep
No there is not.

There is a well understood risk of cancer in people who drink really really
hot coffee and tea in oesophageal cancer but in no other cancer is there a
relationship

------
sschueller
I would be more worried about issues similar to the diesel gate scandal where
manufacturers start forging radiation tests results.

How much testing does the government do and how much is the industry self
testing?

~~~
lgats
Hi,

I'm no expert on the exact regulations, but I run fccid.io and have a pretty
good idea of the process manufacturers go through.

Although forgery of results would be possible, almost all testing is done by
independent labs. It would be possible for the manufacturer to submit a
"compliant" sample but then program the rest of the units to radiate
differently.

What I see most commonly are devices being sold without any FCC testing. All
wireless devices sold in the USA should have certification but many new
startups may not know the regulation around the industry (i.e. a kickstarter
smart bike lock project might not take FCC certification into account and end
up selling a few thousand devices before going belly up). Testing is often
thousands of dollars so for a little-known startup they may just try to ride
on the fact that their Aliexpress supplied Bluetooth chip "is FCC certified"
(it's not).

It's not always startups that are skirting the testing though, Bayer's Aleve
Direct Therapy TENS bosts some invalid FCC IDs on the user manual.
[https://www.aleve.com/aleve-direct-therapy/how-it-
works/](https://www.aleve.com/aleve-direct-therapy/how-it-works/)

From what I've seen, there is little to no actual enforcement that goes on
within this licensing space (but there is also a pretty high rate of
compliance).

The FCC has an outline from 2008 where they explain more of the compliance
audit process:
[https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/oct08/...](https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/oct08/Oct_08-Audit_and_Compliance_Issues.pdf)

~~~
lgats
Bonus:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlEZ8Cj3YGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlEZ8Cj3YGk)

Youtube video produced by mobile phone manufacturers.

------
valuearb
No discussion of sample sizes or P values? I convinced, I will refuse to stand
within inches of a 5G base station for 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off, for 10
hours a day.

~~~
baobrien
Here's the preprint 'Report of Partial Findings' paper:
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/06/23/055...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/06/23/055699.full.pdf)

As a non-biologist, the amount of power being exposed to the rats here seems
pretty high - 0, 1.5, 3, and 6 watts absorbed per Kg of body mass. Also, if
I'm reading this right, survival was very slightly lower in the control groups
than any of the RF exposed groups.

~~~
Turing_Machine
6 watts absorbed per kg of body mass would be somewhere in the range of 500
watts for a human being, so, yes, very high -- that's around 5x the amount of
energy normally produced as body heat. I would think that would be enough to
produce severe stress just from the thermal effects.

~~~
vvanders
Holy crap, yeah you don't want to be near something dropping 500W ERP.

If I recall correctly most cell phones are on the order of 1-2W since more
would tear through your battery.

~~~
waegawegawe
Quick Google searches indicate about three watts. To a first approximation,
you are not concave when talking on a cell phone, so figure at most 1.5W
travelling in your direction. Humans are definitely not opaque to radio, but
let's suppose I am. Personally, I weigh 90kg, so for me it's something like
15mW per kg at most, for the small handful of minutes per day I spend on the
cell phone.

My level of concern about this could not be lower.

~~~
vvanders
Keep in mind if they're doing CDMA the power is dialed down to keep it uniform
at the receiver(otherwise the code XOR doesn't work) so unless you're at the
limits of reception it's probably not at 3w.

Agreed though, the power seems really low.

------
theyregreat
Hmmm. It depends on the power, frequencies and distance to tissue. I remember
a coworker at a GPS mfgr accidentially turned on a 440 MHz radio in high-power
(25W) mode with only a whip antenna and received a nasty radio burn when he
pointlessly/accidentally put his hand around it. That radio burn looked
similar to a sunburn or maybe 20 seconds in the microwave. Increased risk of
cancer, for sure.

A fraction of a Watt every now and then might be okay, as long as it’s not
bursting at multiple Watts or near the resonant frequencies of purine or
water.

~~~
13of40
> or maybe 20 seconds in the microwave

I'm curious to know the circumstances if you know what a skin burn from 20
seconds in a microwave looks like.

~~~
tonmoy
Maybe from cooking meat?

~~~
gambiting
People actually cook things in microwaves? As in - they go from raw product to
a cooked product? I've only ever used and only ever saw microwaves bring used
for warming up meals, never for actual cooking.

~~~
grecy
Checkout the buttons on the front - many have settings for cooking chicken,
beef, etc.

Absolutely you can "cook" things in microwaves, people do it all the time.

~~~
gambiting
What buttons? Pretty much every microwave I've ever seen looks like this[0] -
timer + power setting. Even our kitchen at work which has some really fancy
microwaves only offers time + power, nothing else. The ones full of buttons on
the front are from like....American movies, not something I ever see in real
life :P

[0]
[https://asda.scene7.com/is/image/Asda/5054781247296?hei=532&...](https://asda.scene7.com/is/image/Asda/5054781247296?hei=532&wid=910&qlt=85&fmt=pjpg&resmode=sharp&op_usm=1.1,0.5,0,0&defaultimage=default_details_George_rd)

~~~
grecy
Most I have seen look like this

[https://www.google.com/search?q=microwave+buttons&source=lnm...](https://www.google.com/search?q=microwave+buttons&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

------
CamperBob2
Seriously? This again?

There is no physical basis for the hypothesis that non-ionizing radiation at
athermal levels has any effect on humans. So, either come up with some
_repeatable_ results, or find something else to spend your research funding
on.

~~~
nashashmi
What you can't measure doesn't exist

... Until it is discovered!

I can feel Bluetooth waves!

~~~
CamperBob2
You should talk to the James Randi Educational Foundation about that (
[http://web.randi.org/](http://web.randi.org/) ). Depending on how their rules
are structured, the ability to detect Bluetooth emissions might qualify for
the $1M prize that they offer for a repeatable, controlled demonstration of
paranormal effects.

~~~
hexane360
That prize was officially terminated in 2015.

[http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-
challenge.html](http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html)

------
femto
For what it's worth, the definition of 5G isn't really settled yet. To some
people it means a high rate multi-antenna system in the existing radio bands
(in the approximate frequency range 900MHz to 2GHz). To others it means a
wide-band system at a centre frequency of approximately 60GHz.

The 60GHz band was specifically chosen for short range wide-band data
transmissions because it is close to the absorption peak for oxygen. This
means it doesn't propagate far in air, making it a poor choice for much other
than short range communications, where it's an asset if neighbouring cells
don't interfere with each other. Short range in this case means a cell in
every room of a house, as typical propagation distance is about 10 metres.

Given that the 60GHz band is specifically absorbed by oxygen, and the body
contains oxygen, it strikes me that it's worth specifically testing the
biological effects of this band, separately to existing cell phone bands.

Note that the article under consideration here tests at 900MHz and 1900MHz.

------
ddmma
In the near future, you are antenna!

to continously connect with your friends just cover your superior areas
(mainly head) in aluminium foil and reflect remotley some interest from a long
distance by showing the finger ..

neural networks will explode like popocorn into microwave and you could rent
your mental computation infrastructure to produce units such as bitcoins

------
zipotm
My MacBook Air wireless spot is producing more than 40 Gauss!

------
_wmd
Disappointing lack of specific information about the test setup, it mentions a
variety of configurations at varying energy levels, but omits whether it was a
single male/female pair in each configuration or whatever else

I have no doubt our bodies are easily disrupted by EM in ways we know about
and probably many, many more we don't, but it is insufficient to base a belief
on "science said male rats don't like 5g phones", which is basically all the
article states

~~~
CommentCard
Link to the NTP's paper:
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/23/055699](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/23/055699)

This article is misleading. The paper it is based on studied the effects of
900MHz CDMA modulated RF on rats. 5G bandwidth in the U.S. is from roughly
3100 MHz to 4200 MHz.

~~~
tomxor
RE: 5G, maybe it's different in US but following quote is from IEEE:

>As far as frequency, the 5G test network used a 15 GHz frequency band, which
is higher and shorter range than current 3G/4G cellular frequencies that top
out at around 2.6 GHz

[http://www.comsoc.org/blog/latest-update-5g-ieee-
communicati...](http://www.comsoc.org/blog/latest-update-5g-ieee-
communications-society)

The original article was suggesting this substantial difference is the likely
source of the problem, which would make sense if the study used the same
frequency range.

Higher frequencies tend to dislike solid obstacles and need higher gain (there
is a specific absorption rate that phones must not exceed to prevent literally
cooking bits of you, something you might not necessarily feel but could
eventually result in cancerous tissue just like any repetitive internal
trauma)...

such an argument against it's use for cell phones might have weight, on the
other hand forcing this paper narrative (if it was in-fact using 900MHz) was a
mistake.

------
dash2
"Why, for instance, did only male rats show increased tumor rates, and not
females?"

Hmm, was this pre-registered? Wee bit p-hacking? I can't find the answer in
the paper.

Hmm, though I did find this interesting nugget: "At the end of the 2-year
study, survival was _lower_ in the control group of 23 males than in all
groups of male rats exposed to GSM-modulated RFR." Anyone want to venture a
post hoc explanation?

~~~
red75prime
Thermoregulation reduced metabolic rate thanks to additional thermal energy
input, leading to slightly higher lifespans? Pure unfounded speculation, of
course.

~~~
baobrien
It looks like the control group just didn't survive for quite as long as this
particular strain of rats usually do. Probably just a statistical fluke with
the seemingly small (to a non-biologist) sample size.

From 'Conclusions':

>The survival of the control group of male rats in the current study (28%) was
relatively low compared to other recent NTP studies in Hsd:Sprague Dawley ® SD
® (Harlan) rats (average 47%, range 24-72%).

------
mark_l_watson
It is worth the risk, in my opinion. I never hold my phone next to my ear, but
there will be more general ambient radiation with more 5g cell towers and cell
use. Something unfortunate is that there is really no way to opt-out of cell
tower radiation exposure unless you live in a remote area.

------
davidmurdoch
My grandfather, one of the engineers that worked with the Voyager I and II
teams, died of throat cancer. From the late 90s up until his death in 2007 he
was warning people about the potential harmful effects of cell phone
radiation. He would only use corded phones.

His throat cancer was thought to be caused, at least in part, by his increased
exposure to radiation from the instruments he worked on while working for the
US government. Most of his work was classified and he took almost everything
about his work to his grave. My mother told me he'd disappear for weeks at a
time and he'd never talk about where he went or what he did.

If anyone knows more about the specifics of what my grandfather, William Henry
Fairing, Jr., was working on, that'd be so amazing to learn about!

~~~
userbinator
Did he also smoke?

Keep in mind that AM radio has historically operated at very high power; e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLW](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLW) was
broadcasting at 500kW(!) --- but to my knowlege, there has been no reports of
increased health issues in the population around those areas, despite all that
RF power causing lots of other very visible effects like turning various metal
structures into ad-hoc radios.

~~~
davidmurdoch
He didn't smoke, or at least if he did, he never let kids kids know about it.

------
juancn
I'm more worried about airport full body scanners in the THz range than cell
phones in the 4-6GHz bands (and I'm not that worried).

------
exabrial
Do we really have to relive this?

~~~
averagewall
Yes because cigarettes, radium, leaded petrol, asbestos, etc. Most things turn
out to be pretty safe but in the slim chance they're not, the downside risk is
very high.

~~~
hexane360
>radium

Not well understood physics, then it was understood and quickly recognized as
dangerous. Nothing was done because of nonexistent regulations and corporate
money.

>leaded petrol

Recognized as dangerous to begin with ("December 1922, the US Surgeon General
wrote to GM regarding growing concerns that environmental lead would become a
serious menace to public health."), huge negative effects in workers noticed
almost immediately. Nothing was done because of nonexistent regulations and
corporate money. ([https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-
earth/](https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/))

>asbestos

Recognized as dangerous by medical journals as far back as the 30s (About 40
years after it came into widespread use). Nothing was done because of
nonexistent regulations and corporate money.

>cigarettes

Recognized as dangerous by medical journals as far back as the 40s. Nothing
was done because of nonexistent regulations and corporate money.

>Non-ionizing radiation

Not recognized as dangerous despite every conceivable study being tried
multiple times. No link to cancer. Technology has been widely used for a
little under a century with no signs of population-level effects. No known
mechanism of action (unlike _all_ the others). Regardless, regulations limit
human exposure and require standardized testing of all consumer products.

~~~
harryf
Radium is a great example of society blindly placing trust in technology and
corporations as these ads from the 1910's show...

\- It will cure your hayfever!
[https://i.imgur.com/yXpONhN.png](https://i.imgur.com/yXpONhN.png)

\- Wear a radium pad for great health!
[https://i.imgur.com/NlnzYOx.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NlnzYOx.jpg)

\- Drink Radium water for better health!
[https://i.imgur.com/d1uIUGO.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/d1uIUGO.jpg)

Story is explained here
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-we-
re...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-we-realized-
putting-radium-in-everything-was-not-the-answer/273780/)

...and probably there were people back then saying "Oh more scare stories
about Radium again?!?"

Where mobile phones are concerned, I remember my old Ericsson GA628 that used
to heat up my ear leaving it red after 5 minutes of conversation.

What's worth bearing in mind is we deployed mobile phones to the public at
large before we had any significant data of their long term effects on us.
Likewise 5G - we'll only really know what is does to us long term once we've
gathered a few years of data, but that's not going to stop us deploying it. So
yes it won't immediately kill us but we're deluding ourselves to say we know
for sure there's no harm long term.

~~~
red75prime
We have a good idea what 5G does. It heats our bodies by negligible amount.
There's no known mechanisms for long-term adverse effects, there's no
experimental data supporting such claims.

~~~
harryf
> There's no known mechanisms for long-term adverse effects, there's no
> experimental data supporting such claims.

But that's exactly point - there are no _known_ mechanisms. Just like radium
in 1910 we didn't know what the mechanism was at that point, if any.

Have we studied the effects of 5G on a large sample of people over a 5 year or
10 year period ? No because 5G hasn't been available that long.

So ultimately we don't know but we're going to do it anyway. Which is OK if we
are aware that that's the choice we're making

~~~
red75prime
If there's no hypotheses on how long-term effects can occur, then experimental
work becomes p-hacking (read meaningless).

------
cagenut
Hey good news, 5G is coming soon.

