5G wireless technology: Is it for any of us?

I am electro-hypersensitive. That means I feel pain, including headaches, mental fogginess, and abdominal cramping when I am exposed to electro-magnetic radiation from sources such as WiFi, smartphones, and cell towers. Developing electro-hypersensitivity led to my discovery of how heavily saturated our modern lives are with EMR. Current background radiation is estimated to be a million times higher than it was 30 years ago.

These exposures to EMR are cumulative in their effects upon the body, as the 1950-1974 mortality study of 40,000 Korean War veterans shows. In the study, it is apparent that even weak, short-term exposures to EMR accumulate over the years to engender serious diseases. The cancer rate was one in 50 during the 1950s when the American Cancer Society formed. Now it is one in two. This shows that neither the Federal Communication Commission guidelines nor the ACS’s advice are adequate to reverse this trend.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer designated microwave frequencies as category 2B carcinogenic. The 2013 leading brain cancer researchers in Sweden, the Hardell Group, announced that EMR used in wireless devices meets all Bradford Hill criteria as a category 1A carcinogen on par with asbestos and nuclear radiation.

Telecommunication companies are now poised to roll out the 5th generation (5G) wireless antennas every 500 feet in U.S. cities. As with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which made it illegal for cities to deny cellphone towers based on health or safety concerns, implementation of 5G would also be without our informed consent. There have been no long- or short-term safety studies regarding 5G other than those for millimeter-wave weapons used by the military, which are classified. The 5G lobby plans for millions of base station transmitters to be placed on Earth while 20,000 more satellites are put into space. Beam-formed 5G millimeter waves will be ten to hundreds of times stronger than that of our current 4G base stations. Dr. Martin Pall, professor emeritus of biochemistry at Washington State University, contends that “putting in tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has got to be the about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world.”

Despite the faster downloads, the internet of things, and self-driving cars promised by the proponents of 5G, we must keep 5G from polluting our lives. All life will be effected if 5G moves forward as planned — bugs, birds, pets, as well as us — and it is not our right to harm them with this technology.

KRISTA HESS-MILLS

Priest River