by Evguenia Alechine PhD

Last week, a group of leading scientists and experts who have spent decades studying the effects of radiation from wireless technologies came together in London to discuss the implications of 5G. The meeting was a special and timely conference, “5G and health: facts, risks and remedies”, convened by the British Society for Ecological Medicine.

At the Hallam Conference Centre in London, medical doctors, radiation specialists, and scientists gathered to share their views on how the apparently imminent advent of 5G technology might damage our brains, increase cancer risk and infertility, cause arrhythmias and negatively impact nature and wildlife. Key internationally-recognised speakers included Professor Lennart Hardell, Professor Emeritus Martin Pall, Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe, Dr Dimitris Panagopoulus, and Dr Peter Ohnsorge.

In this piece, we summarise the key takeaways from this crucially important conference, in the hope that you might share this potentially life-saving (and not just for humans) information among those in your networks who are seemingly oblivious to the risks involved.  

Uncharted exponential impacts

With the exponential increase in the use of wireless personal communication devices (smartphones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), levels of exposure to radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs) radiation have increased over the last century from extremely low natural levels by about 10¹⁸ times (yes, that’s 10 followed by 18 zeros, or one hundred quintillion times!). It’s likely that the most rapidly increasing man-made environmental exposure that occurred since the mid-20th century, and levels will likely jump up dramatically again, using the planned roll-out of technologies like 5G, which will require that thousands of transmitters issuing microwave radiation are placed in close vicinity of most of us. 

Each upgrade of the mobile phone network – GSM, 2G, 3G, 4G – increases the amount of radiation that we are exposed to by about an order of magnitude. However, 5G takes it to another level; there will be transmitters on lamp-posts in the street, thousands of mini-satellites in the sky, and few or no safe spaces free from the microwave radiation being emitted by these devices for any of us.

Proven Health Effects of EMF

As the 5G protagonists always like to tell us, life is itself electromagnetic. Every cell of our body has a polarised membrane that senses EMFs, leading to biochemical consequences. Therefore, we are all electromagnetically sensitive, to some extent.

As Prof Martin Pall, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, emphatically stated, current safety guidelines do not predict biological effects, and scientific studies have shown that current EMFs can cause lowered fertility, neurological/psychiatric effects, DNA damage, apoptosis, oxidative stress, endocrine effects, cancer (initiation and progression), genetic and epigenetic changes, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and cardiac effects, just to name a few.

These health conditions are the consequences of EMFs non-thermal effects. EMFs act by activating the voltage-gated calcium channels in the membrane of the cells, allowing calcium increase inside the cell driven by an electrochemical gradient (there is 10,000 times more calcium outside than inside cells), which causes many biochemical changes. 

A recent evaluation of 2266 scientific studies found that 68% contained evidence of significant biological or health effects associated with exposure to man-made EMFs. 

Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe, a UK-trained medical doctor, underscored that the relationship between the intensity of the radiation and the biological effects is not linear. EMFs also interact with chemicals, genetics, nutrition and stress, which can exponentially worsen these biological effects. We are witnessing a public health tragedy in the making.

“There are no safety studies on 5G”

Interestingly, rather than talking about the potential health implications of 5G, the conversation at the conference focused mainly on the devastating health effects of the current technologies such as 4G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This is because there are no safety studies being conducted. In the absence of these safety studies, only predictions can be made, based on anticipated effects of the different wavelengths and the likely dramatic increase in net exposure.  

Accordingly, Prof Martin Pall didn’t mince his words anticipating a massive increase in adverse human and environmental effects of 5G, compared with 4G. He was outspoken about the absence of any safety studies or guidelines intended to protect human health or the environment.

As recently published in The Lancet, “public exposure regulations in most countries continue to be based on the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), which were established in the 1990s on the belief that only acute thermal effects are hazardous.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, most ICNIRP members have conflicts of interest with the telecoms industry.

Absurdly, current safety guidelines discard health damage caused by EMFs thermal effects but then fail to evaluate the non-thermal effects. To be clear, it was again confirmed by Prof Pall, that “there are no safety studies on 5G.”

Professor Pall continued, “We do have some studies on millimetre waves that are not pulsed, but we have nothing on this extraordinary highly pulsed 5G radiation. We have every reason to expect that 5G will be vastly worse based on what we know the properties are. So, we have every reason to be extraordinarily concerned. What we need to do is to lower exposure from things we are already exposed to, to try to avoid a new big increase in exposure."

Why RF-EMFs are more damaging than other radiation sources?

How come solar radiation (100 times more powerful than mobile phones) is not damaging to deeper tissues? Dr Dimitris Panagopoulos, EMF-biophysicist at the National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos" in Greece, explained this is because “natural radiation is not polarised.” This is explained in more detail in an article he co-authored in Scientific Reports in 2015.

All types of man-made EMFs (in contrast with natural EMFs) are polarised and can have increased biological activity compared with non-ionised natural radiation sources. It seems that it is the polarisation itself that triggers the increase in negative health and environmental effects.

Safety tests are performed with simulated signals, which are different from, for example, mobile phone signals. Dr Panagopoulos performed real-life cell phone exposure experiments in flies and showed DNA damage at all stages of development.

He also compared the intensity of current technology to potent natural and man-made forces. He said, “Mobile phone fields are much stronger and damaging than other fields like lightning and power lines.” 

Finally, once an EMF is polarised, which includes all the ELFs (extremely low-frequency radiation) needed for information transmission, and has adequate intensity, the parameter that makes the difference is the variability of the field. Every time EMFs are applied or interrupted the displacement doubles. Pulsed EMFs, as currently used in telecoms, are twice as bioactive as continuous EMFs.

Devastating Health and Population Crash Predicted

5G roll-out is set is set to require an extraordinary number of antennas near homes, schools, hospitals, and workplaces. It will be virtually impossible to avoid high-level exposure. Scientists claimed that 5G millimetre waves penetrate at least 20 times more deeply than the telecoms industry claims, having greater health impacts.

Prof Martin Pall issued the direst warning, that had more than a Malthusian overtone.  

Professor Pall, who knows more about EMFs than most people on the planet, opined that “5G will inevitably produce universal or almost universal very early-onset Alzheimer’s dementia and may cause near universal autism. Our society's collective brain function will probably crash in 4-6 years. With the further expansion of 4G and introduction of 5G, our society’s collective brain function could crash even within months, rather than years.” He went on to suggest that even without 5G, “we will soon be extinct.” It seems we may become another lost civilisation, in the mould of Atlantis and other lost civilisations now the subject of intensive geomythological research.  

It is no surprise that wide-scale adoption of 5G would also bring with it potentially devastating ecological impacts. As 5G is also so energy-hungry, it is also predicted that 5G will increase greenhouse gases and so will likely exacerbate climate change impacts. EMFs also affect plants through calcium channels, making them more flammable, contributing to more damage by fire. Every organism on earth will be impacted. A powerful example is the use of similar millimetre waves as patented insecticides.

When it comes to patients suffering from electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), Dr Peter Ohnsorge, from the European Academy of Environmental Medicine, published the EUROPAEM EMF Guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems and illnesses. He clearly argued that EHS is not a nocebo effect as patients present with specific symptoms that resolve after the removal of the source.

And, in the context of 5G implementation, Dr Mallery-Blythe asked, “will we all develop EHS with the high exposures?”

Experiments with humans

Prof Lennart Hardell is the scientist responsible for getting the WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to classify RF-EMFs as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B). This was based on evidence of increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, and acoustic neuroma associated with wireless radiation. 

Something that was mentioned over and over by most of the speakers during the conference, was the Nuremberg Code. This is a set of research ethics developed for human experimentation created at the end of the Second World War. It articulates the human right that humans should not to be experimented upon unless animal studies provide evidence of safety, and there is explicit consent, avoidance of unnecessary physical suffering, and that the risk should never exceed the humanitarian importance of the problem at hand. Subjects should also be able to withdraw from the study at any given time. 

Needless to say, none of these principles has been taken into account when it comes to 5G implementation. Instead, we are now, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, all being forced into taking part in the biggest next-generation uncontrolled experiment ever to be conducted.

However, in the era of consent with the #metoo movement and Greta Thunberg filing a lawsuit with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, most of us still think that somehow 5G implementation doesn’t fall under human experimentation without consent and that there is nothing we can do about it. 

“It’s about consent. If you don’t want to be exposed, you should have the right to make that choice themselves,” said Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe.

Scientific evidence refutes the prominent claim that wireless technologies pose no health risks at the currently permitted exposure levels. Instead, the evidence supports the International EMF Scientist Appeal by 244 scientists from 41 countries, including ANH’s founder and scientific director Rob Verkerk PhD, who have published on the subject and collectively petitioned the WHO and the UN for immediate measures to reduce public exposure. Scientists call for truly protective limits for exposure to EMFs.

How to Protect Yourself

While we shouldn’t even be talking about having to protect ourselves from a technological advance that others have developed and implemented without our consent, and with no safety studies to support it, we need to remain vigilent and consider what might be the most protective measures.

Christian Blank, Indoor Environment Analyst, presented a variety of options to protect ourselves from this kind of radiation. The good news is that he claimed that 90% exposure reduction to harmful RF and microwave radiation is achievable with simple measures.

The places where we spend most of our time are our bed (somewhere around 8 hours per day) and our workplace. Therefore, we can minimise our exposure by taking simple measures such as leaving phones in airplane mode and turning off the Wi-Fi, to more sophisticated measures like using EMF protection paint.

Christian Blank went on to say, “there are a couple of smartphone settings that can reduce our exposure a great deal because the smartphone is the number one source of RF radiation in our day-to-day life. It’s very important to turn off mobile data, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth whenever possible, and make these active only when you want to check for messages. Do not leave them on during the night, ideally, switch on airplane mode [otherwise] your cell phone is emitting RF radiation 24/7 non-stop.”

Moving Forward?

Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe closed the conference with the future perspective for EMFs and 5G. Using the Goldilocks analogy, she compared the human use of EMF-emitting technologies by saying, “we have been having our porridge too hot.”

We know that current EMFs safety guidelines are not appropriate. But instead, we’ve now got to deal with 5G (and even 6G is in the pipeline as Big Tech prepares for driverless cars and all the other spoils of the forthcoming Internet of Things).

In considering our net exposure to human-made radiation, it was also clarified that 5G should not be regarded as a replacement for existing 3G and 4G. Instead, 5G will be layered on top of the previous technologies.

While there is a global race for power to implement the 5G technology, Dr Mallery-Blythe, founder of PHiRE, invited all members of the healthcare industry to inform themselves, share information widely, and take action to prevent and protect their patients and other citizens from EMFs. 

While it might be too early to know if Professor Pall’s Doomsday-like predictions are going to be realised, even if the time period is extended, what’s for sure is that together we can make a difference!

Call to Action

1. Please avoid buying into 5G technology. If you are already using 3G and 4G technology, stick with it – and minimise your exposure to it as best you can. If you need a replacement device, new and refurbished devices are widely available.
2. Please use the share icons on our website to share this story as widely as you can among your networks.