Get caught up on relevant news in four minutes. (500 words)
As updates and projections regarding Covid-19 continue to saturate the daily news, readers may be wondering what else is going on in the world. It can be challenging to sift through the myriad of articles on the internet to find stories that are both socially and politically relevant. So, in the spirit of producing meaningful content during this unprecedented time, The Torch will be posting newsworthy topics that have received lesser mainstream media coverage. This week, we’re looking at the rollout of 5G technology.
The 5G safety debate continues
For months, 5G has been making headlines but few fully grasp what this means for the future and how our lives may be impacted. Eugene was included by Northwest News Network in a list of seven Pacific Northwestern cities in May 2019, with a number of Eugene locals speaking out against the technology and questioning the lack of safety testing at a city council meeting. For the last year, however, news coverage of grassroots resistance against the 5G rollout has been largely quiet.
Like its predecessors, 5G data is transmitted over radio waves to provide faster internet to a range of devices.
With the prevalence of in-home devices like smart televisions, Google Nest, Amazon Echo and Alexa, we’ve grown accustomed to the idea of “smart homes.” Now, the evolution of wireless internet is moving in the direction of “smart cities” and 5G technology is at the forefront. Reports in recent years even suggest that major cities will need to remove trees in order to make way for 5G.
While the safety of this technology is still up for debate, what we do know is that sufficient research regarding health risks and increased radiation exposure has not been conducted. According to the Environmental Health Trust, “Scientists are cautioning that before rolling out 5G, research on human health effects urgently needs to be done first.”
For example, on Feb.7, 2019, Senator Richard Blumenthal questioned a Senate committee hearing on the potential health risks of 5G with ultimately inconclusive responses regarding the extent of safety testing conducted by the Federal Communications Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.
“If you go to the FDA website, there basically is a cursory and superficial citation to existing scientific data saying ‘The FDA has urged the cell phone industry to take a number of steps, including support additional research on possible biological effects of radiofrequency fields for the type of signals emitted by cell phones’,” stated Blumenthal. “I believe that Americans deserve to know what the health effects are, not to pre-judge what scientific studies may show, and they also deserve a commitment to do the research on outstanding questions.”
In November 2018, the National Toxicology Program published the results of a study on the potential correlation between cellphones and cancer. This study concluded “high exposure to RFR (900 MHz) used by cellphones” was associated with malignant tumors in rats and “significant increases” in DNA damage to the frontal cortex of the brain, blood cells and hippocampi of mice.
This study – the lengthiest and costliest of its kind – was limited to 2G and 3G technology. The impact of 4G and 5G has not yet been assessed.
