A Friday thought: Where would we be if "prudent avoidance" was all we ever did? Is this 5G situation overly conservative or just outright lazy because someone didn't do the science to come up with a definitive result? Do people protesting 5G have any basis? Did 5G cause COVID-19? I digress to the ridiculous.
My background and rambling thoughts on the topic are: Humans have been bathed in electromagnetic fields from the earth, sun, and cosmos since emergence from single-celled organisms and a soup of primordial building blocks. We may have introduced new frequency ranges and field strengths, but if life on earth was that susceptible, we would not have gotten beyond those first DNA and RNA strands forming. No one has been able to convince me that non-ionizing RF within regulated power levels, which are based on thermal effect hazards with margin, cause harms that are meaningful or unacceptable. Sure, there have been non-thermal claims over the years, but none has held up under scrutiny, peer-review, or attempts to duplicate the results. According to the NTSB, the annual odds that a typical American will die in a plane crash are about 1 in 11 million. Around 1 in 9 thousand for a car crash annually. Both of these are acceptable as we still fly or ride in a car. The level of risk is accepted. It doesn't appear RF exposure is as dangerous as a car ride. Probably not as dangerous as a plane trip either. How does prudent avoidance fit in? Did the keynote speaker at one of the USA IEEE EMC Symposia get there by car or plane? Based on what I personally have read, I am comfortable with 5G, the Wi-Fi in my house and in public, the Bluetooth and 4G in my phone, airport screening, and my ham radio hobby. The risk equation includes harm and exposure. I do not personally believe the harm extends beyond what we already know about and I am comfortable with the existing limits on exposure levels. Low risk for me personally that I am more comfortable with than flying. I also don't believe that people can have a Wi-Fi allergy. Others may have come to different conclusions. We all set our own risk tolerance levels over a wide range of personal activities and actions. Some things that once were thought safe have been proven to cause harm and vice versa as time and science progressed. We should not let bad science or irrational thoughts jump to unreasonable conclusions however. I see parallels in toxicology. Acetaminophen does nothing for you at low doses, has clinically proven benefits at around 1000 mg/kg/day, but will kill you at over 30,000 mg/kg/day. There is definitely the potential for harm there, but at the right exposure level there are benefits, and at lower exposure levels, no effect. I'm not saying RF has beneficial effects, but at levels lower than what can cause thermal damage, I believe there is no harm. Have a good weekend! Dan From: Ken Javor [mailto:ken.ja...@emccompliance.com] Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 10:48 PM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Will 5G Be Bad for Our Health? A person's viewpoint is critical to know. Several decades ago the keynote speaker at one of the USA IEEE EMC Symposia was a noted medical doctor who worked in this EM bio-effects field. I don't recall what all he said in detail, but here's the sum and substance. Thermal effects are not the whole story. Interactions at the molecular level below thermal levels are important. We have measured effects. Any effects are bad, even if they cannot be tied to health issues. We operate under the concept of "prudent avoidance." Prudent avoidance means if you can't prove something is safe beyond a reasonable doubt, you assume it's dangerous. Now here's the kicker. Mankind evolved in a world where manmade electromagnetic energy did not exist. So we must avoid any manmade sources above the ambient background that exists without man's use of the EM spectrum. But that ambient does exist - so you can't hide in a shield room with no ambient, because you didn't evolve for that, either. That's what I remember him saying. Here's what I remember saying to whoever I was with listening to this keynote. Mankind evolved in a world where he was old or dead by age 35, and a grandparent by that time, as well. When Neanderthal man was first discovered, they drew him as all hunched over and monster-like, because they didn't recognize at the time these people had severe rheumatoid arthritis, from sleeping in cold caves. The state of nature is not an idyllic garden of Eden, as these people imagine (well, at least since Eden was closed off to human habitation). Life in an aboriginal setting, outside maybe the South Sea islands, is nasty, brutal, and short. Ken Javor Phone: (256) 650-5261 _____ From: Manny Barron <mbar...@ieee.org> Reply-To: Manny Barron <mbar...@ieee.org> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2021 19:28:17 -0700 To: <EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG> Subject: Re: [PSES] Will 5G Be Bad for Our Health? This is a very good question. There's a myriad of opinions on the topic of non-ionizing radiation hazards, some justified and others not. When I read an article on this topic the first thing I want to try to understand is who wrote it and what is their motivation for writing it. Not saying there's anything nefarious going on, I just want to understand some background that will help me interpret what the writer is saying and why they're saying it. And then there's the standards, how they were developed, what they are based on, plus their validity. Every country seems to have one, some are identical while others are different. The noted article is very interesting but the article referenced in it is even more interesting because it addresses the topic more quantitatively and brings some standards into focus for comparison. Here's the link to the referenced article for those who want to go directly to it: 5G Communication Systems and Radio Frequency Exposure Limits: https://futurenetworks.ieee.org/tech-focus/september-2019/5g-communications- systems-and-radiofrequency-exposure-limits?highlight=WyJzeXN0ZW1zIiwicmFkaW9 mcmVxdWVuY3kiLCI1ZyIsIjVnJ3MiLCInNWciLCJjb21tdW5pY2F0aW9ucyIsImV4cG9zdXJlIiw ibGltaXRzIiwiNWcgY29tbXVuaWNhdGlvbnMiLCJleHBvc3VyZSBsaW1pdHMiXQ== About 10 years ago when I worked for a major military defense contractor I had to investigate a potential non-ionizing radiation hazard at a small production facility where a ground level transmitting antenna was located external but near to the building. The antenna was there first, when the building was empty, then later there was a need to establish a production facility in the building, of course with people inside. At the time I used the C95.1 (2005) standard as my guide. When I was done I used the collected test data to establish a keep out zone around the antenna. In the end I doubled the keep out zone radius to account for whatever unknown uncertainty that might exist in my analysis. There's uncertainty with my measurements and there's uncertainty with the standard exposure limits, and that's why I doubled the keep out zone. There are a lot of factors to consider relative to 5G radiation hazards: frequency, radiation pattern, power level, distance, obstacles, exposure time, plus most importantly the effect on the human body, much of which is not well known (my opinion). And no doubt there are other factors that I can't think of right now. I am hoping that all those directly involved with expanding the 5G technology use scientific methods to develop safety measures that work to minimize the exposure and potential adverse effects on the human body. Just my 2 cents. Manny Barron EMC Engineer On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 11:24 AM Richard Nute <ri...@ieee.org> wrote: https://spectrum.ieee.org/will-5g-be-bad-for-our-health <https://spectrum.ieee.org/will-5g-be-bad-for-our-health> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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