"We have no reason to believe 5G is safe" - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no-reason-to-believe-5g-is-safe/ <comment><USER5> Honestly, after a glance at the links, they don't inspire confidence in me either. There are papers about very small changes on very rare types of cancer, measured by proxy on a species where it's common; papers criticizing the critics claiming association with interested parties (what is a perfectly fine thing to claim, but what is it doing in a scientific paper?); and the only wide review I could find claims that the literature has very weak conclusions that are not sufficient to claim any danger.

As usual, it's not the scientists that are wackos, it's the press that is claiming things completely different from what they say. There are proposals for better test equipment that should be taken, but I don't see any other claim for change there.

> At the same time, everybody seems to accept that the chance of getting > cancer in your lifetime has risen to about one in three for men and one in > five for women.

The wildest of the claims anywhere on the linked papers is a ~10% increase on the rate of one of the rarest types of cancer, so this line of research won't give you the answers you are looking for.

<comment><USER6> The thing that concerns me about millimeter wave tech and 5G is that it seems like a solution looking for a problem. My city just had a wave of poles dropped in a few neighborhoods, and they seem to me to be an expensive boondoggle. IMO, we would be better served by the heavy hand of the FCC allowing fiber providers to run telephone poles and trenches without any accountability (as the wireless carriers can with 5G).

These radio bands have been in military use for a long time. I'm surprised that no health studies have been done or released to the public.

<comment><USER7> It's not a solution looking for a problem. The problem is that the existing infrastructure does not support network slicing. Without network slicing the telcos are severely limited in their pricing models. "5G" is just them trying to convince consumers that this is for their benefit.

<comment><USER8> True! Right now telcos loathe being locked in as fixed-price dumb bit-pipes for the content providers, the netflix'es, facebooks & amazon's, who are making all the money.

Thus: 5G.

<comment><USER9> It's competition and regulation, not technology, that prevents telcos from charging as much as they'd like. How will network slicing change that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm amazed at how many people here actually decline to click on the links in the article, which would guide one to a large list of scientific publications, with links to the original publications themselves.

Yet they are very ready to call "more than 240 scientists who have published peer-reviewed research on the biologic and health effects of nonionizing electromagnetic fields" "wackos" or "cranks with a PhD", call their research "bullshit" or "impossible", call the people "thruthers" or claiming "Russian troll farms" are behind this story.

I don't think I've ever seen so much non-scientific HN comments on a science article.

At the same time, everybody seems to accept that the chance of getting cancer in your lifetime has risen to about one in three for men and one in five for women. And nobody knows why. However everybody who points to a possible answer is shot down without much investigation. Sad, really.

<comment><USER11> _At the same time, everybody seems to accept that the chance of getting cancer in your lifetime has risen to about one in three for men and one in five for women. And nobody knows why._

Because life expectancy has also risen; people who used to be dying of other things are now living long enough that cancer is more common.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately the hunch you have just spendt 30 seconds thinking about is sadly incorrect. The increase in life expectancy doesn't account for the increased incidence of cancers. There are other factors at play, which need to be investigated (some that we know: obesity, pollution, cigarettes).

<comment><USER13> [https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#are-death-rates-from- cance...](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#are-death-rates-from-cancer- rising)

"In other words, the individual incidence of cancer deaths has actually fallen."

<comment><USER12> You are looking at cancer deaths, which indeed have gone down from better treatments and better screening. This does not imply less incidence of cancer.

<comment><USER14> I think you just answered your own question. As detection improves, so will the rates at which cancer is detected.

<comment><USER15> AFAIK, Better detection means earlier detection and may not lead to a decrease in cancers that are never detected.

<comment><USER16> It leads to in increase in cancers detected before the person dies of non- cancer causes.

Situation: person has an almost undetectable cancer. They see a doctor, no cancer detected, later that week they are shot by police at a routine road stop.

We get in our time machine, go back a week and a bit, and supply the doctor with a better detection kit.

Situation 2: person has an almost undetectable cancer. They see a doctor who refers them to a specialist, cancer detected, another notch on the cancer tally board. Later that week they are shot by police at a routine road stop.

Nothing has changed except in the second case there's another cancer detected. The person is still dead from non-cancer causes, just in one scenario they died as a haver-of-cancer and in the other they didn't.

Better/earlier detection will necessarily lead to a decrease in cancers that are never detected (which I interpret as an increase in cancers detected before mortality from other causes), otherwise it's not better/earlier detection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Radiation dosimetry is a combination of:

* Frequency of radiation

* Power of exposure

* Duration of exposure

* Where in the human body absorption is occurring

While the effects of the latter three are pretty well understood for certain kinds of radiation (ionizing and non-ionizing) ranging from "acute radiation sickness due to gamma burst" to "listening to the radio your whole life doesn't have a link to cancer", there is truth that a specific band of millimeter 5G has been less studied than others.

However, science follows patterns, and interpolating the existing data to this sub-infrared region opens a kind of wiggle room similar to, but in fact the opposite to, low dosimetry of ionizing radiation that has given the Linear No Threshold model a run for it's money. Except in this case, skeptics are typically concerned about chemical effects due to subdermal heating (not really as compelling as ionizing radiation effects), or debating the "non- ionizing-ness" (which is less common because its even less supported by evidence).

It comes down to a persons personal risk. In my opinion, the sun beats out all non ionizing radiation concerns, particularly when it comes to heating of the skin and subdermal tissues. Wear a hat and sunscreen (against the sun).

Still worth researching and acknowledging the data gap, as the EU does in its metastudy of 40+ years and X00 scientific papers [0], but there's no reason to be alarmed based on the existing corpus of evidence.

[0] [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/scenihr_o_041.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiCttyFoK3lAhVKL1AKHU4SB7IQFjAAegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw1qjeNEXhMye0UL-K6Azv7s&cshid=1571657533347)

Edit to add citation

<comment><USER18> > It comes down to a persons personal risk. [..] Wear a hat and sunscreen.

What's the "hat and sunscreen" protection against millimeter wave cellphone towers, that someone else installed on their private property near you?

I'm not yet convinced the risks exist. But conceptually if there was a danger, there's no "personal risk" argument. We're blanketing the whole area around a tower with millimeter wave/5G, a person cannot opt out.

<comment><USER19> The sun is a 1000 watts per square meter exposure at your body, cell towers might be 100w if you hugged the antenna then inverse square law to distance to about 0.00000001 watt with a strong signal. Your cell device is a millwatts transmitter, equivalent to an LED light shining on you.

You don't need hat and sunscreen for street lights or flashlights nor would you need it for cellular power levels, orders of magnitude difference in exposure.

<comment><USER20> Absorbsion rates vary by orders of magnitude depending on signal frequency.

A simple power comparison is not a great measure of affect.

<comment><USER21> The Sun transfers orders of magnitude more heat to your body than cell towers or your phone.

The problem with every argument about radiation from cell phones being dangerous is that for every proposed mechanism, the Sun is orders of magnitude more damaging.

The obvious worries with cell phones are repeated stress injuries, insomnia and disruption of personal relationships. There's just no plausible mechanism for the radiation to be damaging, though.

<comment><USER22> Out of curiosity, do you wear sunscreen to keep yourself cool?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The thing is that there's really ton of evidence that non-ionizing radiation is not significantly harmful to humans at levels that don't cook you.

If you want to counter that you can't just pile up small studies that might be hinting at possibility that there might be some other effect.

You need a smoking gun. Single study, but bulletproof and large, showing strong effect. Everything else will be dismissed as "maybe, possibly, but most likely not really".

<comment><USER24> This comment explains precisely why the dismissal from so many here. Correlational studies without a plausible causal mechanism are highly suspect.

As an illustration, people have used obviously bogus examples like, in the past 100 years, piracy has risen. So has global warming. Therefore, pirates cause global warming.

Unless a 5G study specifically addresses the mechanism, and how non-ionizing radiation can cause damage to DNA, or has a very large correlation established that does a very good job of controlling for other factors, these studies will be dismissed out of hand.

<comment><USER25> There's plenty of ways that non-ionizing radiation can result in increased cancer rates. For example, they can induce currents in the DNA (DNA is s molecular wire) which might jam the base excision repair system and prevent it from detecting DNA damage (which is a redox-driven process).

What's even scarier is that this sort of an effect will not be found in a standard Ames test and also is unlikely to be found in highly controlled lab settings, since it requires a second factor - a contaminating primary mutagen - to manifest its effect.

<comment><USER26> _they can induce currents in the DNA_

By what mechanism (and it's likely not limited to DNA then)?

<comment><USER27> EMF radiation can induce a current in any condutor. Try putting a piece of tin foil in a microwave.

It's far from limited to DNA, but it's not hard to imagine why people care more about DNA than other conductive molecules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd be interested in seeing signatures from people at institutions I recognize and trust. There are a lot of people with degrees FROM credible institutions, but very little in terms of currently being researchers in the field AT credible institutions.

It's not hard to find 250 wackos if you pull random scientists working in random fields at random institutions. Most have no better way to know safety of 5G than I do.

Now, there's obviously some frequency band where we get into health risks. 5G jumps us from single-digit GHz to double-digit -- I'd guess you'd have to go at least past visible light before you run into safety issues, at least barring extremely high levels of exposure. Intuitively, it seems to me like that ought to still be safe, but I'm no expert.

But an appeal to experts -- with no real experts behind it -- doesn't do it for me. Neither does an appeal to papers based on volume, without a clear description of what they found and how. Most science is junk science.

<comment><USER29> The scientists' appeal, including a list of signatories and their affiliations, isn't hard to find by following links.

[https://emfscientist.org/index.php/emf-scientist- appeal](https://emfscientist.org/index.php/emf-scientist-appeal)

Likewise for a list of relevant papers:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/19CbWmdGTnnW1iZ9pxlxq1ssAdYl...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/19CbWmdGTnnW1iZ9pxlxq1ssAdYl3Eur3/view)

Is Harvard Medical School an institution you recognize and trust? Columbia? Monash? McGill? Can we dispense with the tired ad hominems and talk about science? A self-proclaimed guess from a self-proclaimed non-expert seems ill placed in a credentialist diatribe.

<comment><USER30> Harvard Medical School is good institution but people on the list are not experts in the subject. Autism researchers etc.

<comment><USER31> The autism researcher from Harvard has studied the plausibility of a link between autism and radiofrequency radiation: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24095003/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24095003/).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I clicked on a few links and Googled a few names. It's roughly what I'd expect: People with few publications now working in other fields, people without scientific publications, but university degrees, people who regularly speak at events from radiation critics, people who are invested in other fringe theories.

People get fooled by "large lists of peer-reviewed publications". Peer review is a lowest level quality mark for a piece of science. It means that hopefully it's not complete bullshit. Sometimes it still is, because noone can forbid you to call your journal "peer-reviewed" with your own weak standards of peer review. And sometimes credible journals make huge mistakes (remember the "Wakefield-study"...). Even with only well-performed, non-flawed studies you'll always have some studies saying that something is there that actually isn't. That's simple statistics, you'll have outliers.

"Here's a large number of studies saying X" is meaningless in a topic where a very large number of studies have been done. What you need is systematic reviews of the literature that not only count studies, but evaluate their quality and combine their results.

Also it's not true that "nobody knows why" cancer incidence has risen. It's a mixture of people getting older and diagnosis getting better. Not mysterious at all.

<comment><USER33> Furthermore, even if cell phones cause cancer then the risk will in all likelihood be so small that it doesn't justify banning the technology. [1]

For example, eating barbecued meat causes cancer, but it we don't ban it.

1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU5XkhUGzBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU5XkhUGzBs)

<comment><USER34> Wouldn't the difference there be that the person consuming meat is voluntarily consuming it while even people sticking to older tech phones are exposed to the newer radiation? I am no luddite but this would be my argument from a devil's advocate position

<comment><USER35> No, because you're only exposed to radiation if you actually use a phone. Google for "inverse square law". Your exposure is orders of magnitude lower from "second-hand cellphones" than from using it yourself; it's not like second-hand smoking.

<comment><USER36> > it's not like second-hand smoking

Shouldn't smoke follow the inverse square law as well (in the absence of air currents)?

<comment><USER37> > Shouldn't smoke follow the inverse square law as well (in the absence of air > currents)?

That's why smoking is allowed outdoors.

<comment><USER38> (Except when it's not.)

It's not really uncommon to see "no smoking on the patio" or "no smoking within 100 feet of this door" signs. And some states have legalized smoking cannabis, except outdoors.

<comment><USER37> Patios are usually very close to doors. Is the threshold really 100 feet in some places?

<comment><USER38> I've seen such limits imposed on private property, but as far as I know there aren't any laws (specifically for cigarette smoke) that extreme.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a smoker and never have been. I like these laws. I'm just being a bit pedantic. There has been a general trend of restricting smoking and I think that trend has continued outdoors. It used to be that you could smoke anywhere, then businesses started creating indoor smoking sections. Then indoor smoking sections were banned and smokers moved to the outdoor seating. Then smoking outside near exterior doors was banned, in a way that effectively banned smoking at many restaurants entirely. Beyond this, in some places like NYC you have smoking bans in public parks and beaches as well, regardless of how far you are from any exterior door. (To be clear, I support these bans because cigarette smokers are notorious for their litter.)

And in the case of cannabis the restrictions are even more severe. In Washington you cannot smoke cannabis in view of the general public or in most buildings (except residential, although many apartment buildings have smoking bans too.) California is more permissive, but even they enforce a 1000(!) foot smoking ban around schools and youth centers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> With every new generation of cellular technology, this question comes up.

This started as early as CT, then DECT, GSM, 3G, 4G and now 5G.

After 30+ years of having consumer grade wireless telephony we are still debating whether the radio signals have any negative effect on living beings.

If we can't draw any conclusion from a sample size that big, then I must conclude that the effects of EM-radiation are so minimal (if any at all), that it is not something I should worry about.

Edit: typo

<comment><USER40> > I must conclude that the effects of EM-radiation are so minimal

Cancer rates are rising and we're not sure why. Is that acceptable?

<comment><USER41> There are quite a few obvious reasons why cancer rates are rising.

* People get older

* Cancer detection is improving

* Cancer mortality is sinking

<comment><USER42> And mortality by non-cancer causes is dropping (e.g. car accidents, infectious diseases).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The author's bias is apparent from his biography:

"Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD, is director of the Center for Family and Community Health in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been translating and disseminating the research on wireless radiation health effects since 2009 after he and his colleagues published a review paper that found long-term cell phone users were at greater risk of brain tumors. His Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website has had more than two million page views since 2013. He is an unpaid advisor to the International EMF Scientist Appeal and Physicians for Safe Technology."

This article does not represent scientific consensus. It is alarmist, linking nearly every report that supports the author's point of view and offering no opposing points of view. This is not journalism.

<comment><USER44> Did you see, at the top of the page, "Observations | Opinion"?

<comment><USER45> Should that absolve them of writing deceptive articles that feed in to a type of paranoia that is fairly harmful to society[0]?

[0]: Not that the anti-wireless people are particularly influential right now, but they're fairly close to antivacciene people in how they perceive the world with an almost complete absence of rational thought.

<comment><USER44> Well, first, I was responding to OP's complaint that the article "supports the author's point of view and offering no opposing points of view. This is not journalism." by pointing out that, in fact, it's _not_ journalism, it's opinion.

Second, the whole reason articles like this get published and read is that, in this case, one man's "alarmism" or "deception" or "paranoia" is another man's sober _scientific_ caution. It's the same problem with GMOs. People are rushing to market with unproven technology to make money while insisting it's all perfectly safe.

Why not wait a century, do more research, and decide then? What's the _urgency_ to roll it out now?

<comment><USER45> >Well, first, I was responding to OP's complaint that the article "supports the author's point of view and offering no opposing points of view. This is not journalism." by pointing out that, in fact, it's not journalism, it's opinion.

I understand the distinction, but posting dubious opinion articles on news sites is still problematic. The Scientific American does not host articles espousing racist ideologies / vehemently blatant pseudoscience, by publishing this it is a form of tacit endorsement (despite it going in their opinion section).

>Second, the whole reason articles like this get published and read is that, in this case, one man's "alarmism" or "deception" or "paranoia" is another man's sober scientific caution. It's the same problem with GMOs. People are rushing to market with unproven technology to make money while insisting it's all perfectly safe.

The problem is that both the antiEMF and antiVaccine people are in fact not applying scientific principles to the issue. Cherry picking studies and opinions that support a given viewpoint is at best a rhetorical argument from authority, it is absolutely not a scientific approach to verifying a hypothesis.

>Why not wait a century, do more research, and decide then? What's the urgency to roll it out now?

The urgency comes in part from the fact that the 4G network is congested and at capacity in dense urban areas, and also from political dealings between US and Chinese telecom companies.

<comment><USER44> Cheers! I really appreciate your reply. Personally, I hate e.g. those "magic medallions" that are supposed to "absorb" EM and the like, but I'm not yet convinced that bathing our cities with EM is going to turn out to have zero health side-effects. In any event, the issue should be settled scientifically, eh? I was surprised to see this on SciAm's website, FWIW.

<comment><USER45> Likewise! I appreciate your willingness to discuss this. I was also surprised to see it on their website, surprised and disappointed. The Scientific American used to produce wonderful articles and project guides, and I credit them with having helped jumpstart my love for technology. It is sad to see them publish low quality articles.

I understand your hesitation with regard to increasing the invisible radiation flux. I would likely feel the same way if I wasn't close to the field. From my point of view I would be far more worried about the materials used to produce modern phones and the disposal of the resulting industrial waste, the volatility of their batteries (particularly from manufacturers with shoddy QC), and the ethical considerations of sourcing the materials used.

<comment><USER44> I agree, Scientific American must be feeling the hurt but I don't want them to, uh, dilute their brand.

In re: EM, I have a better-than-average layman's understanding, but I'm certainly no expert. The specific thing that concerns me is the interaction of _lots_ of sources with the urban environment. One or a few transmitters might be safe in the lab for N years' exposure, but dozens of transmitters operating in an environment with all kinds and shapes of metal and plastic and stone/concrete could conceivably lead to transients that have (relatively) severe side-effects.

I think, with examples like lead in gasoline and asbestos in insulation, etc., that we should be more cautious than we have been in the past. Especially when a given technology is more a marginal than a vital improvement to our lives.

In any event, you bring up a very good point: "... I would be far more worried about the materials used to produce modern phones and the disposal of the resulting industrial waste, ..." Indeed, there are a lot of problems "in line" before you get to "Cellphones gave me cancer!".

Cheers! Well met.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This thread would be much shorter if someone had read this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26151230](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26151230)

<comment><USER8> and also this: [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914)

<comment><USER46> These are good things to read to understand a consensus that yes, electromagnetic radiation has biological effects.

For people reading this stuff, always search for something called the Odds Ratio (OR), which is a gold standard way of comparing how clinically significant a thing is. For example, smoking has an OR of 60 for lung cancer. A well covered paper on birth control suggested its OR for developing depression is 1.26, and the massive aspirin on heart health study had 0.95 OR of cardiovascular disease in one of the surveyed counties (ie aspirin improved clinical outcome).

If error bars on measured OR contain 1.0 you can't say if it is helpful or harmful. OR accounts for baseline incidence in a way that RR (relative risk) does not. So it lets you actually choose among behaviors instead of within diseases or outcomes. It informs why it's possible to tell everyone they shouldn't smoke (OR is very high), keep taking birth control (because depression outcome is better than unwanted or complicated pregnancy outcomes), and aspirin for cardiovascular disease prophylaxis (very limited side effects, very cheap so even 0.95 is worth it).

I don't know if there's a consensus that electromagnetic radiation from electronics has clinical significance. If there is clinical significance it will be a small OR for most outcomes. It won't be comparable at all to e.g. smoking.

However this is still an imperfect measure. In Japan OR for lung disease from smoking is 15, 4 times better than the US. The researchers speculated this has to do with a specific filter on common Japanese cigarettes but it could be genetics or other things that they didn't control for (ie BMI and gender matching but not Japanese ancestry). So technology can have huge effects on clinical outcomes but 4x 15 is a much bigger deal than 4x 1.015. My point is that it has its limitations but OR definitely measures something real.

This is a robust framework for evaluating how this research matters to you in a way that does not require conspiracies or investigating the researcher's backgrounds. Additionally it is widely accepted by legitimate medical practitioners across the world.

Under this framework, the reviews posted here do not document clinical significance, although individual papers cited in them might.

A big limitation is that mice are tested with orders of magnitude higher incidence rate of the disease to quickly find RR (high RR in mice vs placebo is strong research evidence just not strong clinical evidence). So mouse OR isn't often predicative of human OR. But this applies to chart reviews too. Still a pretty durable framework.

<comment><USER47> > A big limitation is that mice are tested with orders of magnitude higher > incidence rate of the disease to quickly find RR

Do people also assume that EM radiation is a linear no threshold? Because we know it isn't true for ionizing radiation, but it is a great model to use in practice because it overestimates harm (which we'd rather over estimate than under).

I've read a few of those papers on the EM radiation on mice and they seem to assume a LNT model, which doesn't seem all that honest to me. A few of the papers I read didn't have great p-values either and had drastically differing rates of cancer development for radiation levels and sex (IIRC one big one had high cancer rates for low power, nothing for medium, and moderate cancer rates for high power. Which there was no explanation to this. But that might have just been one bad paper).

<comment><USER48> Citation for knowing it isn't true for ionizing radiation? LNT is supported by the US NRC, the EPA, and UNSCEAR. Not saying that it supports the papers on EM radiation, but it's definitely not crazy to assume LNT in your research (and given we don't know much about the effects of low radiation doses, it's definitely the more precautionary option).

<comment><USER49> Isn't the answer "Denver"? The city has a higher radiation dosage than average yet no more medical issues. Or at least that's something I heard once. A quick google brought up this site (which I have no idea who is sponcering)

[https://atomicinsights.com/science-falsified-no-safe-dose- hy...](https://atomicinsights.com/science-falsified-no-safe-dose-hypothesis- radiation-now/)

Also

[https://www.google.com/search?q=denver+radiation](https://www.google.com/search?q=denver+radiation)

<comment><USER47> Yes, and an even better example is Ramsar Iran.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "However, we have considerable evidence about the harmful effects of 2G and 3G. Little is known the effects of exposure to 4G, a 10-year-old technology, because governments have been remiss in funding this research."

This sounds like bullshit. What were there changes between 3G and LTE that would make it more dangerous?

More efficient use of spectrum?

<comment><USER42> Different modulation techniques is the one they're claiming now. For some reason OFDM/CDMA is more dangerous than FM or amplitude modulation (AM) and there are huge biological differences, they claim.

<comment><USER51> The studies that look at calcium voltage channel activation in cells are easily replicated and point to biological effects.

<comment><USER52> Citation needed. Can you point to a replication from a reputable school or journal?

<comment><USER51> There's a lot linked in here: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/)

I don't think you'll see a lot of reputable schools taking this on though. But this effect should be easy to replicate at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The author of the article himself embarked in a crussade to ban limit EM emissions after publishing a meta-analysis which shown there is correlation between 10 year phone use and brain tumors. Yes. Without accounting for any other risk factor. Because the lifestyle of people who use phones and people who don't are certainly similar.

Correlation != causation. And the author does not ask for caution and research, he asks directly for limits on the technology.

</comment><comment><USER54> In such matters, there's a strong psychological bias from tech-savvy people to dismiss evidence and side with the technology (not the science, which would include estimation of potential harm etc, but with the technological application, which is assumed as de facto good).

It's a strong self-identification with technology who instills a fear of appearing as a luddite, like the unwashed masses who fear this or that and fall for hoaxes about the dangers of safe substances (vaccines, chemicals) and harmless technologies.

But it can also be thought-stopping, and more emotional based than empirical.

<comment><USER13> Hm. Sure, some people just point to how the same thing happened with GSM, 2G, 3G, 4G, WiFi... but that's just a fallacy, because we also know that gamma rays, X-rays and UV are harmful, so deductively there must be some grey zone between 3G and hard gamma rays. Since we can't simply infer the health effects with certainty from first principles (let's say from physics/chemistry) we should demand relevant data.

But we have a lot of data (even if not as an enormous pile as about WiFi), and we know that so far the evidence points to no unexpected effects. There are interesting avenues of inquiry about the effects of 50-70 GHz on biology (heating of insects, interference with bacterial growth), of course those effects are a lot smaller than what we already do from air pollution to manufacturing an dumping lot of chemicals everywhere, heating our cities, and so on.

<comment><USER55> Between Gamma rays and 3G is UV. Between UV and 3G is visible light. Between visible light and 3G is IR, one of which is the heat human bodies give off. Do warm blooded animals cause cancer? Because they're still a far higher frequency than 3G and the wattage of a human at rest is 100W which is roughly equivalent.

Do hugs cause cancer? If yes, then we can start narrowing it down to 3G/5G more after that. But by that stage I think we're doomed as a species anyway.

<comment><USER13> Microwaves are around 2.4G yet they can pump a lot of energy into water, and that can be an unintended side effect with WiFi.

Of course that's one thing that we know about, we can reason about, and that's why people are not getting boiled.

<comment><USER56> Yes, wattage matters. The comment you responded to covered that.

> the wattage of a human at rest is 100W which is roughly equivalent.

<comment><USER13> I was more referring to energy density and total energy density over time. Also absorption patterns and penetration depth.

We know these pretty well, but they are not trivial (due to non-linearity creeping in).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> For everyone genuinely worried about this: have there been any studies that specifically single out technicians who work on cellular antennas? Long hours every day, getting closer to the antennas than any of us ever do? I'm not suggesting there's a risk, but it seems that if there were a risk, then we've identified one of the highest risk populations for study.

<comment><USER7> Here's a longitudinal study on about 55,000 Polish military personnel found in the article:

"The cancer morbidity rate for RF/MW-exposed personnel for all age groups (20-59 years) reached 119.1 per 100,000 annually (57.6 in non-exposed) with an OER of 2.07, significant at P < 0.05."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8717316](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8717316)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> 5G has been paused in Brussels [1] already due to the companies inability to prove it is safe. The energy output of 5G antennas is apparently higher than 4G and higher than their current laws allow.

[1] [https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/55052/radiation- conce...](https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/55052/radiation-concerns- halt-brussels-5g-for-now/)

<comment><USER59> How the hell do you prove it's safe? Try proving carrots are safe.

This is just some youtuber soccer moms spreading FUD.

<comment><USER58> The normal way to do it is to conduct a long term study with control and test subjects. Carrots have been studied for a long time, as long as you consume them in moderate amounts they are safe but in large amounts you can get all sorts of issues. It's probably the same way with 5G radiation but we don't know yet.

And I don't think the government of Belgium consists entirely of youtube soccer moms but there are probably some of them :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> EMF Scientist appeal is BS. It's random collection of people (many retired cranks) with PhD.

Autism researcher from Harvard Medical School is not convincing.

<comment><USER60> Why not? Studying of not-neurotypical behavior in humans is less convincing than studies of rats?

<comment><USER30> It's not related to EMF radiation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It seems odd to associate risk with "NG". Any risks would be more likely related to the frequency spectrum being used and the signal power than to the modulation techniques and communications protocols. 5G can be deployed in the same frequency bands that are currently in use, although higher frequency bands are also anticipated.

</comment><comment><USER62> Interesting observations:

\- More 5G towers operating in the same frequency/power range as 4G means _less_ RF energy emitting from your Phone to the (now nearer) tower.

\- The emissions from the towers _to_ the phones should also be less, because A) they need to emit less energy to reach the (now nearer) handset, and B) the "fountain coding" in 5G means that less data packages need to be transmitted to carry the same data payload as 4G. Of course, this is counterbalanced by the probably higher data usage under 5G.

\- Beam-forming millimeter-wave antennas cannot penetrate flesh, so won't try to establish links in that direction. Regular 4G frequencies do (and, use your head as an antenna element). So, transitioning from 4G frequencies to millimeter-wave should _reduce_ the amount of your-head-is-an-antenna utilization for a set amount of data...

</comment><comment><USER63> When I started reading about the radiation safety of 5G, I started understanding that most early operators were not interested in the safety aspects as much as the money aspects of it.

And if anything, what time has shown me is that the for-profit people will not operate these right. As regular people, we can of course choose to stop buying 5G phones, as long as we do have other sources of Internet.

My personal mobile internet usage has shown me that it is grossly expensive, underutilized and doesn't majorly solve a speed problem for me - only remote connectivity.

And no, I don't need more cancerous substances than there are. Especially after watching Chernobyl, I sure as hell don't need radiation messing around with my cellular structure.

In short, 5G is unnecessary in most cities, and the risks outweigh the benefits, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER64> At least the EU has a very good tool for grey area scenarios like this where evidence is still lacking either way: the Precautionary Principle.

>>We conclude that, because scientific knowledge is incomplete, a precautionary approach is better suited to State obligations under international human rights law.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S14629...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S146290111300186X)

</comment><comment><USER65> I feel EMF from WiFi/LTE with my head. Someone wants to study me?

As soon as there is a high-bandwidth transmitter very close to me - <USER2> comes in seconds.

I've done blind tests holding non-remitting iPad or the one streaming 1080p movies at high bitrate and easily able to tell when there is no radiation.

<comment><USER66> I used to get a very sharp pain in my head, above my ear, when making outbound calls, just before the recipient would pick up. Nobody seems to believe me, and I have never had the motivation to try to prove it to anyone, but it got to the point where I would hold the phone away from my head until the person answered.

It began with a Sony Ericsson, but happened across a couple of different phone brands over the years. Still happens extremely occasionally now (maybe twice a year) with my iPhone.

I'd be interested to know if the signal strength is suddenly spiked when a call is connected.

<comment><USER67> I get a sharp pain in my head above my ear from my glasses. The skin right there is very sensitive. Just rubbing things (including phones) causes the same senstation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm amazed that I scanned a bunch of comments and it seems like no one read the article and noticed that it's not actually a proper SciAm article, just an Op-Ed.

Let me repeat, this is not a proper SciAm article in which some actual academics condense their interesting research into something more easily understood by people outside the field.

This is an Op-Ed. It's an opinion. And more specifically, it's an opinion from someone who is most certainly not unbiased.

<comment><USER69> "Op-ed" doesn't mean anything these days. I've seen plenty of "proper" Scientific American articles that get basic physics horribly wrong, or have a very heavy slant towards a particular point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> They have been repeated reports that wifi is linked with male infertility... and I haven't yet seen this disproved as quack science...

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4503846/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4503846/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6240172/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6240172/)

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190429005914/en/Stu...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190429005914/en/Study- Showing-Mounting-Evidence-Harmful-Effects-WiFi)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X1...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X1500162X)

I definitely would like to avoid 5G beam forming aimed at my crotch if I wanted to have more children. But isn't that sort of close to where we all hold our phones when we are siting? Yikes.

<comment><USER71> That first article is published in a journal I've never heard of, studied a total of 27 mice, and has a strange study design that doesn't consider random effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> This article is going to have a lot of influence in civic debates about 5G. Everyone in the US recognizes Scientific American; now the anti-5G folks can say "even Scientific American says it could be dangerous!". And they'll be right, it does say that.

</comment><comment><USER73> The article writer is a known "truther" of the field. But I like his view, I believe we need opinions from his end of the spectrum, but I've also read a few times comments such as this:

>"Academia: Where Crazy People Can't Get Fired - Dr. Moskowitz disgraces the University of California-Berkeley in precisely the same way Dr. Oz and Mark Bittman disgrace Columbia University: They are charlatans who wrap themselves in the prestige of academia to peddle foolishness to anxious parents."

[https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/28/uc-berkeley- psychologis...](https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/28/uc-berkeley-psychologist- joel-moskowitz-cell-phone-wi-fi-truther-10928)

To be honest, I'm somewhat surprised (in a good way!!) that Moskowitz got published on Scientific American at all.

Anyway, I have my fair share of worries on large density mmwave equipment environments, mostly focused on other things, as in, not on its effects on us, but on microbial life, bacterial life, not the focus of this article, so I won't derail, but at least for me, Moskowitz isn't this zero sum game as he may be to some field agents.

</comment><comment><USER74> The sun is way worse than 5G. Saddens me for the academic world to see such study / or see an argument based on a number of "scientists" instead of an argument of quality.

</comment><comment><USER75> Bad headline.

5G covers a huge spectral range starting at, yes, 5 GHz.

5GHz is coming out of every home router built in the last couple years. If it was unsafe, we would probably know about it. (Let's say 'unsafe' as in, "it is 'unsafe' to drive a car" since we need some baseline risk tolerance).

<comment><USER76> > If it was unsafe, we would probably know about it.

The article claims this is in fact the case. Quote:

"We are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation."

I've clicked a few cited papers and they are all behind a paywall, so I can't make my own opinion how justified this claim is.

<comment><USER75> We have heard about these increases since wireless landlines were introduced.

I would be more likely to believe this risk if it was showing up as hand tumors since most people are now carrying phones far more often then holding them up to the head.

It would however be interesting if the known decrease in male sperm count worldwide was actually attributed to cellular devices in the pocket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> There seems to be many "all or nothing" arguments here.

How about a "maybe it's a factor and we should do some research first because we just don't know" argument?

Honestly, my alarm bells ring when people get this polarized and passionate about a topic that shouldn't be that intense.

<comment><USER78> It's pretty simple: nobody wants to be the kook who won't use cell phones, so it's a contest to see who can be the most aggressively normal.

Maybe they're killing us, but damned if I'll be _that_ guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I would think the more important safety risk from 5G would be that it's going to cause interference with weather-forecast satellites.

A small increase in cancer incidence seems like less of a danger than hurricane path predictions being off by 300 miles less than a week out ([https://hackaday.com/2019/04/16/5g-buildout-likely-to-put- we...](https://hackaday.com/2019/04/16/5g-buildout-likely-to-put-weather- forecasting-at-risk/) and many others)

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm seeing a lot of people support or dismiss these findings for bad reasons. Hilariously, some people are dismissing papers because "the authors have a history of publishing papers about this stuff". In other words, papers on X are wrong because they are about X. This is reasoning on the level of "God exists because the Bible says He does, and the Bible is true because God wrote it". It's just going in a loop and spitting back your original preconceptions, without actually processing the evidence. You can't actually learn anything that way!

I scanned through some of the mouse studies, but they all had the same problem for me: to see effects, they blasted the mice with huge powers, on the order of 1 W/kg absorbed. For reference, the human body itself, through all its metabolic activity, barely generates that much. If you were absorbing anything near 1 W/kg of power at _any_ frequency, you would start overheating, as if you'd just stepped out into the midday sun. Increase that by a few times, and you would probably shortly die, by literally being cooked. So I think most of those studies can be safely discarded. _Anything_ is bad for you at those crazy intensities, which are far higher than what you get from a cell phone.

Of course, this leaves a lot of other studies that may or may not be more solid -- but without more time I can't draw any solid opinions.

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm still just outraged at this "5GE" hoax being played on us by AT&T. They should have called it "5GL" for lies!

</comment><comment><USER81> It wouldn't matter if there was direct evidence linking 5G to cancer. "Global Industry" sells us things that cause cancer. They sell us things made with things that cause cancer. There is literally no part of the planet that isn't polluted with these materials. (Just one example...[https://fortune.com/longform/teflon-pollution-north- carolina...](https://fortune.com/longform/teflon-pollution-north-carolina/))

I wish that I weren't so cynical, but I just don't think that anything would stop the initial deployment of something like this.

The amount of money that is expected to be made by content creators, network operators, and everyone in between, just makes it incredibly unlikely that health concerns would be taken seriously.

Unless you could force these companies to account for health outcomes as a real cost of doing business and not an externality that could be fobbed off on the legal system or public budgets...I just don't see how you change it.

</comment><comment><USER82> There are a lot of arguments for and against this, but what's not controversial is that widespread 5G is going to significantly impair our ability to forecast weather by as much as 30%.

23.8 GHz is the frequency water vapor in the atmosphere emits, which is what weather radars are looking for. A bunch fo 24 GHz signals all over the place are going to screw it up.

</comment><comment><USER83> It seems theoretically impossible for non-ionising radiation produced by 5G or any other radio emitters to cause cancer as there's no known mechanism for it to induce carcinogenic damage, so a priori we should expect that 5G is safe until shown otherwise.

Joel Moskovitz was co-author on a meta-analysis ([https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2008.21.6366](https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2008.21.6366)) that claimed to find a link between mobile phone use and brain tumours. However, this was a meta-analysis of case-control studies, which is the weakest form of study (worse even than a prospective observational cohort study). The problem here is they essentially had to ask people who did or not have tumours how much they used their mobile phones and trust them, which introduces the obvious issue that people with brain tumours who had heard that phones may cause cancer are probably going to report higher usage of mobile phones than those without tumours. Moskowitz even notes this in the discussion of his paper. He even notes that other, better, better, prospective cohort studies have found no evidence for a link between cellphones and cancer ([https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/93/3/203/2906436](https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/93/3/203/2906436)), but dismisses the study because they looked at subscription data rather than examining 'actual exposure to mobile phones' (which his study didn't do either).

This fear mongering, with no a priori theoretical justification and no evidential basis from people who've checked anyway just to be safe, muddies the waters and distracts from real environmental problems like air pollution causing respiratory diseases. This isn't quite as bad as promoting antivaxxer positions, which are imbecilic because the benefits from vaccines obviously outweigh the costs _even if they did cause autism_ , but it's getting awfully close.

<comment><USER84> > _his was a meta-analysis of case-control studies, which is the weakest form > of study ... Moskowitz even notes this in the discussion of his paper_

Sounds like he's noting that the link found is (as you say) weak to non- existent. Which supports the claim in this Scientific American article: that studies are inconclusive and as such we have no reason to believe the technology is safe.

Also worth pointing out here (as I have elsewhere) that the ACSH link is not from reputable org. It seems to be the only link people are posting and re- posting to rebut Moskowitz's research here on HN.

<comment><USER83> If the link is "weak to non-existent" and our a priori thinking is that it should be perfectly safe, shouldn't we default to it being safe? I'm not against also running studies to make sure we haven't missed something, but this seems like an unfair standard that we don't apply to other forms of things we expect to be safe a priori.

<comment><USER84> > _our a priori thinking is that it should be perfectly safe_

What a bizarre statement. I'm curious where you get this notion that things are perfectly safe a priori. What examples do you have where this has been the case? X-ray? Asbestos? Cigarette smoke? Freon? Lead? Certainly they're evidence of things that were accepted as such.

<comment><USER85> We are talking about a form of energy which is other than being omnipresent naturally, was studied extensively for more than 100-150 years - <USER3> health hazards when it comes to ionising radiation.

While I do think that studies should be continued for a more definitive answer, and I personally don't feel a strong need for a 5G network as of now, I am more on the defaults to safe side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Potentially a more informative source on this topic:

[https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/r...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet)

</comment><comment><USER87> Maybe AT&T's stunt with 5GE (fake 5g) is a necessary tactic to get regular people comfortable with 5g so when it actually comes out the mindset is along the lines of "I've had 5g for years and haven't dropped dead so these health claims must be FUD."

</comment><comment><USER88> Is 5G tech at the same Millimeter waves frequencies as those used in airport scanners? I've heard mm scanners as considerably safer than the old backscatter x-rays (although full of false positives and no better than random chance at actually detecting things).

<comment><USER13> Yes, sort of. Backscatter X-ray is ionizing (much smaller than mm - <USER4> 0.0000001 millimeters, so something like EHz - ExaHertz). While 5G new radio is 60 GHz (5 mm), like WiMax supposed to be.

Airport mm-wave machines are somewhere around 24-30 GHz (so around 10mm). (source: [https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_l...](https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/security- scanners/en/l-3/3-technology.htm) )

So far concerns are about insects (heating) and bacterium (antibiotic resistance "could" develop - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21261425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21261425) ). Though the heating effect is probably negligible compared to how cities already radiate a lot more heat and insects are loving it.

Furthermore, if there is any serious new/strange/second-order effect on biology we would have already seen it, as people blasted lab animals with every kinds of EMF and we got only the coincidental expected flukes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> i don't know why 5G is so important when not only is 4G pretty good, but 4G is better than most wired internet i've used in the US and Europe.

My vote would be fix the often abysmal wired networks first.

</comment><comment><USER90> When I saw the headline I thought that this might have to do with digital security, and I was both interested, and confused as to how 5G had anything to do with digital security. I'm disappointed to see that in reality it's just this tired old debate again. Low-power non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation is not dangerous to biological beings.

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm not a scientist but have worked in the telecom industry. My understanding is that regardless of 4G/5G modulation, it's all just RF electromagnet radiation, using the same frequency allocation as old analog television transmissions. Besides, given the frequencies used, there will be difficulty having the RF get through building walls.

</comment><comment><USER92> > massive inputs and outputs, known as MIMO

MIMO is Multi-Input Multi-Ouput, surely?

There does appear to be such a thing as Massive MIMO, which they might mean?

</comment><comment><USER93> So what happens if you're standing in the path of a milimeter wave beam from a tower trying to reach a user behind a wall?

<comment><USER13> MIMO, active beam steering and paths with reflections. In theory. In practice, we'll see, but probably you'll have to hold your phone high to provide some clear line of sight between the antennas if you want those blazing fast speeds.

<comment><USER87> I'd recommend watching this video of a real-world 5g test [https://youtu.be/_CTUs_2hq6Y](https://youtu.be/_CTUs_2hq6Y) \- The speeds are >1gbps when you're effectively next to the 5g nodes, while it would reach <400mbps while going around walls and would jump between LTE and 5g (in an attempt to be on the fastest network).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Apart from possible health effects, is anyone else concerned about 5G eventually being used for real-time CCTV surveillance networks with centralized facial recognition?

The higher bandwidth (up to 10 Gbps) and higher cell density should support quite a few simultaneous video feeds to a central government location.

<comment><USER95> The government doesn't need to do anything. Advertisers will deploy the technology and when the government wants access, all they have to do is get a warrant or maybe even just ask nicely.

<comment><USER96> Or lease direct access. Lots of companies make bank by selling to the government access to their databases, even when said database contains information you'd think the police (or whomever) would already have access to, such as public records info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Releasing things into our daily environment without adequate testing is likely why so many men are infertile now compared to a few decades ago and we don't know why. Sperm counts are halved for example. At least there is some research in this case, which is nice

</comment><comment><USER98> Why is this a headline? This is a title for a research paper. A headline would be "We have reason to believe 5G is unsafe." Until then this is could just be viewed as lobbying, if I were the cynical type.

</comment><comment><USER99> All arguments about the safety of 5G seem to speak about how the waves interact with human cells in isolation.

What about the combined energy and interference with the myriad of other waves our bodies are subjected to?

</comment><comment><USER100> I spend a lot of time in public transport, and on internet in general. I never paid for 3G or 4G on my smartphone. Only wifi. OSMAnd for maps, etc.

5G is also pretty bad for the environment (netflix, instagram, snapchat are also pretty awful). The amount of energy and resources you need to make all those electronic is gigantic, not to mention the lifespan of a smartphones is so short, smartphones vendors are now trying to add more and more features to make customers replace their phones.

I'm really dying for any electronic brand to release durable hardware, and I'm also eager to have minimal smartphone OS that consume less CPU and memory.

I can't understand that race towards higher bigger everything.

<comment><USER101> How exactly are they "bad for the environment"?

Would you prefer we revert to manufacturing plastic VHS tapes, then distribute them by diesel trucks like we used to in the good old days?

Would you prefer people get their morning news on broadsheets made from the bleached pulp of rainforest trees?

Or would you like to go back to the good old days of AM radio when the inadequacy of the receiver electronics was compensated for by sheer power at the transmitter, to the tune of megawatts of broadcast power?

You're probably one of those people who would prefer to breathe in lungfuls of woodsmoke rather than bathe your skin in the harmful rays of electric light.

<comment><USER102> I believe he's implying we don't need to share all that information, period.

I agree.

Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle is a hierarchy. Reduction is far more effective than the other two.

<comment><USER103> One of the use cases I saw somewhere for 5G was "smart wine glasses".

Like glasses with sensors in them so the waiter at a restaurant would know where he needed to go to refill someone's glass.

This was in a context where it definitely was not an ironic jab at the overuse of technology.

I don't know if the product actually exists, but honestly. Honestly. Smart wine glasses! I think it's just like... a really, really dumb idea. And if that's the kind of thing that 5G is going to enable, I absolutely do think we should consider it a threat to the environment.

<comment><USER104> I've seen wireless thingies that would beep when your order is ready at kebab joints. Since the basic principle is the same (1-bit signaling), I'm pretty sure it could be just as well rolled out right now, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> What do we do instead then? Just give up and stick to using 4G?

<comment><USER106> If it is truly unsafe, yes. And develop a new next-gen wireless technology. Just because someone developed it does not mean we have to adopt it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> We have no reason to believe that any computer system and/or software is safe because bugs always pop up... I know of no software that is perfect.

</comment><comment><USER99> The serious issue here is the inability to opt-out. There is clear doubt about it's safety. Do those with doubts get to opt-out? Definitely not.

</comment><comment><USER108> So my summary from the comments here is that almost all scientific study is junk, except when one is certain themselves it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER78> Bias in research is real, and now there's a list of things that make you crazy, including:

\- Evidence that cell phones might not be the best thing for you

\- Evidence that a vaccine might harm some people

\- Evidence that some medical convention is wrong

All of these are things that we _absolutely_ need to know if true, but even good evidence towards these points is dismissed as noise because there's a pseudoscience culture surrounding them.

It's really frustrating to see both social and scientific progress hampered by idiots acting as such.

</comment><comment><USER109> Why not have carrier executives install 5G base stations on their houses as a publicity stunt?

</comment><comment><USER110> The mantra of radiation safety is reduce the risk.

In that sense, an improvement in the energetic profile is potentially helpful.

An xray or a plain ride is completely fine, but pilots as well as patience have some upper limits. xray is hard alpha radiation, but do you know how xrays are created?

<comment><USER52> X-rays are not alpha radiation. Alpha radiation is composed of alpha particles, aka helium nuclei. X-rays are EM radiation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> For others (like me) to whom the name of the author (Joel Moskowitz) is unfamiliar:

He is a wifi / cell phone radiation "truther" who thinks the EMF in everyday devices causes cancer

[https://www.acsh.org/news/2007/02/16/cell-phone-dangers- stil...](https://www.acsh.org/news/2007/02/16/cell-phone-dangers-still-argued)

The fact that this is in Scientific American, even in the _Opinion_ section, is simultaneously a testament to the openmindedness of science, and quite sad.

After reading his ideas, I think we should all feel a little lucky that Trump hasn't made hime the head of the FCC.

<comment><USER11> _is simultaneously a testament to the openmindedness of science, and quite sad._

That brings to mind the old saying, "don't be so open-minded your brain falls out."

Also, I'm pretty sure Trump is very much _not_ in the group of "cell phones/EMF/etc. cause cancer" believers.

<comment><USER112> Or the classic aphorism of the Space Marines: "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> I personally just think we could live without 5G.

</comment><comment><USER114> I was hoping for some security implications....

</comment><comment><USER115> We also have no proof it is not safe..

</comment><comment><USER116> Maybe 5G is the Great Filter!

</comment><comment><USER117> Check at the bottom

> ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

> Joel M. Moskowitz

<comment><USER118> Anything about him worth mentioning? After a quick search online, at first glance, he looks like a reputable researcher.

Does he have industry ties that we should be aware of, reputation issues, conflicts of interest, something else?

<comment><USER119> I am also unaware of this topic, but this[0] is the second google result when you search his name.

[0] [https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/28/uc-berkeley- psychologis...](https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/28/uc-berkeley-psychologist- joel-moskowitz-cell-phone-wi-fi-truther-10928)

<comment><USER118> The article is a bit suspect, the author seems to have a personal dislike on the guy. The author works for the American Council on Science and Health which is a nonprofit, but I couldn't find the sponsors.

The article uses personal insult (calling the guy a charlatan) but does not say much about why he disagrees with those positions.

I see no companies on the name of Joel M. Moskowitz, no products sold, no industry sponsors.

On the other hand, I see a guy with no industry ties being slandered online by no reason, weird.

I don't know anything about the guy, if anyone can chime in on why his opinion is not trustworthy I would like to learn more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> well, I was curious about the New Zealand "researchers", first on the list

Tracy Chandler, BSc (Hons) MBChB FRNZCGP FNZSCM, PGDipSEM, Cert Dermoscopy, Cert Homeopathy, MACNEM member.

Homeopathy? ummm...red flag.... ok... maybe an anomaly.... who else from NZ?, huh, no one from any credible research org.

<comment><USER121> I assume you're North American and so upset mainly by the absence of an 'MD'. MBChB is an equivalent.

Having an additional 'Cert' in homeopathy would be like having a CS degree but also certifying in AWS or Azure products, for example, which wouldn't even necessarily say that I endorse them, perhaps just that I have clients that might like to see that certification.

<comment><USER122> A cert in homeopathy would not be like certifying in AWS or Azure products. It would be like having a CS degree and then getting a cert in computer shamanism where you were trained in the proper chants and symbology to fix computers just by shouting at them.

Equating certifying in a stack or methodology like AWS or Azure with homeopathy lends it 1000X more credit than it deserves.

By all means certify in herbology or natural medicine but if you are a real (equivalent or otherwise) to a medical doctor and you certify in homeopathy you are legitimizing fake bullshit and you should be judged for it. Homeopathy preys on the sick and desperate and deserves no slack.

Maybe this seems overly harsh but people I care about have paid thousands for this bullshit and the smooth talking bullshit salesmen had way to much ""science"" on their side.

<comment><USER121> And so a medically sick person who insists on (or at least is very much more comfortable with) a homeopathy-certified doctor should be denied a medically (and surgically) qualified doctor?

<comment><USER122> They should not be denied anything, but no self-respecting medical doctor should get a certification in homeopathy just because there is a market for it. That just adds legitimacy to it and keeps the wheel spinning.

I would not get a certification in computer shamanism, even if it made my clients feel better about me when I mumbled the Old Tongue and clapped my hands above their laptop. If this was something people wanted, I'm sure others with more compromised morals would be happy to set up a certification board and oblige.

I have no ill feelings towards those that believe that computers or human bodies are magic. This is not their fault. I have no respect for professionals that are complicit in this. Shame on them. They are one short step away from professionally proscribing homeopathy because it "makes the client feel better, so the ends justify the means".

Hey, some people believe the placebo pill is ethical. I believe it violates the letter and spirit of informed consent. I feel the same about homeopathy. Homeopathy is bunk no matter how a sick person or salesman or doctor feels about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> I don't know about other people, but unless it's proven to be safe beyond a doubt, I'd be worried about deploying 5G. I don't think the small benefit outweighs the possible risks.

</comment><comment><USER124> The usual luddite/neoDruid garbage, all of it. The market for FUD is always a bull market, you might say.

</comment><comment><USER124> the usual luddite garbage.

</comment><comment><USER125> Define safe.

</comment><comment><USER126> He is not arguing that 5G is dangerous. He is pointing out that there does not seem to be enough research available to state as a fact that it is safe and that, as a consequence, we might want to be cautious.

That's a very reasonable general approach. Whether his proposal to stop 5G deployments altogether is proportional to our understanding of the potential risks, if any, is debatable, to say the least.

<comment><USER127> > _That 's a very reasonable general approach._

If made in good faith, yes. I'm not convinced that this is the case here, however, given that the author is fundamentally at odds with the scientific consensus on 2G, 3G and 4G safety, without acknowledging that he's in the clear minority. In fact, he claims that the majority of relevant experts have signed the 5G moratorium, and this seems to not actually be the case. I actually think that disagreeing with the consensus, based on limited but potentially valid evidence, is completely acceptable. But he goes further and pretends to be in the majority, and that contrary evidence only marginally exists.

In sum, he makes demonstrably false claims about the current state of the scientific consensus, which makes me sceptical of everything else he says.

<comment><USER126> I think this is a reasonable approach in general. Whether it is made in good faith or not is a red herring and does not change anything.

What's more important, since you mention the 'scientific consensus' and his claim that there isn't enough data is: What is the consensus on 5G (I suppose that means mmWave) and what are the studies it is based on? That would allow to make a factual comment on his claims about health hazards.

<comment><USER127> > * Whether it is made in good faith or not is a red herring and does not > change anything.*

That's true _only if_ we indeed know _nothing_ about 5G, and that's demonstrably not the case. In fact, the pretend open-mindedness is tantamount to denialism, if we accept that findings on ≤4G translate to 5G, and there are good scientific reasons for thinking so, based on our established understanding of physics and biology. It's _possible_ that 5G changes the picture, and I am indeed open to the possibility. But at the same time intellectual honestly compels me to describe the chance of this happening as low, given what we generally know about the biological effects of non-ionising radiation.

Put differently: Given what we know, it's honest to say that 5G might carry risks, but that there is currently no good reason to assume so. It is _not_ honest to claim, as the article does, that "we have no reason to believe 5G is safe".

<comment><USER126> You are replying beside the point when you keep focusing on that point.

This is a reasonable approach and it is a general approach. Now, about 5G, again the question is what we know or don't know about any risks.

If there are no or very few studies about the effect of mmWave then it is indeed reasonable to ask whether precautions should be taken.

You seem to suggest that there are indeed no such studies but that it can be _assumed_ to be safe because emissions _in a different part of the spectrum_ are safe.

Whatever the reality is, this is simply not a scientific approach and does suggest that you have no factual reason to believe that mmWaves are safe (or dangerous actually, you simply don't know).

I am not saying that he is right, but scientifically we cannot just counter his argument by "no, you're wrong".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> At the end of the day I think I can agree on one thing; That we should make an attempt to definitively understand long term exposure.

</comment><comment><USER129> Wow. We've been in denial about potential health risks of mobile for years. But now there's a risk that Chinese tech companies might corner this market, suddenly its time to worry about the health risks?

<comment><USER130> > We've been in denial about potential health risks of mobile for years.

Citation needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> > Cancer is not the only risk as there is considerable evidence that RFR > causes neurological disorders and reproductive harm, likely due to oxidative > stress.

I mean it can't be good all this radiation exposure. As far as I know, people living near large electrical wire high tension poles are at a higher risk of cancer already.

I think so much can already be done with the network bandwidth we already have available. Just using a better protocol on top of HTTP, like everything switching to HTTP2 should be a huge improvement.

How much bandwidth more do we really need, we have hit the limits in terms of video on what is noticeable by the human eye already.

<comment><USER122> > As far as I know, people living near large electrical wire high tension > poles are at a higher risk of cancer already.

As far as you know from what? This might sound harsh, but this is just fearmongering.

HV power lines are, in an electrical sense, very far away from you. Even if magnetic radiation had some health effects, (which as far as we know, it doesn't, which is why MRI's are incredibly non-invasive to people without metal implants of some sort), you are not getting any of that from an HV power line.

The only people I know spouting such things are either charlatans^W salesmen trying make a buck or people that have no understanding or training in electricity. It can't "jump out at you". A power line is not a radio.

There are plenty of microwave towers and satellites and cell phones to be irrationally afraid of. But power lines? Like it just screams "I do not understand electricity or am trying to make a buck off those that don't." There's no radiation coming off that power line that gets to you.

<comment><USER118> > HV power lines are, in an electrical sense, very far away from you

I've seen family houses literally next to high tension poles (not just regular poles, I mean those huge ones many times the height of the house), for example in Portugal.

I don't see any definitive conclusion online for the link between high voltage lines proximity and cancer, but I am not an expert. Seems to me the consensus is far from general.

<comment><USER122> Yea, the huge ones, many times the height of the house, are uh, really many times the height of the house above the house. According to [0], the maximum magnetic field from 275kV-400kV overhead power line (this would be measured much closer to the line than you could possibly get to without climbing the towers) is 100uT. Standing next to a running vacuum cleaner about 800uT. A standard clinical MRI is typically 1.5T, so about 10000 times the strength of the power line if you were a lineman sitting next to a live line. Typical field under the line: 3-5 uT. That's standing right under the line. The family underneath the line gets more radiation from leaving the TV on, or god forbid, the wifi or their cell phone.

Consensus is not far from general. You don't have to be an expert. If you are really afraid of radiation, talking about power lines really weakens your case. They do almost nothing compared to normal household appliances we use all the time. The inverse square rule is real.

I think to avoid your best bet would be joining an Amish community. And don't go outside, without covering up. The sun's radiation is like, actually proven to be harmful to skin and DNA, and is many times more powerful. Too bad getting sun is also clinically associated with many health benefits! Oh what will we do...

[0] [https://www.nationalgridet.com/document/82871/download](https://www.nationalgridet.com/document/82871/download)

<comment><USER118> Even if current levels of radiation are harmless, it does not mean that the same applies to 5G.

Studies funded by the 5G industry are 10 times more likely to say there are no side effects on human, which is suspect and an indication that is an attempt to manipulate science going on - [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-cell- phone-radiation-c...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-cell-phone- radiation-cause-cancer/)

The leading independent organization on cancer causes says that current cell phones are "possible carcinogens" \- [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cell- phone-brain-tumor-risk...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cell-phone-brain- tumor-risk/)

<comment><USER127> > _The leading independent organization on cancer causes says that current > cell phones are "possible carcinogens"_

It is crucial to understand what this actually means. the IARC classifications are valid but — particularly to lay people — incredibly misleading and pretty much useless. All that "possible carcinogen" means is that we haven't yet collected sufficient evidence to discount harm. It's not evidence of carcinogenicity _at all_. If anything it's the opposite, because it means that, despite the existence of relevant studies, there hasn't been any consistent demonstration of carcinogenic effect.

Furthermore, IARC only classifies risk itself, not hazard [1], nor dosage effects.

For context, IARC classifies sunlight exposure and processed meat consumption as "definitely carcinogenic" [2]. Despite this, regular exposure to sunlight is crucial for your health, and regular meat consumption is known to have little absolute effect on cancer risk (in other words, although red meat _does_ have an effect, the effect size is tiny).

[1] [https://worksmart.org.uk/health-advice/health-and- safety/haz...](https://worksmart.org.uk/health-advice/health-and- safety/hazards-and-risks/what-difference-between-hazard-and-risk) [2] [https://monographs.iarc.fr/list-of- classifications/](https://monographs.iarc.fr/list-of-classifications/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


2-Phase Immersion Cooling Concept for 64 Xeon Phi: 64 Teraflops in a 3U Case - <AUTHOR> http://www.allied-control.com/immersion-cooling/xeon-phi-immersion-cooling-concept

<comment><AUTHOR> These aren't for sale yet (and not necessarily even possible) but would make a great use case for immersion cooling. Intel is currently offering selling the passively cooled 8GB 1-TeraFlop Xeon Phi 31S1P for $125 for purchases of 10 or more ($175 for one):

[https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/special- promotion-...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/special-promotion- intel-xeon-phi-coprocessor-31s1p)

Additional technical discussion of the 2-phase immersion cooling approach is here:

[https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Could-64-Teraflops-Xeon- Phi-...](https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Could-64-Teraflops-Xeon- Phi-2265768.S.229375666)</comment>


Ask HN: My Minimum viable mobile Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmbhnews.com Here is my minimum viable mobile site, it's in Beta and should be live in a couple of weeks without the payment barriers as I'll use an advertising and sponsor Business model. I'll appreciate your feedback.<p>(nota bene: you will obtain a better rebdering if you browse it from a webkit browser if done from a desktop) <comment><USER2> I wasn't crazy about it either. Either you're a feedreader, in which case don't pre-populate it with feeds, instead let me susbscribe to feeds; or you're more of a curated aggregator, in which case don't focus so much on the feeds, just show the content.

In either case, this is going to be a hard market to be in. First case, you compete with googlereader etc, second case, you're just another content aggregator.

The voting can make a difference, but it needs to be better explained.

Also, there's too much navigating. It takes me a few clicks to get any content. Compare with the HN homepage: best content is right there.

Good luck :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Peter for the great feedback, it's more a curated aggregator, and the voting is still in pre-alfa, I will make it a bit clearer on the next release,maybe more text to explain and make it obvious, or just try to figure out, how to do it like on HN, probably the best thing to do. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I clicked around for a minute and couldn't really figure out what the point of this sites is. Please enlighten me as to what this thing is for.

<comment><USER4> Seems to be a cookie cutter of RSS feeds with a basic voting interface.

I think the idea is to consume many RSS feeds easily and to have them ranked by some kind of importance indicator so that influential feeds go to the top and as a result you discover hot stories first. At least, that's what I think it is supposed to be.

A Google Reader for mobile, but stripped down and given community voting and an iPhone interface.

I don't like it much, but mostly it's because:

1) There's still a hell of a lot of feeds to navigate.

2) You still have to jump out to read any article.

3) The voting interface seems clunky.

Oh, and some of the feed links are broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great feedback buro9 , I couldn't explain it better than that.

 _there's still lot of feeds indeed, actually much more than what you can see now, but they are organize in categories, so you just choose what you really like. The healthcare category has more than 1326 Blogs listed there, and those blogs are the most relevant blogs in their areas, the Advertising category has 1500+ Blogs

_ The search can help you find what you are looking for. *The voting interface looks clunky indeed , I'm working on it as well as the broken links.

Now some additional features:

1) any publisher can submit his feeds here: <http://www.gmbhnews.com/addsite>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't get it. GMBH News? McSquare? What is it called? There's no "About" link to tell me what it is either. _Feed reader for mobile_ is in the "title" attribute. But don't iPhones and Android phones have feed-reader apps? Is it just targeted at other mobile devices?

<comment><USER5> Anyone care to explain this downvote? These are very valid questions that would greatly help the original poster sell their vision if answered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...</comment>