I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Conspiracy Archive
The 5G Conspiracy Theory
Claim: 5G and cell phone tower readings are crazy high
The comes from a collection of videos people make using EMF readers
Before we answer that we have to examine what the readings actually are and what they mean. Red bars on a meter mean nothing without knowing what the values represent. Let's remember something from the 300Ghz page:
-The public safe limit is 10 watts per square meter
It's also worth noting from a sceptical point of view, you don't know the reliability or accuracy of their equipment, and you don't know where they are standing in relation to interfering factors. But let's put that aside and assume they're in an environment uncontaminated by other EMF soruces and their equipment is spot on.
The first video is called Is 5g Safe.
Let's analyse this first video. The reading is:
-123 mw/m or 123 miliwatts per square meter.
The video claims the WHO exposure limit is 100 mW/m2
Let's take a look.
From the World Health Organisation's EMF safety guidelines page they state:
"The main conclusion from the WHO reviews is that EMF exposures below the limits recommended in the ICNIRP international guidelines do not appear to have any known consequence on health."
Interestingly, the video has it wrong. As I mentioned above, the ICNIRP guidelines safe threshold is 10 watts per square meter, not milliwatts. A milliwatt is 1000x smaller than a watt. Their reading of 123 milliwatts = 0.123 watts. That's 81x smaller than the threshold. This is why it's important to fact-check everything, especially videos made by random people. If you don't know what you're talking about, it looks convincing. But hell, don't take my word for it. Look at the guidelines yourself.
Already, the first one I found is a total lie and misleading. Their reading, in reality, is a very safe level. Let's check another video.
The next video is from someone riding around in a car with a meter which peaks pretty high.
As you would expect I'm pretty sceptical so I'm going to fact-check this video. Let's put the reading aside for a moment because he mentions safe levels by EMFWatch.org.
Before we go into those safety levels I was curious to who operates this site. On their about page they're operated by EMF Expert TM. Onto their website, I found it interesting that they:
-Sell EMF shielding
-Charge for commercial EMF inspections
-Charge for domestic EMF inspections
But let's take a look at this website with no obvious conflict of interest or vested interest.
Their website has a case studies section. >>>>>
Very thorough and hugely impressive. Considering that on their website they claim EMF radiation causes sperm damage, leukemia and autism, you'd think case studies wouldn't be the last thing they gather.
So what evidence is on their website? Let's look at their resources section which is what they point to for proof.
Call me crazy, but if you're going to make such massive accusations as these, you think they'd link to scientific peer-reviewed studies but no, the claims are just yellow boxes that don't link to anything.
Their references page only links to other websites so no studies here. Their papers and appeals page is where I was hoping to see scientific studies.
Link 1 goes to the EMFScientists page I have already talked about. I've discussed this at some length on the 5G causes cancer page. Any further disection will have it's own section.
Link 2 goes to a very long appeal from Stop 5G on earth and in space. Any dissection of this page will have it's own section.
Link 3 is also an appeal and not a study called "Let's Kill 5G Before It Kills Us!" ....... pretty dramatic. Very educational.
Going through some smaller links at the bottom, one links to a WHO page which says:
"A large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."
Another link goes to a Forbes page which says:
"The recent study [5] about cell phones causing cancer in rats should be taken with a grain of salt when making the connection to humans [6]. In particular, the rats in the study were exposed to radiation power densities of 0, 1.5, 3, or 6 W/kg (see p 7 in ref. 4 below). This would be equivalent of the 100 kg human getting up to 600 Watts — basically getting microwaved. As discussed earlier, cell phones are hundreds of times weaker."
One link goes to Better Health which says:
"Despite the evidence for an increased risk of leukaemia in children exposed to higher than 0.4µT of EMF, a range of experimental studies have failed to provide clear supporting evidence for the claim that EMF can be harmful to health"
What is it with websites using sources that don't support their claims? Just for clarity, I know that science has shown a potential risk in relation to very high levels of EMF radiation, I thought it was worth diving into the source of this videos reference for what is and isn't harmful.
The problem is that someone will watch this and go "look, a table, the reading is greater than the table, that proves it." This is a problem. Where does this table come from? Who wrote it? As we've seen, it comes from a company with a conflict of interest using very transparent fear tactics. Example >>>
So this table. What information is this based on?
In tiny tiny print at the bottom >>> One source is powerwatch.
"Powerwatch is used as a forum for a small group of knowledgeable engineers, scientists and medical researchers"
It's worth noting that a small group shouldn't be used as the benchmark for the scientific consensus. Scientists don't change science. That's what studies are for. Luckily this webpage is quite impressive with their resources. Additionally, not all scientific studies are equal, which is why the experts in their respective fields are the filter than collectively craft the consensus.
On their guidance page they rightly mention the ICNIRP guidelines vary per frequency. Here lies the problem with this video. The meter he is using measures between 50 Mhz and 3.5 Ghz. Looking at the graph his own source uses, it varies between 90ish - maybe 40 V/M limit. His measurements are in mV (millivolts). That's 1000 times smaller than a volt. His peak reading is 1.5 volts a meter. Best case his readings are 26 times lower than the threshold.
They link to this page from the ICNIRP which they say is "excellent". They say it was recent and considering that the link was published in 2008, and the ICNIRP has since made 2009 and 2020 recommendations, I don't know how up to date this site is.
Something I completely missed. The source of this table doesn't just list poowerwatch.org.uk. It lists "take back your power doc". What is that? It's a documentary! A documentary? That's a source for this table?
I'm looking on the powerwatch website which despite my scrutinising, looks very interesting. They have a huge list of peer-reviewed studies which I'd like to read through. They also have a huge catalogue of articles. I haven't looked through these yet as there are so many, but I am intrigued to say the least.
The fear tactics are very apparent on the EMF Expert website. Skull and crossbones. Death! Red! Dramatic text! The REAL safe level...... book an inspection.
I'm very apprehensive about this website. They have a direct benefit to getting you to be deathly afraid of radio waves so they can charge you for an inspection and pay for shielding.
They are so very obviously drumming up the fear factor to 11.
The "REAL" guidelines they reference are from Building Biology. What makes this more legit that any other guidelines?
"They are based on the experience and knowledge of the building biology community and focus on achievability. In addition, scientific studies and other recommendations are also consulted."
At the bottom of their guidelines:
"The Building Biology Standard with its Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas plus its Testing Conditions, Instructions and Additions has been developed by BAUBIOLOGIE MAES at the request and with the support of the Institut für Bau-biologie + Nachhaltigkeit IBN (Institute of Building Biology + Sustainability IBN) between 1987 and 1992". What makes these guidelines "REAL"?
I'd like to draw a parallel. Go to the ICNIRP 2020 guidelines and scroll right to the bottom. Look at the studies listed in the references section. Now go to the Building Biology guidelines, scroll to the bottom and see the studies in their reference section. If you can't find it, that's understandable. There isn't a reference section. What are their guidelines based on? The intro says scientific studies have been consulted but wheare the citations?
Why pick these recommendations over the following:
-The World Health Organisation
-The International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
-Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
-National Radiation Protection Board
At the top of these "REAL" guidelines, it says "Any risk reduction is worth aiming at. Guideline values are meant as a guide. Nature is the ultimate standard." If you read through the philosophy section, you may know about logical fallacies. The appeal to nature is one of them.
What they've done here is taken one guideline that's ultra-conservative and used that to say it's the "REAL" guidelines to drum up fear at the huge number of over-exposure we have based on this. This is not a good source of information.
This one was really long because I had to investigate the source of the information, which took me down many rabbit holes. After seeing all of the supporting evidence for this table, I have no faith in it's accuracy. If multiple institutes who specialise in radiation safety all said the same thing, I'd take note but they don't.
-The World Health Organisation backs the ICNIRP guidelines
-The ICNIRP set the safe levels of this frequency between 40 and 90 V/M
-The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency set the limit between 27.4 and 61.4 V/M
-The European Union's guidelines reference the ICNIRP guidelines
-The National Radiation Protection Board backs the ICNIRP guidelines
I found other bits of information here and there, some of which required payment to download. So if all of these scientific institutions and regulatory bodies alll seem to be in the same general area, why jump to a single guidelines that are dramatically lower? To sell fear and sell inspections and EMF shielding, that's why.
So using the lower end of the Australian radiation protection's guidance, if we took out V/M limit as their bottom value of 27.4 V/M, then this video's peak of 1.5 V/M is 18x under the limit. If we took the ICNIRP high end of 90, it's 60x under the limit.
Next video. Someone pointing an EMF meter at a cell tower.
We get a frame or two of the actual screen. His measurements
are in mG which is milligauss. His peak reading is 48 mG.
This shows how muddy the information from these undeniable
experiments are. Electrical fields are measured in V/M.
Magnetic fields are measured in Gauss or Tesla. They're different
things. Why use a mix unless you don't know what you're testing?
The Energy Network Association have given an overview of the ICNIRP guidelines, and the HNMRC guidelines. Both set the magnetic field flux density limit at 1000 milligauss. So where's the problem here? He's getting reading under 20x the safe limit.
While EMF radiation has some unanswered health questions, that's not the subject of the claims I see involving "look at meter readings and you'll see". You have to know the measurement tested and whether it's testing the magnetic field flux, or the electrical field. Is it mG or is it V/M? Which guidelines are you looking at? Are you cherrypicking the one guidelines that set the bar really low? Are you within the safe area?
I have a hard time taking these videos seriously. Buying an EMF meter, putting it in the air and going "it's peaking" doesn't mean anything because it has to be understood in relation to a limit and you have to know what you're testing.
I say it's misleading as while the videos you see are clearly by people who don't understand what they're doing who think having an EMF meter makes them a scientist, seeing the Powerwatch website was quite interesting. I think that legitimate concern done by relatively reserved sites like Powerwatch gets used by people who want to exaggerate the fear for their own gain like the EMFExpert website. EMFScientists does contain a large number of studies and so does the Powerwatch site. I need to review them in my own time. It will likely have it's own section.
But from the currently available data and consensus between regulatory organisations, I don't see the argument for greatly dropping the safety level standard so everything is way over the safe level, or establishing a "REAL" safety level as helpful, productive or necessary. If more information presents itself, I will adjust this page.