Vodafone 5G Standort Hattstedt – 5G Sektor0.jpg (Wikimedia Commons)

Electromagnetic radiation and 5G: meeting on afternoon of Thursday 30 January

5G phone masts have been happening a lot around Hastings lately, often in dubious circumstances such as wildly inaccurate illustrations, and unpersuasive allegations by planners such as ‘the proposed monopole would not appear out of place’. 5G is the 5th generation of wireless cellular network technology since it began in the early 1980s. Phone mast applications’ privileged status in the planning scheme of things has been the subject of much comment. A town centre talk next week will examine the issues. Bernard McGinley reports.

The speaker is Oliver Perceval from Wealden. He is a practising architect with an interest in healthy homes. This interest extends to understanding how to manage the electronic environment, which increasingly impinges on us. He will discuss EMR (electromagnetic radiation), RFR (Radio Frequency Radiation), other aspects of wifi and 5G, the health concerns around chronic exposure, some fallacies promoted by government, industry and group-think, and will offer some tips on how to live with RF tech more healthily. He manages the UK resource website rfinfo.co.uk, and has been working closely with national campaign teams and the main Action Against 5G (AA5G) judicial review team.

The scientific evidence over the safety of 5G is hotly disputed. Campaigners say the government’s authorisation of 5G is a breach of human rights. Others say otherwise.  6G pends too.

ICNIRP

A particular crux is the role of ICNIRP, the International Non-Ionizing Radiation Committee (INIRC) of the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA). In 1992, ICNIRP was granted a charter as an independent commission, though its roots go back to the 1970s. It is based in Munich, and formally recognised by WHO (the World Health Organisation) and the ILO (International Labour Organisation).

UKHSA

Nationally the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) takes the lead on public health matters associated with radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, or radio waves, used in telecommunications. Central to UKHSA advice is that exposures to radio waves should comply with the ICNIRP guidelines. According to AA5G however, ICNIRP refuses to acknowledge peer reviewed research showing harmful bio-effects from manmade radio frequency electromagnetic radiation. ICNIRP produces ‘guidelines’ which are based largely on theory and do not take into account independent experimental evidence.

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