Applying the Precautionary Principle to Wireless Technology: Policy Dilemmas and Systemic Risks

Ben Ishai P, Baldwin HZ, Birnbaum LS, Butler T, Chamberlin K, Davis DL, Scarato T, Taylor H (2024). Applying the Precautionary Principle to Wireless Technology: Policy Dilemmas and Systemic Risks. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. 66:2, 5-18. DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2024.2293631. Open access paper?published online: 20 Feb 2024. : https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/00139157.2024.2293631

No abstract.

Excerpts

Current policies in the United States and Europe regarding wireless radiation rest on an outdated assumption that the sole adverse impact to be avoided is acute heating of biological tissues.1 These policies ignore substantial evidence of chronic impacts that wireless radiofrequency radiation (RFR) can have on public health and the broader environmental consequences. In this article, we briefly review the early history of policy development on RFR, provide evidence of significant adverse nonthermal chronic impacts from exposures that are not considered in current standards, and make the case for implementing the precautionary principle to protect public health and the environment. As with most environmental health hazards, the consequences of RFR are especially important to the fetus and children, as they will incur a lifetime of exposures that is without precedent. We thus argue for the adoption of the precautionary principle to reduce chronic, societal level risks from exposures....

More recently, several groups have provided detailed criticisms of the scientific failures and limitations of the ICNIRP, including the newly formed International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic fields (ICBE-EMF) and researchers working with Swedish scientist Lennart Hardell.83,84?The ICBE-EMF has produced several analyses of the selective evidence on which ICNIRP bases their standards and guidelines. ICNIRP continues to dismiss and discredit evidence of nonthermal impacts, including the $30 million, state-of-the-art National Toxicology Program (NTP) findings of carcinogenicity from current levels of cellphone radiation, and parallel findings in the Ramazzini Institute investigation of base-station radiation....

A key point in this article is that the current, thermal-only standards are completely inadequate in protecting people and the environment from the long-term harms of wireless radiation exposure. However, even if those standards were adequate, they are not being applied appropriately in some cases, such as the certification process for cellphone radiation described briefly in the following, and also described in detail in the endnotes.88 The bottom line is that current procedures for evaluating the “safeness” of cellphones are insufficient at 4G and may be even less sufficient at 5G. There are other issues that come into play at the higher 5G frequencies, such as the fact already alluded to that the 3.5-mm-radius ear canal has the potential to act as an imperfect cylindrical waveguide at frequencies above 25?GHz, which could effectively channel cellphone 5G high-frequency radiation inside the ear....In an ideal world, experimental evidence of significant risk of harm from ambient levels of nonionizing radiation from wireless devices would suffice to drive policies to reduce exposures. Whether the risks are posed by tobacco, asbestos, diagnostic radiation, or certain pesticides, policies to reduce exposures have been implemented in the United States and often elsewhere only after definitive proof of human harm has been well established. Early warnings of serious risk from these exposures based on experiments or reports of human harm have been routinely discounted by industries that object to the institution of preventive measures.90?This means effectively that the first generations of people to be exposed to a given risk are compelled to provide proof of harm through the accumulation of sickness or deaths. Only after that evidence has accumulated have steps been taken to prevent its continuing occurrence in subsequent generations.91 ....

Conclusions

Today, we are with RFR from wireless devices where we were with asbestos and tobacco in the 1970s. Sufficient scientific evidence has accumulated to demonstrate the risk of adverse health effects to humans from exposure to RFR at permitted levels of exposure. Children and fetuses are especially at risk, as are insect species in the environment. It is time to act now to reduce exposure, rather than insisting on more proof of human or environmental harm. Indeed, emerging studies of children and wireless devices are providing evidence of serious behavioral and cognitive consequences that may well be tied with both physiological and psychological consequences of exposures.

Based on the evidence to date, we believe that the case for precaution concerning wireless radiation rests on solid scientific foundations. Human health and the health of the physical environment are both at risk from current and planned expansions of exposure. Experimental evidence demonstrates risks to development that can occur from ambient levels of exposure to wireless radiation that affect the functioning of human cells, mitochondria, and DNA via its ability to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) and place cells into oxidative stress, creating a cascade of related adverse health impacts and disease endpoints. Although exposures are invisible and mostly undetectable, they can have permanent effects on our ability to reproduce and to live a good quality and healthy life. Therefore, we urge that a serious program of research and training must be established and independently funded so that additional research can be developed to clarify the public health and environmental impacts of wireless radiation. In the meantime, actions must be taken to reduce exposures based on the implementation of the precautionary principle. In essence: It is better to be safe than to be sorry. Or as Benjamin Franklin quipped centuries ago, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Open access paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/00139157.2024.2293631