Mill Valley, CA — As 5G technology begins to roll out across the country, it is being met by a massive wave of resistance over concerns that it can cause health problems. One city in California—reacting to an overwhelming outpouring of concern—has taken an extreme step and blocked the technology from being implemented.
This week, the city of Mill Valley, CA, a wealthy city just north of San Francisco, voted unanimously to effectively halt the installation of new small cell towers which carry the 5G technology.
The city enacted an “urgency ordinance” after it received over a hundred letters from concerned citizens expressing their worries over the new 5G towers.
As Tech Crunch reports:
Through an urgency ordinance, which allows the city council to immediately enact regulations that affect the health and safety of the community, the restrictions and prohibitions will be put into force immediately for all future applications to site 5G telecommunications equipment in the city. Applications for commercial districts are permitted under the passed ordinance.
The ordinance was driven by community concerns over the health effects of 5G wireless antennas. According to the city, it received 145 pieces of correspondence from citizens voicing opposition to the technology, compared to just five letters in support of it — a ratio of 29 to 1. While that may not sound like much, the city’s population is roughly 14,000, indicating that about 1% of the population had voiced an opinion on the matter.
Mill Valley residents cited multiple studies which claim that experts have found evidence that cell phone radiation can cause cancer.
The town of 14,000 now joins several other towns who’ve blocked the installation of 5G over health concerns. Before Mill Valley blocked 5G, other municipalities in California, such as Marin County and San Anselmo, passed similar ordinances.
Similar movements to block 5G have taken place across the country as well.
“The cell towers are called small cell towers, but they are not so small when they are in your front yard,” said Donna Baron, a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland who is actively protesting the installation of 5G in her town.
“This will cause cancer,” she said.
Concerns over cell phone radiation are nothing new. It is a fact that cell phones emit radiation. It is also a fact that this radiation can be absorbed by the human body from prolonged exposure.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radio frequency fields from cell phones as possibly carcinogenic to humans. IARC interprets the classification as meaning there is limited evidence showing radiofrequency carcinogenicity in humans and less than sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.
For perspective, IARC has classified the following other agents as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”: Coffee, Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (power line frequency), and Talc-based body powder.
Because cell phone radiation exposure is relatively new and constantly evolving, long term studies are still ongoing.
The International Cohort Study on Mobile Phone Users (COSMOS) is conducting a study which aims to conduct long-term health monitoring of a large group of people to determine if there are any health issues linked with long-term exposure to radio frequency energy from cell phone use. The COSMOS study will follow approximately 300,000 adult cell phone users in Europe for 20 to 30 years.
As 5G has yet to be fully implemented, the data on its radiation is even less extensive. However, California’s Department of Public Health has issued warnings about potential health effects of personal cell phone antennas.
Cell-Phone-GuidanceAs TFTP previously reported, this information was just released, after years of being hidden from the public. Last year, California Department of Public Health officials finally released a draft document outlining health concerns stemming from cellphone radiation — including multiple cancers and infertility.
“We have evidence of brain tumors and other head and neck tumors. We also have evidence of sperm damage in males, infertility in females,” explained Joel Moskowitz of U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health, who sued the state in 2016 under the California Public Records Act to obtain the information.
CDPH cell phone document April 2014-1
BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) —
We’ve heard it before — claims that cellphones cause cancer. Now a new report says that the state of California may have kept information about the cancer risk secret.
This is significant because it comes from a government agency and it mentions radiation and its harmful effects. It also mentioned that children are more susceptible to the effects of radiation.
People have long suspected that holding a phone too close to your head or other parts of your body may do damage to cells and tissue.
“We have evidence of brain tumors and other head and neck tumors. We also have evidence of sperm damage in males, infertility in females,” UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health’s Joel Moskowitz said.
Moskowitz took the California Department of Public Health to court to force the release of a document which says scientific studies suggest long-term cellphone use may increase the risk of brain cancer and other health problems.
Moskowitz says there’s been a lot of pressure from the wireless industry to keep any kind of negative report on cellphones hidden from the public.
“And they’ve done a very good job at it, essentially following the same playbook that the tobacco industry used,” Moskowitz said.
The report also suggests keeping phones away from your body. Use headsets, speaker phone and text more.
Few people follow those recommendations. “Generally I don’t. Generally I just hold it up to my ear and talk like that,” cellphone user Pierce Firebaugh said.
Ellie Marks is with the California Brain Tumor Association. “People need to know, people are unaware that cellphones as they are used now are not safe,” she said.
Most people say they would consider adopting those recommendations. “If there is a concerted message from sources that are trusted,” cellphone user Tim Fuson said.
But part of the reason why the state refused to release the document was because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention insist more research is needed before we know if using cellphones causes health effects.
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