I think the answer to all questions about RF are, it depends. Some people here, and some governments apparently too, seem so desperate to make claims that it is "totally harmless". I find that to be really irresponsible because clearly thats not true.
Since the question is about
5G people should state that average hadset power of
5G systems is higher than an average handset now.
"The maximum EIRP is regulated to be 43 dBm for mobile stations (MSs) by the FCC" Huo, Yiming, Xiaodai Dong, and Wei Xu. "5G cellular user equipment: From theory to practical hardware design."
IEEE Access 5 (2017): 13992-14010.
Average use outdoors in urban areas is likely to be much lower - because of the duty cycle it could be much lower. But indoors - inside of large metal buildings, the power output has to rise. When a mobile station is trying to reach a base station in adverse conditions, such as when its inside a metal building, the power goes up.
Comfort and battery life must also limit the practical power usage as much as safety considerations, I bet. Manufacturers certainly don't want phones to run uncomfortably hot. Also, internal RF blocks are limited in how much power can be emitted by possible co-interference (although cell phones typically are not transmitting and receiving at exactly the same time, because of the pulsed and precisely timed nature of the medium.)
An objective investigation of the issue leads me to believe that its a mixed bag. I do believe that frequent use of a cell phone pressed against your head is almost certainly unhealthy and might in some cases cause cancer. (In people who use cell phones a very great deal I'd be surprised if the risk was not significant) otherwise, why have any cellphone RF limits at all?
We do have them and they are for a reason. Also, one may have co-morbidities. In my case at that time I was living in an unhealthy environment and at that time I certainly did notice effects when using my own cell phone in the typical manner. But around five years ater it emerged that the apartment I was living in had an astronomical amount of toxic mold in its attic. So I have no doubt that had something to do with my suceptibility to effects which consisted of tinnitus and mild headaches, and a feeling that something was not normal after using my cell phone for more than just a short call. This was with a non 5G cell phone, an old TDMA one. (an Ericsson) Later on I had a Motorola v60 TDMA phone and although it had phenomenal range it never caused issues for me. It had a wired hands free, which I prefer. (unfortuately they arent available on most newer phones. )
Its wise to avoid taking unnecessary risks if one can. Also, Bluetooth is both a privacy and security risk.
Actually, come to think of it I have an old friend who several years ago was diagnosed with a brain tumor. he actualy works in the electronics industry now and has for a long time. Was the tuumor on that side of his head? What are his thoughts on if it might have been caused by a cell phone? To be honest, I dont know. And I havent asked him because every time Ive spoken with him Ive just been happy he was alive. But there are people who have gotten rare cancers where it seems it likely was caused by a cell phone. People who used their cell phones a real lot, because they thought it was unavoidable.
Also, what are its effects on the brain, on memory, attention and long term potentiation? (learning)
what are the effects of cell pones on children?
The problem is some people think if a little is okay, lots more, and then lots more on top of that must be okay too.
Its not, necessarily.
A few years ago the UK government published a report which had enough issues with it to make it subject to a lot of criticism. Clearly they went into it already having decided what their "findings" were going to be.
(See critical analysis: Inaccurate official assessment of radiofrequency safety by the Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation : Reviews on Environmental Health
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/reveh.2016.31.issue-4/reveh-2016-0060/reveh-2016-0060.xml As somebody who reads a lot of health related research I know that the science on RF exposure is still evolving rapidly.
Also, there are lots of different kinds of RF exposures. 5G is kind of scary because it uses dozens of different frequency bands, and the pulsed power is very high. Sometimes.
Some amounts of power for some kinds of 5G activities (pulsed) are a lot higher and the placement of cells much denser than anything I've seen before. Some cellphone executives have expressed doubts over whether it is even needed.
At the same time, many communities in the US are not served by any kind of broadband at all, a real problem right now. Cost is also a major problem for families that may no longer have any income or who are living off unemployment which will soon run out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/technology/coronavirus-broadband-discounts.htmlWhen broadband providers invest in services upgrades which are unsuccessful, they dont eat that cost, they pass it on to customers.
Ive been following the issue and I have yet to see the applications that need what this system is proposing. (Can anyone here give me some examples? I bet you cant)
Is this really smart? Given that
we really dont know what the health effects for people who live right next to one of these 5G sites will be. (They also might impact electronics) And anybody who claims that we "know" what its health effects would be is failing to grasp the situation..
Smart people realize the limits to our knowledge. The more we learn, the more we also should realize we dont know. So given the already huge health challenges we face from innumerable other environmental threats to public health, including boring old ones like air pollution, combined with recent science (unfortunately not very well known to the general public) proving that in some people, (pregnant women) the effects of pro-oxidant exposures
(hundreds of different kinds of exposures can be lumped together as having pro oxidant mechanisms of action, including what we know about RF) add up, and can be devastaing to unborn children because at that specific time in the lifecycle (and others) these different kinds of expoures are too much - in the case of unborn children glutathione depletion effects cell differentiation at a very low level. It might even make having a baby unsafe. We are actually already at the point where amounts of pro oxidant toxicants found in the environment are demonstrably unsafe. Some are quite common. While a fetus is in the womb. If living near a cellular base station causes depletion of glutathione (thats the problem) its eventually likely to cause those kinds of problems in a dose related manner. . (Cell sites often are put on the roofs of apartment buildings or on telephone poles just a few feet from peoples dwellings)
Just like lots of other toxicants like diesel exhaust already are known to cause health problems, its not unlikely that at some power level that will be shown to also be unsafe.
We should not rush into creating new risks like we are. What we're seeing is very irresponsible behavior, especially given that nobody actually needs that kind of connectivity yet, and also that many areas have literally no connectivity at all yet. With millions of people here in the US having lost jobs and many of them also having lost their health coverage and unable to afford "COBRA" its very unwise to create new health risks of any kind.
Think of it this way, every new dumb chemical or RF emitting device that somebody else might think is just the greatest thing, quite possibly might turn out to take a little bit away from the collective health of those around it. If they all use it and together, decide they want it, great, but if its just forced on them, its not great, its bad.
Here is what I consider to be a key issue.
What happens if its unambiguously discovered its really unhealthy at some time in the future, who should pay? who should bear the cost of removing it, shutting it down? It may be very hard to the way things are going.
Just like all you folk who live in countries where healthcare is free or cheap, would you feel the same way about risks if getting cancer was almost guaranteed to bankrupt you and cause you to lose your home and everything you owned and maybe even become homeless? (as it is in the US for a very large percentage of us who are more and more hopelessly underinsured (most Americans)