- Position1 of 2›
- No, 5G is not dangerous to human health
- Argument‹3 of 3
There hasn't been any strong evidence to show that 5G causes harm to human health
Although there has been much controversy surrounding 5G technology, there is little to no direct scientific evidence to suggest that 5G frequencies could cause harm to humans.
The argument
There is no evidence or research which directly shows that 5G technology causes harm to humans. Humans have been in close contact with high frequency radio waves for enough time to study the effects of these waves on their body. A Forbes report displayed that of the 4,500 people in the United Kingdom who worked in close proximity to radiofrequency radiation, there was no evidence that they had higher rates of cancer or illness than any other citizen. These workers are allowed to be in contact with five times as much radiofrequency radiation than the public. If there were any adverse effects of 5G waves, these workers would have been the first to display them. Beyond this, the World Health Organization also conducted a project to decipher whether or not 5G would be a threat. They found that it was not at all harmful and that, “[t]o date, no adverse health effects from low level, long term exposure to radiofrequency or power frequency fields have been confirmed, but scientists are actively continuing to research this area." There has yet to be conclusive evidence of any sort of harm that 5G could cause to humans. The fear that surrounds this new technology is unfounded hysteria with no scientific backing.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Some argue that the reason that many studies disprove the health concerns of 5G is that they have strong ties to the technology industry that would benefit from 5G. For example, a 2017 article in the International Journal of Oncology, argued that several members of the World Health Organization's core leaders on their risk assessment project were in a very "industry loyal" NGO, the ICNIRP.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Absence of evidence of harm is not evidence of its absence, and the argument's own WHO quotation says research is continuing — a finding that nothing has been confirmed cannot carry the categorical claim the conclusion makes. [Rejecting P2] The workers in the report were occupationally exposed to radiofrequency radiation in general rather than to the newer, higher-frequency bands at issue, so their health records cannot stand in for a study of the technology in dispute. [Rejecting P3] The passage quoted from the WHO concerns low-level, long-term exposure to radiofrequency and power-frequency fields as a class and explicitly notes that scientists are still researching the area, which states unsettled science rather than the clearance the premise treats it as.