Wireless technology is an environmental stressor requiring new understanding and approaches in health care

Abstract

Electromagnetic signals from everyday wireless technologies are an ever-present environmental stressor, affecting biological systems. In this article, we substantiate this statement based on the weight of evidence from papers collated within the ORSAA database (ODEB), focusing on the biological and health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation. More specifically, the experiments investigating exposures from real-world devices and the epidemiology studies examining the effects of living near mobile phone base stations were extracted from ODEB and the number of papers showing effects was compared with the number showing no effects. The results showed that two-thirds of the experimental and epidemiological papers found significant biological effects. The breadth of biological and health categories where effects have been found was subsequently explored, revealing hundreds of papers showing fundamental biological processes that are impacted, such as protein damage, biochemical changes and oxidative stress. This understanding is targeted toward health professionals and policy makers who have not been exposed to this issue during training. To inform this readership, some of the major biological effect categories and plausible mechanisms of action from the reviewed literature are described. Also presented are a set of best practice guidelines for treating patients affected by electromagnetic exposures and for using technology safely in health care settings. In conclusion, there is an extensive evidence base revealing that significant stress to human biological systems is being imposed by exposure to everyday wireless communication devices and supporting infrastructure. This evidence is compelling enough to warrant an update in medical education and practice.

Mobile telephony radiation exerts genotoxic action and significantly enhances the effects of gamma radiation in human cell

“…It is shown that real-life WC EMFs emitted by commercially available mobile phone devices, Wi-Fi routers, DECT phones, or base antennas/cell towers are by far more bioactive than simulated corresponding signals with invariable parameters emitted by generators (Panagopoulos et al 2015a;Panagopoulos 2017Panagopoulos , 2019bLeach et al 2018;Kostoff et al 2020;McCredden et al 2022McCredden et al , 2023. This is an additional reason why in some previous studies no effects of simulated MT EMFs on human lymphocytes were reported (Zeni et al 2003(Zeni et al , 2012Stronati et al 2006;Schwarz et al 2008), while in my studies, in which a real 3G/4G WC EMF exposure was employed, a very intense effect was found (up to 275% increase in chromatid aberrations compared to the control samples).…”

“…Based on more recent scientific evidence after the 2011 IARC classification for RF EMFs, several studies have suggested that RF (actually WC) EMFs should be re-evaluated and classified as probably carcinogenic (Group 2A) or carcinogenic (Group 1) to humans (Yakymenko et al 2011(Yakymenko et al , 2016(Yakymenko et al , 2018Hardell et al 2013;Carlberg and Hardell 2017;Hardell 2017Hardell , 2019Miller et al 2018Miller et al , 2019Panagopoulos 2019aPanagopoulos , 2019bPanagopoulos , 2020Hardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020;Panagopoulos et al 2022b;Tsibulin 2022a, 2022b). Moreover, it is shown that the majority of studies performed with simulated WC EMFs with fixed parameters emitted by generators (following IARC's recommendations) grossly underestimate the biological activity of real-life highly variable WC EMF exposures by commercially available devices and antennas (Panagopoulos et al 2015a(Panagopoulos et al , 2022aLeach et al 2018;Panagopoulos 2019aPanagopoulos , 2019bPanagopoulos , 2020Kostoff et al 2020;McCredden et al 2022McCredden et al , 2023.…”

“…This involves, apart from the already existing carrier frequencies, even higher ones (up to 100 GHz), additional ELF pulsations called synchronization signal blocks (SSB), multi-stream transmissions called "multiple input multiple output" (MIMO), antenna arrays for directional beams of potentially increased intensity, and a much denser network of base antennas of potentially increased power in order to compensate for the energy scattering loss due to the higher carrier frequencies (Sesia et al 2011;Dahlman et al 2018;Hardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020;Kostoff et al 2020;Panagopoulos et al 2022a;Betta et al 2023). Many experts on the biological/ health effects of EMFs have expressed strong objections to 5G roll out with concerns of highly increased health risk based on the aforementioned differences from previous MT/WC systems (McClelland and Jaboin 2018;Miller et al 2018Miller et al , 2019Panagopoulos 2019aPanagopoulos , 2019bPanagopoulos , 2020Panagopoulos , 2023Hardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020;Kostoff et al 2020;Balmori 2022;Jagetia 2022;McCredden et al 2022McCredden et al , 2023Miller 2022;Tsibulin 2022a, 2022b). Those scientists have asked for a moratorium in 5G roll out and urgent application of the Precautionary Principe (Read and O'Riordan 2017).…”

A Decision Support System for Managing Health Symptoms of Living Near Mobile Phone Base Stations

“…Epidemiology studies are the primary focus of RF research concerning human exposure, even though it is challenging to separate distance from a tower as an independent variable and determine actual exposure levels due to the prevalence of ELF and RF fields in daily life through personal wireless devices. This poses a potential weakness in such studies as it becomes difficult to find unexposed controls [22].…”