By Godson Umejiego, Correspondent USA
The Secretariat of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission – CITEL-, specialized agency in Information Technology and Communications / Telecommunications – ICT – of the Organization of American States -OAS, in response to several movements and news erroneously asserting, without any scientific evidence, that the fifth generation of wireless mobile phone technologies, known commercially as 5G, constitute a severe risk to the health of living beings, the chairs of Inter-American Telecommunication Commission – CITEL’s Permanent Consultative Committees declare the following:
1. In the Member States of the Organization of American States (OAS), there are specialized bodies helping to efficiently administer the radio spectrum of each nation, as well as the standards that specify the maximum exposure limits for human beings to the radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic radiation from wireless communications.
2. These standards set power limits to prevent harmful interferences between services and to protect human health, making sure that certified or authorized devices do not produce levels of exposure to RF that are higher than those set for normal conditions of use. Even the limits set in the standards are far below the levels deemed dangerous by institutions specializing in the matter, therefore they are of no risk to health.
3. The next generation of mobile communications known as 5G shall be using frequency bands that have already been widely investigated and used for years for mobile communications. To date, there has been a large number of studies conducted by international organizations that have found that radio frequency waves emitted by cell phones or base stations observing the limits adopted globally have no adverse impacts on health.
4. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 1 of the United States of America and the World Health Organization (WHO) 2, among other organizations, to date there is no scientific evidence linking the exposure to the radio frequency emissions of mobile devices to any kind of known health problem whatsoever. It must also be mentioned that the WHO has stated that viruses cannot travel on radio waves. Therefore telecommunications have not been spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus 3.
5. The International Telecommunication Union has been working constantly on this issue and specifically on frequency bands for 5G technologies. It has examined about 350 research studies on the subject of human health and millimeter-wave electromagnetic field exposure (mm-Wave EMF) 4.
In that regard, we would like to extend a cordial invitation to the general public to consult internationally reputable sources based on scientific knowledge on the subject of exposure of human beings to radio frequency emissions in order to prevent false information from spreading and undermining the efficient development of telecommunications, especially now that they have proven to be strategically valuable in emergency situations such as the one triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
