[zeleza]

It seems theoretically impossible for non-ionising radiation produced by 5G or any other radio emitters to cause cancer as there's no known mechanism for it to induce carcinogenic damage, so a priori we should expect that 5G is safe until shown otherwise.

Joel Moskovitz was co-author on a meta-analysis (https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2008.21.6366) that claimed to find a link between mobile phone use and brain tumours. However, this was a meta-analysis of case-control studies, which is the weakest form of study (worse even than a prospective observational cohort study). The problem here is they essentially had to ask people who did or not have tumours how much they used their mobile phones and trust them, which introduces the obvious issue that people with brain tumours who had heard that phones may cause cancer are probably going to report higher usage of mobile phones than those without tumours. Moskowitz even notes this in the discussion of his paper. He even notes that other, better, better, prospective cohort studies have found no evidence for a link between cellphones and cancer (https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/93/3/203/2906436), but dismisses the study because they looked at subscription data rather than examining 'actual exposure to mobile phones' (which his study didn't do either).

This fear mongering, with no a priori theoretical justification and no evidential basis from people who've checked anyway just to be safe, muddies the waters and distracts from real environmental problems like air pollution causing respiratory diseases. This isn't quite as bad as promoting antivaxxer positions, which are imbecilic because the benefits from vaccines obviously outweigh the costs even if they did cause autism, but it's getting awfully close.

[jcims]

Mutagenic effects can come from many sources, not just direct modification of DNA. Anything that interrupts or interferes with the replication process can easily influence the quality of the output. Tumor Treating Fields [1], for example, use ~150-200kHz alternating electrical fields to mechanically disturb microtubule formation to corrupt mitosis and destroy cells in the process of reproducing. There's nothing remotely ionizing about this process but on the fringes of effect it could result in damaged but not destroyed cells.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5035531/

[lucideer]

> his was a meta-analysis of case-control studies, which is the weakest form of study ... Moskowitz even notes this in the discussion of his paper

Sounds like he's noting that the link found is (as you say) weak to non-existent. Which supports the claim in this Scientific American article: that studies are inconclusive and as such we have no reason to believe the technology is safe.

Also worth pointing out here (as I have elsewhere) that the ACSH link is not from reputable org. It seems to be the only link people are posting and re-posting to rebut Moskowitz's research here on HN.

[zeleza]

If the link is "weak to non-existent" and our a priori thinking is that it should be perfectly safe, shouldn't we default to it being safe? I'm not against also running studies to make sure we haven't missed something, but this seems like an unfair standard that we don't apply to other forms of things we expect to be safe a priori.

[lucideer]

> our a priori thinking is that it should be perfectly safe

What a bizarre statement. I'm curious where you get this notion that things are perfectly safe a priori. What examples do you have where this has been the case? X-ray? Asbestos? Cigarette smoke? Freon? Lead? Certainly they're evidence of things that were accepted as such.

[floriol]

We are talking about a form of energy which is other than being omnipresent naturally, was studied extensively for more than 100-150 years - including health hazards when it comes to ionising radiation.

While I do think that studies should be continued for a more definitive answer, and I personally don't feel a strong need for a 5G network as of now, I am more on the defaults to safe side.