City Blocks 5G Cell Tower Implementation Over Claims that it Can Cause Cancer

 Mill Valley, CA — As 5G technology begins to roll out across the  country, it is being met by a massive wave of resistance over concerns  that it can cause health problems. One city in California—reacting to an  overwhelming outpouring of concern—has taken an extreme step and  blocked the technology from being implemented. 

This week, the city of Mill Valley, CA, a wealthy city just north of  San Francisco, voted unanimously to effectively halt the installation of  new small cell towers which carry the 5G technology. The city enacted an “urgency ordinance” after it received over a hundred letters from concerned citizens expressing their worries over the new 5G towers. As Tech Crunch reports: 

Through an urgency ordinance,  which allows the city council to immediately enact regulations that  affect the health and safety of the community, the restrictions and  prohibitions will be put into force immediately for all future  applications to site 5G telecommunications equipment in the city.  Applications for commercial districts are permitted under the passed  ordinance. The ordinance was driven by community concerns over the health  effects of 5G wireless antennas. According to the city, it received 145  pieces of correspondence from citizens voicing opposition to the  technology, compared to just five letters in support of it — a ratio of  29 to 1. While that may not sound like much, the city’s population is  roughly 14,000, indicating that about 1% of the population had voiced an  opinion on the matter.

Mill Valley residents cited multiple studies which claim that experts have found evidence that cell phone radiation can cause cancer. The town of 14,000 now joins several other towns who’ve blocked the  installation of 5G over health concerns. Before Mill Valley blocked 5G,  other municipalities in California, such as Marin County and San  Anselmo, passed similar ordinances. Similar movements to block 5G have taken place across the country as well.

 “The cell towers are called small cell towers, but they are not so  small when they are in your front yard,” said Donna Baron, a resident of  Montgomery County, Maryland who is actively protesting the installation  of 5G in her town. “This will cause cancer,” she said. 

Concerns over cell phone radiation  are nothing new. It is a fact that cell phones emit radiation. It is  also a fact that this radiation can be absorbed by the human body from  prolonged exposure. 

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified  radio frequency fields from cell phones as possibly carcinogenic to  humans. IARC interprets the classification as meaning there is limited  evidence showing radiofrequency carcinogenicity in humans and less than  sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. 

For perspective, IARC has classified the following other agents as  “possibly carcinogenic to humans”: Coffee, Extremely low frequency  electromagnetic fields (power line frequency), and Talc-based body  powder. Because cell phone radiation exposure is relatively new and constantly evolving, long term studies are still ongoing. 

The International Cohort Study on Mobile Phone Users (COSMOS) is conducting a study  which aims to conduct long-term health monitoring of a large group of  people to determine if there are any health issues linked with long-term  exposure to radio frequency energy from cell phone use. 

The COSMOS  study will follow approximately 300,000 adult cell phone users in Europe  for 20 to 30 years. As 5G has yet to be fully implemented, the data on its radiation is  even less extensive. However, California’s Department of Public Health  has issued warnings about potential health effects of personal cell phone antennas. 

As TFTP previously reported, this information was just released,  after years of being hidden from the public. Last year, California  Department of Public Health officials finally released a draft document  outlining health concerns stemming from cellphone radiation — including  multiple cancers and infertility. 

“We have evidence of brain tumors and other head and neck  tumors. We also have evidence of sperm damage in males, infertility in  females,” explained Joel  Moskowitz of U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health, who sued the  state in 2016 under the California Public Records Act to obtain the  information.