5G: health risks still unknown

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This Monday, January 27, 2020, ANSES released its preliminary report on the health impact of 5G on the French population. And one thing seems certain, the data is still lacking for it to be exhaustive.

This Monday, January 27, the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Security (ANSES) delivered its first verdict on the health impact of the deployment of 5G in France. And as much to say that the agency takes tweezers. In its preliminary report, it concluded that "a significant lack, even an absence of scientific data on the potential biological and health effects related to frequencies around 3.5 GHz".

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An agency in the dark

From the spring, France should thus deploy its 5G taking advantage of the 3.5 GHz waves. These are higher than the 4G waves located between 700 MHz and 2.6 GHz. And to believe Olivier Merckel, head of the risk assessment unit for physical agents at ANSES, many parameters are lacking in order to know their effects on health. "Today, we cannot yet say if the French will be more exposed to electromagnetic fields, he says in the World. The level of exposure will depend a lot on the use that will be made of 5G. Until deployment is completed, we can only simulate from different exposure scenarios. To estimate the exposure, we need to know what type of antennas will be deployed, with what power, in what direction. According to operators' data, the levels will be limited in space compared to the current network, but the user will a priori be more exposed since subject to more power and more throughput through his smartphone. Today, there are uncertainties about the long-term effects of heavy mobile phone use. Some studies show excess risks for cancer or brain tumors. Are the effects the same at 3.5 GHz? This is one of the questions we will try to answer. "

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Growing concerns

To answer them, ANSES still has a year since the final report must be delivered in the first quarter of 2021. In the meantime, 5G will start arriving in France. What worry some associations like Agir pour l'Environnement. "We reverse things. We make the decision and we think about it afterwards. We have almost no information on health and environmental assessments", regrets Stephen Kerckhove, general delegate of Agir pour l'Environnement. "5G is the hyperconnectivity of everything and everyone, it is a rock of society, estimates for its part Sophie Pelletier, president of Priartem, another environmental association. And the Man in all that? "The two associations are also preparing an appeal to the Council of State, in order to cancel the decree of December 30, 2019 relating to the terms of allocation of 5G frequencies. They have elsewhere launched on Friday 24 January a petition called "Stop 5G", available here.

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