Since California’s legislature passed the SB.649 bill earlier this year, many opponents have been up in arms. The bill allows the placement of small cells on utility poles, street lamps, traffic lights and street signs throughout California neighborhoods as well as “associated power equipment” on sidewalks, reported Business Wire.
Now, Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences at Washington State University, an expert in how wireless radiation impacts the electrical systems in our bodies, is expressing his concern regarding radiation emitted from small cells. The FCC guidelines for microwave radiation consider only potential heating effects from the radiation, but not the electromagnetic effects, according to Pall. In a letter to legislators, Dr. Pall said, “It would be a disaster for the health of Californians to be exposed to the antennas envisioned in SB.649.”
He added, “higher frequency electromagnetic fields from 5G technologies on the horizon pose even greater biological concern than those to which we are exposed today.”
There are several other states that are considering similar legislation to SB.649, where carriers will be able to lease space on utility poles, street lamps and other municipal infrastructure, placing small cells in concentrated clusters within residential areas.
Business Wire reported that over 200 California cities and major CA newspapers, the AARP, and the California Alliance for Safer Technology, an alliance of health and environmental advocacy groups opposed the bill. Their reasons include: the usurpation of local government authority over municipal infrastructure, economic and financial concerns, privacy considerations due to pervasive antennas, liability for data misuse, real estate devaluation, aesthetics, historic preservation, environmental risks, and the health and DNA risks addressed in Dr. Pall’s letter to legislators.
“We should be moving, instead, to wired technologies at every opportunity, based on what we know in science today, not expanding and supporting the proliferation of wireless,” says Dr. Pall.
August 11, 2017
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