Wednesday, January 8th, 2020 (10:30 am) - Score 4,064

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a “misleading” advert by campaign group Electrosensitivity-UK after it wrongfully claimed that the roll-out of ultrafast 5G mobile networks could result in a range of health effects, such as “reduced male fertility, depression, disturbed sleep and headaches, as well as cancer.”

The advert itself took the form of a poster – seen in July and August 2019, which began with a headline that asked “How safe is 5G?” and featured four quotes from various “professionals” detailing their opposition to the roll-out of 5G (mobile broadband) network technology.

Naturally the problem here is that, outside of a minuscule amount of heating, non-ionizing 5G mobile signals are not recognised to cause any negative health effects like those mentioned above and is widely regarded as safe. Such campaign groups thus have a tendency to misunderstand the existing research (they usually don’t understand the key importance of skin, power levels, distance or different radio bands to risk) and often conflate it with bad science.

At present all 5G deployments in the UK also tend to use the same band(s), at similar power levels, to those that have been harnessed by 4G networks for years and without such problems occurring. Likewise this isn’t just a “5G” issue as we should really be talking about all radio waves (WiFi, Bluetooth, TV etc.), not only a specific technology.

NOTE: When an object absorbs any kind of light it heats up as it now has more energy than before, but in low powered mobile signals this is so tiny as to be imperceivable.

As Matt Warman MP, UK Digital Minister, said last year: “[The] government will support work to bust health myths over 5G, which WHO say poses the same risk as talcum powder and pickled vegetables. There is no credible evidence to back up concerns and huge evidence for the economic benefit of gigabit-capable networks.”

In this case ASA called out the campaign group for its misleading claims and banned the advert.

ASA Ruling (REF: G19-1029264) The WHO factsheet on “Electromagnetic fields and public health: mobile phones”, which took account of several large completed and ongoing multinational epidemiological studies, including case-control studies and prospective cohort studies examining a number of health endpoints in adults, one of which was coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), determined that no adverse health effects had been established as being caused by mobile phone use. We noted the advertiser’s view that the factsheet was inaccurate. However, we considered the report formed that position based on extensive scientific examination and we understood that WHO, together with the IARC considered the available evidence fell short of being conclusive that exposure to all radio frequency radiation, of which mobile signals were a part, might cause cancer in humans. We noted that WHO were, at the time the ad was seen, conducting an ongoing project to assess potential health effects of exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields in the general and working population. The UK Government’s guidance, which took account of the most up-to-date robust evidence from WHO, the Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation (AGNIR) and the European Commission, had concluded that many exposure measurements had been made in the UK at publicly accessible locations near to base stations and that they had all been consistently well within the guidelines set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), recognised by WHO as an official collaborating non-governmental organisation whose aim was to protect people and the environment against adverse effects of non-ionising radiation. We assessed the material referred to by Electrosensitivity-UK in their submissions. We considered many of the articles and studies, such as the NTP study, were not adequate because they concerned animal experiments (such as mice, rats and rabbits), rather than studies which specifically examined human health. The NTP study also assessed 2G and 3G signals, and we understood that the NTP were still in the process of evaluating the 5G network. Many of the articles provided were not studies, but reviews of the current context of research in the area. One, for example, stated that the author was “very concerned that 5G may produce effects like those we already see produced from lower frequency EMFs but are much more severe”, but said that “the only way to find out is to do biological safety testing on genuine 5G radiation”, and concluded that “we have no risk analysis or risk management because we have no risk assessment whatsoever on 5G”. Another was a YouTube video of a Canadian radio talk show in which a scientist hypothesised the extinction of life forms due to 5G radiation. That material, along with many others, lacked the robustness of an appropriately designed observational study or clinical trial, and we therefore considered that it was insufficient to substantiate claims made about human health. For the above reasons, we did not consider that the evidence demonstrated that 5G signals caused negative human health effects and therefore considered that the ad was misleading.

The ASA said that the ad must not appear again in its current form and they told Electrosensitivity-UK to “ensure they did not make claims which implied there was robust scientific evidence that demonstrated negative human health effects caused by 5G signals or that specific medical conditions had been shown to be caused by 5G signals, unless they held adequate substantiation for such claims.”

In fairness there could be a health risk from simply worrying about such things (psychosomatic effects) too much.