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A new systematic review of more than 100 studies concluded there is too little high-quality research on 5G safety to establish whether exposure to the technology harms human health.
The authors, who published their findings on Nov. 4 in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, said “controversial discussions” about 5G’s potential health risks led them to conduct the review.
After scouring the published scientific literature for studies on the physiological and health-related effects of 5G-related radiofrequency (RF) radiation and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in humans and mammals, the authors analyzed 107 studies.
The reviewers found only five studies that explicitly said they examined 5G, but none of them used real-world 5G signals.
They concluded that for most health topics, “the current scientific data were inadequate to draw any conclusions about the physiological and health-related effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields in the investigated frequency range of 3-30 GHz.”
“We have virtually no research on the health effects from exposure to 5G wireless technology,” wrote Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., in a Nov. 10 post on his website about the new review.
Moskowitz directs the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and serves on the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF).
The ICBE-EMF describes itself as a “consortium of scientists, doctors and researchers” who study wireless radiation and recommend wireless radiation exposure guidelines “based on the best peer-reviewed research publications.”
When 5G was first deployed in the U.S. in 2019, telecom industry executives admitted during a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing that they were unaware of any industry-funded independent scientific research on the potential health risks of 5G technology, Moskowitz said.
According to Moskowitz, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during the hearing, “We’re kind of flying blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.”
Moskowitz wrote, “Unfortunately, we are still flying blind.”
Miriam Eckenfels, director of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, said, “It is bizarre that we still know so little about the health impacts of a technology that is being rolled out to the point where everyone is exposed to it 24/7.”
NIH shut down research on 5G safety, declines to explain why
On Sept. 20, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) solicited public input on EMFs and wireless radiation exposure. Within a month, HHS received over 7,000 comments.
“Clearly, the public is concerned about the health risks of wireless technology,” Moskowitz said. “What will it take for our federal health agencies to fund the research that addresses whether 5G radiation is safe?”
To date, the federal government has funded no research on 5G safety.
Before 2024, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) studied 2G and 3G cellphone radiation. But in January 2024, the NTP announced it had no plans to further study the effects of cellphone radiation on human health — even though the program’s own $30 million study found “clear evidence” of cancer and DNA damage.
It’s unclear why the research was halted. In April 2024, CHD filed Freedom of Information Act requests to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to obtain records related to the government’s decision to shut down the research. NIH produced records including 2,500 fully redacted pages.
After CHD asked for all communications among key NTP officials and researchers from Feb. 1, 2023, to Feb. 1, 2024, the NIH produced only 14 pages of emails — none of them revealed who made the decision to stop the research or provided detailed information about why the research was halted.
FCC wireless radiation limits don’t take 5G radiation ‘bursts’ into account
For the review published in PLOS One, the authors analyzed and evaluated 107 studies for strength of study design and inclination toward bias.
Most of the studies had significant methodological weaknesses that undermined the credibility of the findings, and only 11 studies had a low risk of bias, the authors concluded.
That left the researchers with 50 studies they considered strong enough to provide evidence on 5G’s possible health effects.
However, only five of those studies were explicitly about 5G — “and even those did not use real 5G signals,” said Fariha Husain, senior manager of CHD’s EMR & Wireless Program.
The five studies involved frequencies used by 5G — but the frequencies weren’t modulated like real-world 5G, the authors said.
Real-world 5G is modulated in complex ways that increase transmission speed and expose people to “brief, but very intense” bursts of RF radiation, Moskowitz said. “Since current exposure limits are based upon exposures averaged over time (6 or 30 minutes), these bursts of radiation are essentially unregulated.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates RF radiation exposure levels in the U.S., has not updated its wireless radiation limits in 30 years.
The agency is currently under legal pressure to comply with a 2021 court mandate requiring the FCC to explain how its current limits adequately protect people’s health and the environment.
In May, CHD asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to issue a Writ of Mandamus directing the FCC to comply with the 2021 mandate within 90 days. The court has yet to rule on the request.
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Authors call for more ‘high-quality systematic research’
The authors of the PLOS One review called for more “high-quality systematic research” on 5G that especially looks at how it impacts people’s skin, eyes and body temperature.
Among the 50 studies they focused on in their analysis, they found “moderate evidence” that exposure to 5G impacted cytokines — proteins that help regulate the body’s immune response — in mice.
They also found “low evidence” that high levels of 5G changed the structure of the hippocampus of rats.
The review included only studies published in English or German, the authors said, noting that as a limitation.
Authors were from RWTH Aachen University in Germany and Seibersdorf Laboratories in Austria. Several received funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The study’s corresponding author did not respond to our comment request by the deadline.
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