US FCC reiterates 5G poses no health threat

Officials at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for spectrum allocation in the United States, reiterated today that 5G does not pose a health threat. The FCC said that for now, the FCC will not change its existing RF exposure limits, which it considers to be among the strictest in the world.

"To date, the available scientific evidence does not support that existing exposures cause health effects in humans," Jeffrey Shuren, director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, wrote to the FCC.

The FCC official explained that the agency's existing RF exposure limits apply to phones and other devices, as well as small cells and macro cell towers, covering anything that generates RF signals. Officials said that all available scientific evidence shows that 5G is no different than 4G, 3G or any other G in terms of causing cancer or other diseases, and that this is also true for transmissions within different frequency bands, whether it is low-band spectrum like 600MHz or high-band spectrum like 28GHz, which is currently being put into use in 5G. Officials said that existing RF exposure guidelines still apply regardless of the spectrum band.

The FCC is working to codify its approach to the problem. Specifically, Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing a uniform set of guidelines for how to evaluate whether cell phones and other products need to meet the FCC's radio frequency standards. The

FCC's action today essentially represents the U.S. government's official comment on concerns that 5G causes cancer and other health problems. In fact, such concerns have gained widespread attention in cities across the United States and among some federal lawmakers.

However, according to FCC officials, there is no reliable science to support such claims. In fact, another article in the New York Times pointed out that transmissions in the millimeter wave spectrum cannot penetrate human skin. This is simply due to the propagation characteristics of high-frequency band transmissions, and 5G mobile phone engineers are very aware of this because they need to design 5G phones so that the signal is not blocked by the user's hand. At the same time, these issues do not affect transmissions in low-frequency bands, such as the case with 4G.