5G safety assurances flawed say Australian scientists

Last year, Australian scientists published a paper(by Karipidis et al 1) claiming that 5G radiation was not a risk to human health that was embraced and often quoted by the telecommunications industry.

However, that paper is flawed and its conclusions biased, say scientists from Australia and Slovakia in a critique of the Karipidis paper (by Weller et al 2)published in November.

‘We find the Karipidis review to be both inadequate and incomplete, sending the wrong messages regarding safety assessment and public health’, Weller said.

Weller and team identified a range of errors in the Karipidis paper such as:

  • misreporting exposure times, frequencies and intensities

  • misclassifying studies

  • incorrectly reporting a study finding

  • not reporting significant effects

  • not recording health risks such as cancer

  • misreporting case/personnel numbers

  • and incorrect statements.


It also left out over 80 relevant studies, including some that had found harmful effects, such as cancer.

‘Karipidis has conducted an investigation resulting in the exclusion of important findings, while also overemphasising quality deficiencies and inconsistencies in the data, thereby suggesting confirmation bias,’ they said.

Further, the Karipidis paper did not take into consideration the effects of 5G radiation on plants, insects, amphibians, birds and animals. ‘This is a significant gap,’ the authors said.

Weller points out that another problem with the Karipidis paper is its failure to deal with risks of 5G. It claimed to find ‘no evidence of adverse health effects from the radiowaves used in 5G including mmWave’. Yet, no evidence of risk is not the same as no risks and that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be taking precautions.

‘We consider that risks to humans and the environment identified in past epidemiological studies, as well as unknown risks yet to be identified, warrant the application of a precautionary approach,’ Weller says.

  1. Karipidis K, Mate R, Urban D, Tinker R, Wood A. 5G mobile networks and health-a state-of-the-science review of the research into low-level RF fields above 6 GHz. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2021 Jul;31(4):585-605. doi: 10.1038/s41370-021-00297-6. Epub 2021 Mar 16. PMID: 33727687; PMCID: PMC8263336.

  2. Weller, Steve & May, Murray & McCredden, Julie & Leach, Victor & Phung, Dung & Belyaev, Igor. (2022). Comment on "5G mobile networks and health-a state-of-the- science review of the research into low-level RF fields above 6 GHz" by Karipidis et al. Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. 10.1038/s41370-022-00497-8; https://www.researchgate.net/p...


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