Hundreds of rowdy and rhythmic protesters rallied on Thursday morning outside Council’s chambers in Mullum to call for a moratorium on the rollout of the latest 5G wireless technology.
Tashi Lhamo from the Stop 5G Northern Rivers NSW Facebook group told the lively crowd that the group has attracted over 1,700 members in five weeks.
She told the crowd it was great to see such a vocal and strong support and that ‘Silence is consent.’
‘5G is 50 to 100 times stronger in radiation than previous wireless… We are already being exposed to high levels…’, she said.
The aim of the group, she said, is to raise awareness of the impacts of 5G technology. ‘Do your own research,’ she said.
‘We call for a moratorium and independent safety testing. The main concerns are health safety and a lack of consultation from government agencies and the telcos’.
There is also a lack of peer reviewed studies, she added.
‘We call on Council, government, and telcos to apply the precautionary principle with rolling out new technologies such as this’.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) describes itself as the ‘Australian Government’s primary authority on radiation protection and nuclear safety’.
Lhamo told the crowd that the disclaimer on ARPANSA’s website absolves itself of responsibility for its advice.
ARPANSA’s online disclaimer reads, ‘This website is not a substitute for independent professional advice specific to your personal circumstances. Nothing contained in this site is intended to be used as medical advice and, in particular, it should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease in individual cases, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health practitioner’s professional advice. ARPANSA does not accept any liability for any injury, loss or damage incurred by use of or reliance on the information provided on this website’.
While ARPANSA’s website concedes public ‘concerns of adverse health effects’ of 5G, ‘our understanding of the evidence of health effects and the need for more research have not changed.’
It continues, ’At exposure levels below the limits set within the ARPANSA safety standard, it is the assessment of ARPANSA and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP) that there is no established scientific evidence to support any adverse health effects from very low RF EME exposures to populations or individuals’.
WHO (https://bit.ly/2JWhVb8) say International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), a category used when a causal association is considered credible, but when chance, bias or confounding cannot be ruled out with reasonable confidence.
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