RFK Jr. Spreads New Bogus Scare Mongering Bullshit About Cell Phone Safety

from the our-constituency-is-extremely-paranoid dept

The hype and madness surrounding 5G has always been pretty wild to watch.

On one hand, wireless carriers spent years implying that 5G was some type of cancer curing miracle technology (it’s not). At the same time, oodles of conspiracy theorists, celebrities, and various grifters tried to claim 5G was a rampant health menace (it’s not). In reality, 5G’s not actually interesting enough to warrant either position, but that never stopped anybody in the post-truth era.

The Trump administration’s pseudo-populist attempt to tap into the more delirious and desperate segments of the electorate has long taken advantage of this latter group’s often-legitimate distrust of modern medicine, corporations, and public safety regulators.

That’s once again the obvious plan for CDC conspiracy chief RFK Jr., who continues to purge government websites of any language that points out that cellular phone human health risks have not been scientifically proven via peer-reviewed, large studies:

“The FDA removed online information that said scientists have not connected exposure to radiofrequency (RF) waves, emitted by cell phones, to health problems in users.

Some of the removed webpages contained “old conclusions,” an HHS spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. The spokesperson also said that researching cell phone radiation would “identify gaps in knowledge.” The agency provided a similar statement to Scientific American, adding that the research was “directed by President Trump’s MAHA Commission.”

RFK Jr. says he’s launching new “studies” (whatever that means given the standards we’ve seen applied in his unscientific anti-vaccination rhetoric) exploring the impact of 5G wireless on human health, and has been making the rounds making scary noises to what’s left of U.S. journalism institutions (like the pretty feckless USA Today):

“Generally speaking, electromagnetic radiation is a major health concern,” Kennedy said in the exclusive interview, when asked for his concerns about 5G towers. “I’m very concerned about it.”

In these interviews, RFK Jr. is making completely false claims that there’s “more than 10,000 studies” proving a clear risk of human harm from cell phone use. The World Health Organization found no justification for health concerns after a meta-analysis of nearly thirty years of research.

While it’s hubris to insist we know everything about wireless’ impact on human health, the science we do have traditionally points to a very clear conclusion: 5G isn’t likely to seriously to hurt you. In fact, in many ways 5G is potentially less harmful than previous iterations given that the millimeter wave spectrum being used in many cities can barely penetrate walls, much less human skin.

As Scientific American notes, while there have historically been studies suggesting potential cancerous impact from massive exposure using rats, “studies in humans have been inconsistent and limited in scope and efficacy.” The FDA had previously, and correctly, stated that “the weight of scientific evidence has not linked exposure to radio frequency energy from cellphone use with any health problems.”

Now if the Trump administration was actually serious about launching real-world scientific inquiries into cell phone health’s impact, that might be something. But we’re long past the point where this weird assortment of zealots deserve any benefit of the doubt. Especially given RFK Jr.’s history of completely unscientific, fear mongering gibberish.

Trump authoritarians love leaning into conspiracy theories for several reasons.

One, it exploits often legitimate frustration with institutional failures to tap into a neglected part of the electorate they can farm for support with fake populism (you see this commonly across the “MAHA” set, the anti-war lies, and the fake administration claim to support meaningful “antitrust reform”).

Two, it helps create an information fog of war where the electorate finds it harder to reliably identify what’s true, in turn making people more distrustful of the few legitimate media organizations still interested in the truth. This in turn makes it easier for authoritarians to lie to you (and the movement’s adjacent grifter economy to rip you off with false promises and cures).

Three, it distracts the public from what the Trump administration is actually doing most of the time, which in telecom and cellular has largely involved destroying any remaining oversight of our shitty telecom monopolies that are keen to rip you off.

It’s not populism, it’s exploitation. There are no answers here, only more confusion and chaos for suffering people. All to mask broad, grotesque corruption by a broad assortment of terrible human beings.

Many of these MAHA segments being targeted by Trump grifters (see: RFK Jr.’s siren call to angry Lyme Disease patients) spent decades feeling legitimately exploited and abused by corporate power, institutional failure, and U.S. health care dysfunction only to walk straight into the maw of some of the biggest grifting shitbags America may have ever spawned (which is really saying something).

Filed Under: 5g, cdc, cellular, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, disinformation, fda, health, health and human services, rfk Jr, wireless