Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could look to disrupt a key telecommunications network due to unproven concerns about potential health risks, according to a new report.
If the political scion is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he could explore his long-held concerns about possible cancer risks from cell phones and 5G technology, reported NOTUS.
“The next-generation telecommunications network should be discontinued until it has been ‘sufficiently demonstrated that there are no real and serious health risks,’” Kennedy posted on X in 2020.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission currently regulate the amount of radiation produced by cell phones, while the National Institutes of Health studies the topic under its National Toxicology Program, and many experts say that research has not found the health risks about which Kennedy has expressed concern.
“There is no evidence that these radiation wavelengths cause cancer," said Tim Rebbeck, a professor who studies cancer prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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The types of radiation that are known to cause cancer, such as gamma rays and x-rays, are much shorter wavelengths than what's caused by cell phones, and those longer wavelengths have never been shown to create cancer risks.
“I think that if anybody’s cell phone got overheated to the point that it would cause DNA damage, you’d know that," Rebbeck said. "This isn’t something that would be invisible to you."
Kennedy has argued that FCC regulations on cell phone radiation levels are outdated, and one of his allies said he would push for stricter regulations and additional research on possible health effects from cell phone radiation.
“In my judgment, there just needs to be much more research here, and it’s not been high on the government’s list of priorities,” said David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany. “If Bobby Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of HHS, you can be very sure that that issue is going to get a lot more attention.”