Dear Fran Drescher, 5G is not causing cancer or 'corona'

Fran, let me start by saying I love you. I love The Nanny. I loved you in Cinderella on Broadway. I have seen all the Hotel Transylvania movies in theaters. With your big hair and your powerful accent, you are practically a member of my extended family. I love you, Fran. Which is why, for the first and hopefully the last time in my life, I am begging you (and John Cusack and Wiz Khalifa and M.I.A. and Woody Harrelson) to shut the fuck up.

Yes, this is about the 5G conspiracy theories you dropped on Instagram and Twitter. I know you probably read something on Facebook about how 5G causes cancer and, since you’ve done some wonderful activism against cancer with your foundation Cancer Schmancer, I know wholeheartedly that you have good intentions in sharing this “information.” But I need you to know that it isn’t true and it’s emboldening some of the worst people in the world. Think C.C. Babcock if she was also a white supremacist and aspiring war criminal.

Since we share similar politics I know our first impulse on the left is to be suspicious of corporations, whether they be Monsanto or Facebook, and I don’t want to stamp out that impulse within you. We need to be skeptical of each and every “innovation” pushed on us before anyone’s had the chance to weigh its pros and cons. But 5G is not the hill you want to die on. The hill you want to die on is that The Beautician and the Beast is a misunderstood masterpiece.

5G is a wireless internet technology, similar to Wi-Fi or LTE, which operates much the way TV signals, radio signals, or a cordless landline telephone operates. There is no evidence it causes cancer. There is no evidence, or even credible guesses, that it causes viruses. There is no evidence that it affects immune systems, causes headaches, or interacts with childhood development. The wireless frequencies emitted have not been shown to be any more harmful than the television and radio airwaves on which you’ve made your fortune. Any evidence you’ve seen to the contrary has been debunked repeatedly by scientists and journalists far more intelligent than myself and I would direct you to their work.

The benefits of 5G could be enormous. As someone with a prolific Instagram account, I think you can agree that society is in need of more stable and accessible internet access — especially families for whom that is a barrier to economic mobility (much like Fran Fine!). Though it's regrettable that it takes a major corporation’s might to push through such big infrastructure projects, we need to compete on the global stage for technological resources if our society is going to remain economically viable in the future. Hopefully the political winds change soon and we’ll be able to make the internet, and 5G with it, as free and open to everyone as libraries or the fire department.

When you share anti-5G content, even “just to be on the safe side,” you are encouraging people not to trust science. You are encouraging people to fight technological progress. You are encouraging people to carry out violent attacks on technicians. You are encouraging people to seek out more false information, driving them to “news” sources like Alex Jones who will do everything he can to convince them to support right-wing misinformation agents like Donald Trump, who does not have style or flair and is still, unfortunately, very much there.

Your impulses are good, but the case against 5G is as credible as claims of Loch Ness monster sightings, or that there are lizard people living among us, or that we faked the moon landing. If you wanna help fight disease and corporate greed, there are many, many, many problems that could use your particularly memorable voice.