that story is from 2010, way before 5g.
link
from EMR Australia – Tuesday, March 02, 2010
if you're interested in the science of how EM fields work, not an anecdote, take a look at this:
https://www.intechopen.com/books/el...sfer-from-electromagnetic-fields-to-materials
It looks reasonably rigorous. You'll want to pay attention to attenuation and losses across boundary layers (i.e. air to skin), and keep in mind anything short of vacuum is a medium, including air. Also keep in mind dry air behaves a lot differently than humid air, because water is a dipole and it modifies the dielectric constant of air. Thus for a given frequency propagating from a tower, to you, significant differences in humidity in the air (say a wave passing through a cloud then a free-path then a cloud) will in effect have experienced these boundary layer adsorptive losses multiple times before it gets to you / your clothing.
"5g" is such an easily attenuated signal that walls in houses can render it effectively worthless, thus the need for all the repeaters in dense urban settings and interior router-like repeats. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this cell tower hocus pocus is actually concern over the microwave backhauls used to handle the data IO at the towers.
edit: for clarity
edit 2: also, the true scam with 5g is all the public investment it's going to get just to keep telco's from having to dig wires. it's to make delivery of wireless home internet easier, that's it. all the TED talks in the world don't mean anything when the automation / controls / networking supposed advances enabled by 5g are perfectly suitable for 4g, and even 3g (depending on the bandwidth needs). Add into that how easy it is for 5g to be attenuated, it makes the prospect of using such signal for target device that is dynamic and moving, when there is the well-propagating wideband 4g, it shows that 5g is just a boondoggle. it's to suck money from public coffers, while making it easier for telco's to offer fast home internet. no wires = less labor to install, less labor means they can reduce their workforce. that is the goal of 5g, workforce reduction and thus increased profits for telcos. bonus for them, they've conned the government into supporting this labor reduction with public resources.