Download a pdf of our July 2006 "News & Comment"

July 31... Radiation Research is known in some EMF circles as the journal of negative results. Even its editors appear to be sensitive about the fact that they almost only publish papers which show that extremely-low-frequency fields and RF/microwave radiation have no biological effects. In its June issue, three of the editors, including John Moulder, offer us an explanation in an editorial titled "Publishing Negative Results."

This prompted us to take a closer look. With the help of Henry Lai of the University of Washington in Seattle, we assembled a subset of radiation health studies —those on the effects of microwaves on DNA. We found that, unlike Radiation Research, many other peer-reviewed journal have had no trouble finding high-quality papers that do show genotoxic effects.

When we investigated who sponsored the microwave-DNA papers published in Radiation Research, we discovered that four out of five were paid for by the wireless industry —notably Motorola— and/or the U.S. Air Force, both of which have a long history of trying to control or suppress EMF research. Indeed, industry and the USAF paid for more than 75% of all the negative genotox studies, that is those published in all the various journals.

What goes unmentioned in the Radiation Research editorial is that Moulder is a long-time consultant to the power, communications and electronics industries. At a time when there are widespread concerns over the lack of disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, why does the Radiation Research Society, the publisher of Radiation Research, allow someone with such obvious conflicts to continue as the gatekeeper at one of the leading radiation journals?

Read the full Microwave News special report. You can also download a pdf, but be sure to read it on a color display.

July 11... Magnetic fields have been linked to childhood cancer in many countries and now it's also been shown in Japan. Michinori Kabuto, of the National Institute of Environmental Studies in Ibaraki, along with a number of collaborators have found that children exposed to 4mG (0.4µT) or more in their bedrooms had close to five times more leukemia than those living in low-exposure homes. This statistically significant finding appears in the August 1st issue of the International Journal of Cancer.

One big advantage of this study is that it's the first to measure residential magnetic fields over the course of a full week, rather than just 24 hours —as was the case, for instance, in the 1997 U.S. National Cancer Institute study. These extra measurements show that there was a great deal of variation in homes with high-field levels. Kabuto explains that when he compared the leukemia risk for each of the seven days separately, the leukemia risk on the highest exposure day was nearly twice that for the lowest exposure day. That's a big difference and could explain some of the inconsistencies in past studies.

On the negative side, the participation rate for the controls was less than 30%, which is extremely low. Kabuto was well aware that this could have played havoc with his entire study and he did what he could to investigate its implications. "[S]election bias per se cannot fully explain our positive finding," he concludes.

Whatever its strength and weaknesses, the Japanese study is the last major epidemiological study of EMFs and childhood leukemia we can expect for a long time. Decisions concerning the adoption of precautionary policies will have to be made with the information we now have in hand.

July 10... It's official. Mike Repacholi has left the WHO. The EMF project is now in the hands of Emilie van Deventer. You can reach Mike at mrepacholi@yahoo.com.

July 7... Being a member of ICNIRP or the WHO EMF project means having a ticket to ride. A couple of days ago, the traveling road show was in Malta. Mike Repacholi, Bernard Veyret and Paolo Vecchia showed up at a forum organized by the local communications authority, titled "The Reality Behind EMFs."

If you download their PowerPoint presentations, you'll learn that Veyret told the Maltese that there is "no evidence of a causal relationship" between power-frequency EMFs and childhood leukemia and that any RF effects on the blood-brain barrier are thermal. If you read further, you'll find out that both Veyret and Vecchia see no reason to be concerned about any health effects at exposure levels below the ICNIRP limits —with Vecchia insisting that, even if such risks were to exist, we would accept them as long as no one took away our EMF and RF technologies. When it came time for Repacholi to step up to the podium, he wanted everyone to know that there is no such thing as EMF hypersensitivity. One of his main missions, he said, was for everyone to adopt the ICNIRP exposure limits.

Just another day on the lecture circuit.

July 3... The RF problem is a result of our misperceptions, according to the WHO's EMF project. The WHO would have us believe that everything would be better if we would just focus on all the good things that wireless technology is bringing into our lives instead of on those trifling health risks. As Mike Repacholi told Gregor Dürrenberger of the Swiss Research Foundation on Mobile Communications: "As technology progresses, people's understanding of it is weak, causing a fear of the unknown, and, in their minds, that EMF health effects may occur from long-term low-level exposure."

That explains why the recent revision of the WHO's RF research agenda advocates a project to "quantify the health related beneficial effects of wireless communications." Unanswered questions like whether RF radiation can cause leakage through the blood-brain barrier did not make it onto the WHO's agenda.

Bernard Veyret, a member of ICNIRP and a Repacholi ally, endorses such wrong-headed priorities. In a comment which, like the Repacholi interview, appears in the Swiss foundation's recently released 2005 annual report, he writes that the need for health research is coming to an end. "By now most of the experimental research has been performed and it is time to address in depth the concerns of the public and the risk communications needs."

So, it's all in our dysfunctional minds. We just need to think more clearly. Maybe then, we too will come to appreciate the industry's view that it's time to stop RF health research, promoted so ably by those charged with protecting public health.