A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

How To Succeed in Science

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trust
and the Art of Name Dropping

Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Last updated April 21, 2022

David Robert Grimes is a “got lemons, make lemonade” kind of guy. Or as his famous Irish countryman Oscar Wilde quipped more than 100 years ago, “a grapefruit is just a lemon that saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.”

Well, actually, though that line is attributed to Wilde on countless websites, he never said or wrote it. The first documented use was more than a decade after he died in Paris in 1900. But given so, it seems all the more appropriate to mention it in the context of the Grimes affair.

I bring all this up because I’m still trying to understand why JAMA Oncology would have commissioned or accepted a manuscript on a hotly controversial subject —a review of radiofrequency (RF) radiation and cancer— by a junior Irish academic-cum-columnist without any relevant qualifications, David Robert Grimes, at the time of Dublin City University.

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Pressure Mounts To Retract
Grimes RF–Cancer Review

Former Director of NIEHS Endorses Removal

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Senior environmental health scientists are calling for JAMA Oncology to retract a review of RF radiation and cancer by David Robert Grimes, a physicist at Dublin City University.*

Grimes’s paper, which was posted on the journal’s website on December 9^th, has prompted a barrage of letters of protest to Nora Disis, the editor of JAMA Oncology.

Among those calling for retraction is Linda Birnbaum, who, for ten years, 2009-2019, was the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Ronald Melnick, who led the team that designed the NTP RF–cancer study, is another harsh critic.

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Four Reasons Why David Grimes’s
RF-Cancer Review Must Be Retracted

Open Letter to Editor-in-Chief, AMA Journals

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Last updated April 21, 2022

Dear Dr. Phil Fontanarosa,

As you are already keenly aware, on December 9^th, JAMA Oncology, part of the AMA family of journals, published what purports to be a review of radiofrequency (RF) radiation and cancer by David Robert Grimes.

Grimes’s paper is rife with distortions and omissions. It is a disservice to the AMA and to all those who care about public health. I urge you, as the current editor-in-chief of all AMA journals, to retract this paper.

Here are four reasons why you should set the record straight as soon as possible...

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Abandoning Inconvenient Science

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier
Was Shut Down — Again
Reflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

Monday, January 10, 2022

Last updated May 7, 2022

Leif Salford celebrated his 80^th birthday on December 7. An emeritus professor at Sweden’s Lund University and a noted neurosurgeon, Salford spent much of his career treating patients with brain tumors. Over the years, he became frustrated as, all too often, he was unable to save them with a scalpel.

In 1987, Salford came across a paper in Neuroscience Letters from a group at the University of Western Ontario, who had found that rats undergoing the equivalent of a routine MRI scan showed changes in their blood-brain barrier. The BBB is a membrane that keeps potentially toxic substances in the bloodstream from getting into the brain. It’s not a perfect barrier —it can leak. The Canadians reported that something about the electromagnetic exposures during the MRI scan had increased the permeability of the rats’ BBB. It had become more porous.

If microwaves used in the MRI were responsible, Salford thought....

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The End of BEMS
A Merger or a Heist?

U.S. & European Research Societies Set
To Join and Become BioEM

Monday, November 29, 2021

Last updated April 1, 2022

The Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) and the European BioElectromagnetics Association (EBEA), the two leading research groups in Western countries, will soon join together and become BioEM. Like its predecessors, the new society will be a forum on the interactions of all types of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields and radiation with living organisms. BioEM will be based in Zurich, Switzerland.

The move is hardly unexpected. Just the opposite. A union has been in the planning stages since at least 2016. Many favored a BEMS-EBEA consolidation even earlier, but it ran into one roadblock or another, at least partly because directors did not want to lose control.

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Short Takes

NIER Effects on Flora & Fauna:
A Major Review

September 27, 2021

Last updated May 2, 2022

A detailed examination —likely the most exhaustive ever attempted— of the environmental effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation has been published in Reviews on Environmental Health.

“Effects of Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Fields on Flora and Fauna” is in three parts, the last of which was posted today.

Taken together, the three papers run over 200 pages in the journal and include more 1,000 references.

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Italy’s 6 V/m RF Limit at Risk

May 3, 2021

Last updated May 5, 2021

Italy’s 6 V/m RF exposure standard, one of the strictest in the world, may soon fall victim to 5G.

The Italian limit, adopted more than 20 years ago, is widely perceived as standing in the way of the build-out of 5G infrastructure, which will require the installation of many more RF antennas. The proposed solution is to bring it in line with ICNIRP and follow its 61 V/m guideline.

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Rich Rewards for Bad Behavior

February 8, 2021

Alexander Lerchl’s bogus campaign against the REFLEX project and members of Hugo Rüdiger’s lab did nothing to harm his career. Just the opposite, Lerchl thrived as he gained stature and a succession of rich research grants from the German government.

Over the last 20 years, Germany’s Federal Office of Radiation Protection —the Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, or BfS for short— has given Lerchl $5 million in contracts. Lerchl has been the best-funded RF lab researcher in Germany, Europe, and, most likely, the world.

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Physicist Robert Adair Dead at 96

January 6, 2021

Last updated January 7, 2021

Robert K. Adair, the former chairman of the physics department at Yale University and a leading critic of any and all claims that weak EMFs can have biological effects, died on September 28. He was 96.

A particle physicist, Adair held one of Yale’s prestigious Sterling professorships. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Dutch Advisory Panel Calls for Caution on 5G

November 11, 2020

An advisory panel to the Health Council of the Netherlands is recommending a “cautious approach” to 5G radiation exposures.

The committee is also advising that the 26 GHz frequency band (millimeter waves) not be used “for as long as the potential health risks have not been investigated.”

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In Memoriam: Moris Shore

October 10, 2020

“A safe level of microwave exposure was arbitrarily established —no dissent from the arbitrary safe standard was tolerated— in a largely thermal (i.e., high-exposure level) microwave research program … [It] and the averaging provisions … may represent a directed verdict rather than a culmination of objective and unbiased scientific judgment.”

Does that sound familiar?

Actually ...

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Hot new papers & articles

“An Overview of the Biological Effects of ELF EMFs Combined with Ionizing Radiation,” Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, May 2, 2022. A review from Iran. “Contrary to the studies on normal healthy cells, almost all of the reviewed experiments on cancer cells have demonstrated cooperative effects between ELF-MF and IR exposures.”
“Neurological Effects of Static and ELF EMFs,” by Henry Lai, Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, April 15, 2022. “Depending on the conditions of exposure, either harmful or beneficial effects could result.”
“Exposure to Magnetic Fields and Childhood Leukemia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Case-Control and Cohort Studies,” Reviews on Environmental Health, March 15, 2022. A systematic review of 38 studies, which comes 43 years after Nancy Wertheimer and Ed Leeper first made the link. For years, they were largely ignored and ridiculed. “Our results suggest that ELF-MF higher than 0.4 μT can increase the risk of developing leukemia in children, probably acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Prolonged exposure to electric appliances that generate magnetic fields higher than 0.4 μT like electric blankets is associated with a greater risk of childhood leukemia.” From Christian Brabant’s group at the University of Liège, Belgium.
“Changes in the Excitability of Primary Hippocampal Neurons Following Exposure to 3.0 GHz RF EMFs,” Scientific Reports, March 3, 2022. The results show that RF-EMF exposure can alter neuronal activity after a 60-minute exposure to 3.0 GHz at a low dose (SAR <1 W/Kg). From the U.S. Air Force. Open access.
“Associations Between a Polymorphism in the Rat 5-HT1A Receptor Gene Promoter Region (rs198585630) and Cognitive Alterations Induced by Microwave Exposure,” Frontiers in Public Health, February 2022. “Rats carrying rs198585630 C allele…were more susceptible to 30 mW/cm² MW exposure, showing cognitive deficits and inhibition of brain electrical activity. These findings suggest SNP rs198585630…is an important target for further research exploring the mechanisms of hypersensitivity to MW exposure.”
“Assessment of Cortisol Secretory Pattern in Workers Chronically Exposed to ELF-EMF Generated by High-Voltage Transmission Lines and Substation,” Environment International, February 1, 2022. “This study strongly suggests that chronic exposure to ELF-EMFs alters the peak-time serum cortisol levels.” From France.
“Possible Health Effects on the Human Brain by Various Generations of Mobile Telecommunication: A Review Based Estimation of 5G Impact,” International Journal of Radiation Biology, posted January 7, 2022. By Hiie Hinrikus’s group at the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). “Urgent need for theoretical and experimental investigations of health effects by 5G.”
“Wireless Phone Use in Childhood and Adolescence and Neuroepithelial Brain Tumors: Results from the International MOBI-Kids Study,” Environment International, February 2022. It “provides no evidence of a causal association between wireless phone use and brain tumors in young people.” However, sources of bias prevent “ruling out a small increased risk.” Open access. May 2022: Critique of the study by Lennart Hardell and Joel Moskowitz.
“Radiofrequency Radiation and Cancer: A Review,” by David Grimes, JAMA Onclology, December 9, 2021. Incomplete and inaccurate. Astonishing that this was published by an AMA journal.
“Health Safety Guidelines and 5G Wireless Radiation” by James Lin, IEEE Microwave Magazine, January 2022. “Some of the updated [IEEE and ICNIRP] safety recommendations are marginal, questionable, and lack scientific justification from the perspective of safety protection.”

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trustand the Art of Name Dropping Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

Former Director of NIEHS Endorses Removal

Open Letter to Editor-in-Chief, AMA Journals

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier Was Shut Down — AgainReflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

U.S. & European Research Societies Set To Join and Become BioEM

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Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

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Microwave News is...

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trust
and the Art of Name Dropping

Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier
Was Shut Down — Again
Reflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

U.S. & European Research Societies Set
To Join and Become BioEM