WHO Review Finds Cancer Risk in
RF-Exposed Animals
At Odds with ICNIRP, Most Health Agencies
A major review of animal studies has found reliable evidence that RF radiation increases the risk of cancer.
The new systematic review was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) EMF office in Geneva as part of its ongoing assessment of RF health effects (more here).
It concludes: “[T]here is evidence that RF EMF exposure increases the incidence of cancer in experimental animals with the [certainty of evidence] being strongest for malignant heart schwannomas and gliomas” (brain tumors).
This finding runs counter to the stated views of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the WHO itself, as well those of most national health agencies.
The open access paper, which runs more than 75 manuscript pages in the journal Environment International, was published on April 25.
The new review will most likely reopen —yet again— the decades-long controversy over the cancer risk associated with cell phones and other RF and microwave devices that many thought had been put to rest.
The review team was led by Meike Mevissen of the University of Bern and Kurt Straif, the former head of the IARC Monographs section in Lyon who now has appointments at Boston College and at ISGlobal in Barcelona. Other members include James McNamee of Health Canada in Ottawa and Andrew Wood of Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology.
The peer review process for the systematic review took a full 14 months. The protocol for the analysis was published in 2022.
Animal and Human Studies Point to Same Tumor Types
April 28, 2025
In a statement on the new WHO systematic review, Ron Melnick, the chair of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF), says:
“The evidence is now clear —cell phone radiation can cause cancer in animals in concordance with the tumor types identified in human studies of mobile phone users. As animal studies are essential for predicting cancer risk in humans, governments should develop science-based safety standards to protect human health.”
He goes on to add:
“The conclusion of the study commissioned by the WHO shows that the long-standing assumption current government limits are based on — that cell phone RF radiation can only cause harm through tissue heating — is wrong.”
The full statement of the ICBE-EMF on the WHO review is here.
German Radiation Protection Office Rejects WHO Review
May 11, 2025
The German Federal Office of Radiation Protection (BfS) has rejected the conclusions of the WHO review.
Here are the key findings of the unsigned BfS review (translation by Google):
(Click to expand)
The BfS has long been the major sponsor of ICNIRP. Some years ago, ICNIRP issued an opinion that found the NTP and Ramazzini animal studies to be unconvincing.