A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

David McCormick: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

December 7, 2017

“Two-Year Oncogenicity Evaluations of Cell Phone RF Radiation in Sprague-Dawley Rats and B6C3F1 Mice,” Toxicology Letters, Supplement 1, October 20, 2017.

“Considering (a) the conflicting results of RF epidemiology studies and (b) the lack of generally accepted biophysical or molecular mechanisms through which RF could induce or promote neoplasia, data from animal bioassays will play a central role in ‘weight-of-the-evidence’ assessments of the possible health effects of RF exposure.” Abstract only. By IITRI’s David McCormick, who ran the exposures for the NTP–cell phone cancer study.

November 30, 2015

Institute of Environmental Health Secrets:NIEHS Mum on $25 Million RF Animal Project

NIEHS really doesn’t want to talk about it. Ten years into a $25+ million project to assess the cancer risk of wireless radiation in laboratory animals, the staff at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences remains tight-lipped and refuses to release project documents.

NIEHS has many reasons for keeping a low profile. The RF project, the most expensive in National Toxicology Program history, is years late and two-to-three times over budget. A more immediate concern is that it could force the institute into a position it would desperately prefer to avoid: Being at the center of the ever-contentious controversy over cell phone radiation and cancer.

October 25, 2011

Repacholi's RF Review

Last year, sensing that the upcoming IARC assessment might undercut his legacy at both the WHO and ICNIRP, Mike Repacholi assembled a team to prepare its own assessment of the possible tumor risks from RF radiation: That review has just been released...

Last year, sensing that the upcoming IARC assessment might undercut his legacy at both the WHO and ICNIRP, Mike Repacholi assembled a team to prepare its own assessment of the possible tumor risks from RF radiation: That review has just been released by the journal...

June 7, 2011

Two IARC Panelists, Samet & McCormick, on the IARC Decision

"No one should overreact to the word 'possible'," Jonathan Samet said in an interview with the New York Times on the IARC decision to label radiation from cell phones and other RF sources as "possible human carcinogens." Samet, who chaired the panel, said that the discussion among the...

June 3, 2011

IARC: Cell Phone Radiation Is a Possible Human Carcinogen

It's not easy to reach unanimous agreement on anything to do with cell phone radiation. And when it comes to cell phones and cancer, forget about it. But the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) nearly pulled it off. On Tuesday, May 31, more than two dozen scientists and doctors from 14 countries —a group IARC Director Christopher Wild called “the world’s leading experts”— issued a joint statement that cell phone and other types of radiofrequency (RF) and microwave radiation might cause cancer.

March 23, 2011

IARC Welcomes Industry to RF–Cancer Review

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has invited three industry operatives to sit in on its weeklong assessment of the cancer risks associated with exposure to wireless radiation and other sources of RF/microwave radiation. Representatives from CTIA, the Wireless Association, the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) and the GSM Association will all be allowed to attend the IARC review. The meeting will be held in Lyon, France, May 24-31.

January 18, 2010

Will NIEHS Ever “Get” EMFs?

Lorenzo Tomatis got it. But few others do. Among those who don’t are the many managers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) who refuse to allow that the EMF–cancer playbook may be different from the one for chemicals. Even now, when there is ample evidence that power line EMFs can increase the risk of childhood leukemia and there is a growing suspicion that cell phone radiation is associated with three different types of tumors, NIEHS prefers to look the other way. The institute has long resisted endorsing precautionary policies for any kind of EMFs.

August 10, 2007

More RF Research in the U.S.? Don't Hold Your Breath

Don't hold your breath waiting for the U.S. to do more research on the possible health effects of mobile phones.

After sitting through two and a half days of briefings at this week's National Academy of Sciences workshop in Washington, we walked away thinking that it's unlikely that the academy's report, due by the end of the year, will put a high priority on initiating any new projects. The panel would have to make some strong recommendations to prompt action because, at the moment, the federal government has neither the will nor the money to revisit the RF-health controversy. For its part, the cell phone industry has long argued that it wants health research to come to an end.

May 24, 2007

NAS Announces RF Research Panel

Rick Jostes at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced his picks for the members of the committee that will review the current state of cell phone health research and identify future needs. Frank Barnes of the University of Colorado, Boulder, will chair the panel. Of the other six members, three are with ICNIRP: Finland's Maila Hietanen, Germany's Rüdiger Matthes and France's Bernard Veyret. The other members are Om Gandhi of the University of Utah, Leeka Kheifets of UCLA and EPRI and David McCormick of IITRI in Chicago. Kheifets, who serves on ICNIRP's epidemiology panel, used to be Mike Repacholi's sidekick at the WHO EMF project in Geneva. McCormick is planning some large-scale RF-animal experiments for the National Toxicology Program. The FDA requested these studies back in 1999.

July 1, 1995

The Science and Politics of the EMF Puzzle; The Missing Pieces in the Frontline Story

The irony is astonishing. On the very day that a committee of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) completed its 800-page draft report asking regulatory agencies to pay “serious attention” to EMFs, public television station WGBH aired a one-hour show across the country comparing EMFs to cold fusion. While the NCRP committee called for “a national commitment to further research,” the June 13 Frontline, “Currents of Fear,” asked whether it was time to close down the research effort.