Emilie van Deventer

January 28, 2026

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been trying to manipulate its long-running assessment of RF–cancer risks, according to a prominent Swiss toxicologist.

Meike Mevissen, who was commissioned by the WHO to lead a systematic review on RF and cancer in animals six years ago, is charging that her study team had to defend itself from interference.

“They tried to tell us how to do our work,” she said in an interview with Infosperber, a Swiss online news service, published in mid-January.

“Research is very political,” she told Pascal Sigg, a freelance reporter working with Infosperber. “We are constantly confronted with the attitude that there cannot be any health risks.”

October 3, 2025

WHO Gets an ‘F’ on RF

For close to 15 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been struggling to set out its views on the health effects of RF radiation. It hasn’t been going well, and it just got worse.

A group of scientists and activists at the International Commission on the Biological Effects of EMFs (ICBE-EMF) has issued a public warning: What the WHO has accomplished to date is so flawed that it should scrap what’s been done and start afresh.

This would not be the first time the WHO went back to square one on RF radiation.

June 16, 2025

Waiting for “NTP Lite”

The Japanese/Korean partial repeat of the U.S. National Toxicology Project’s (NTP) RF–animal cancer study has been hit by delays. The project is two years behind schedule, with results now not expected before the middle of next year.

“We hope we will present our data” next summer at the BioEM 2026 conference in Australia, Professor Katsumi Imaida of Kagawa University, the leader of the Japanese team, told Microwave News via email. The international NTP validation project —nicknamed “NTP Lite”— is in its “final stages,” he wrote.

The project was launched in 2019 to confirm or counter the $30+ million NTP animal study, which showed “clear evidence” that RF radiation can cause cancer in rats.

June 5, 2023

ICNIRP Still Runs RF at WHO

ICNIRP continues to dominate EMF policies at the WHO, according to documents made available to Microwave News.

The documents were recently distributed by Emilie van Deventer as she prepared to host a briefing this week for its International Advisory Committee (IAC) in Geneva.

November 23, 2020

Public Shut Out of GlobalRF Health Briefing

An international briefing on RF health research, known as GLORE 2020, was held online, November 9-12, featuring updates on the second phase of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) project and the Japanese-Korean partial repeat. The WHO presented a status report on ten ongoing systematic reviews of RF health effects.

Government and industry representatives from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the U.S. participated, as did an assortment of academics. The public was not invited.

Everything about GLORE 2020 is being kept secret.

November 4, 2019

Will WHO Kick Its ICNIRP Habit?

UPDATE: With no public notice or any formal announcement, the World Health Organization (WHO) held the first meeting of its RF Working Group in Geneva March 14-16, 2023.

The group is preparing a review of health effects, as part of a process that has been ongoing for close to a decade.

Our latest chapter, “RF Review Shrouded in Secrecy,” is posted here.

___________

After eight years of work, the WHO is reopening its review of the health effects of RF radiation for a summary report intended to serve as a benchmark for its more than 150 member countries. The report will be used as a guide to respond to widespread concerns over the new world of 5G.

The WHO issued a public call in October for detailed literature reviews on ten types of RF–health impacts from cancer to fertility to electrohypersensitivity. Some see the move as a sign that the health agency is interested in opinions beyond those of its long-time partner, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). They hope that the WHO is finally ready to recognize evidence of low-level effects, in particular the link between cell phones and cancer. Others are far from convinced.

The skeptics see the new reviews as little more than a ruse.

May 6, 2019

Advisors for Japan, Korea NTP Repeat

The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is circulating a report on the partial replication of the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s RF–animal study, planned by Korean and Japanese officials. It includes the proposed candidates for the project’s International Steering Committee.

They are:
• Alexander Lerchl, Jacobs University, Germany
• ...

July 8, 2014

25 Years Later: Same People, Same Controversy

Today’s New York Times revisits the EMF controversy, with reporter Kenneth Chang looking back at a Science Times story about power-line EMFs and cancer that ran in July 1989.

Both now and then the Times quoted David Carpenter. Here’...

June 24, 2011

WHO EMF Project Silent on Precaution

The WHO EMF project in Geneva has updated its fact sheet on mobile phones (#193) in light of the IARC decision. WHO continues to maintain, as it did last year following the release...

June 11, 2009

The Conceits of Setting EMF Standards: Australia To Triple Its Limit to 3,000 mG

At a time when there are calls for tightening EMF power-frequency exposure standards to address cancer risks, Australia is moving in the opposite direction. In mid-May, a committee working under ARPANSA, the national radiation protection agency, distributed a draft proposal that would triple the permissible exposure levels for the general public. If these rules are adopted, children could be exposed to up 3,000 mG, 24/7 —that’s one thousand times higher than the 3 mG threshold for childhood leukemia indicated by epidemiological studies, and three times higher than the ICNIRP recommended limit of 1,000 mG.

September 8, 2006

WHO EMF Project: Running out of Money

The WHO EMF Project may close down early next year unless more money is received soon.

According to its 2005-2006 progress report, the project had a deficit of $430,000 in its last fiscal year. Between July 2005 and June 2006, it spent $1,155,000 but raised only $750,000. (As in the past, the report does not give any details on where its money came from, though cell phone manufacturers have regularly chipped in $150,000 each year.) The annual report states that all its reserve funds have been depleted and that "if sufficient funds are not received by the end of 2006, the activities of the EMF Project will cease early in 2007."

Emilie van Deventer took over as the head of the project earlier this summer after Mike Repacholi stepped down.

July 10, 2006

Mike Repacholi Leaves WHO

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.

September 22, 2005

WHO Welcomes Electric Utility Industry To Key EMF Meeting, Bars the Press

The week of October 3 in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) will set its recommendations for public exposures to power-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

A 20-member task group from 17 countries, assembled by Michael Repacholi, the head of the WHO EMF project, will finalize an Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) document, which is designed to guide the development of standards for extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs all over the world. It will likely represent WHO’s official position on EMF health risks for years to come.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Emilie van Deventer: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )