A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Exponent: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

March 7, 2017

“Corporate Corruption of Science—Another Asbestos Example,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, February 2017.

David Egilman takes aim at Michael Kelsh of Exponent, among others, for following the dictates of defense lawyers rather than occupatiomal health. Kelsh also worked on a study of Motorola workers that was used by the company in an attempt to refute a microwave-cancer rirsk.

January 13, 2017

“They’re Everywhere! Big Companies in Legal Scrapes Turn to Science-for-Hire Giant Exponent,” Fair Warning, posted online December 13, 2016.

Profile of E^xponent, active on EMF/RF as well as countless other issues. “The firm’s forte, they say, is ‘doubt science’ —muddying the waters by attacking researchers.” Sound familiar? One example from Ireland.

April 23, 2014

Canadian Conflict-of-Interest Follies:Anything Goes Except Non-Disclosure

In 2011, Health Canada found itself in a tough spot. The public was becoming more and more uneasy over exposure to RF radiation from the proliferating number of cell phones, cell towers and Wi-Fi routers. After holding hearings in the spring and fall of 2010, Parliament asked the health agency to investigate whether its exposure limits —the Canadian national RF standard known as Safety Code 6 (SC6)— were too lenient and needed strengthening. Soon afterwards, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) added urgency to the assignment by classifying RF radiation as a possible human cancer agent, or, in the vernacular, a 2B carcinogen.

Health Canada’s dilemma was that it had no interest in tightening SC6. Yet IARC’s 2B designation could not be easily ignored, especially after France and Belgium, among other European countries, had responded by adopting precautionary policies. Last year, for instance, Belgium banned the sale of cell phones to children. How would Health Canada find a way to stick with the status quo?

The answer was to commission a review of SC6 by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) …

February 25, 2014

Lost Research Opportunities

Five years ago we reported on what we thought was an important clue in the search for understanding the well-documented association between childhood leukemia and EMF exposure. A team based in Shanghai presented evidence that children carrying a genetic variation linked to DNA repair were four times more likely to develop leukemia than those without that genetic marker. We called the finding a “major breakthrough” and predicted, “It simply cannot be ignored.”

We were wrong. So wrong.

What happened next —or rather, what did not happen— sheds light on why EMF research treads water and never moves forward.

November 26, 2013

Fudging Power Line Health Risks in Ireland

EirGrid, the Irish state-owned power line company, is planning to build three new 400 kV lines and to upgrade 2,000 km of existing power lines at a cost of €3.2 billion to help provide reliable service in the years to come. But there's nothing new about its approach to addressing the public's concerns about EMFs.

Take a look at this new 35-minute “Prime Time” video from RTÉ, a local TV station. It illustrates, once again, the double talk endemic to...

EirGrid, the Irish state-owned power line company, is planning to build three new 400 kV lines and to upgrade 2,000 km of existing power lines at a cost of €3.2 billion to help provide reliable service in the years to come. But there's nothing new about its approach to addressing the public's concerns about EMFs.

Take a look at this new 35-minute “Prime Time” video from RTÉ, a local TV station. It illustrates, once again, the double talk endemic to...

September 23, 2008

NCI Sees Little Cancer Risk from Cell Phones

The latest issue of the NCI Cancer Bulletin, released today, presents the National Cancer Institute's outlook on the cancer risks associated with cell phones. It is based largely on the views of NCI's Peter Inskip.

July 13, 2007

Koreans Again Link AM Radio to Childhood Leukemia

When the residents of the Oak Hill Park community in the Boston suburb of Newton fought the expansion of a local 5kW AM station, WNUR, they complained about radiofrequency interference (RFI)—to their telephones, stereos, VCRs, wheelchairs and baby monitors. They also objected to the possible effects on local wildlife, particularly to the blue-spotted salamander. And they worried about the visual blight posed by the towers.

What community activists hardly mentioned were the possible impacts on their health.

October 1, 2005

WHO and Electric Utilities: A Partnership on EMFs

As members of the WHO Task Group make their way to Geneva for next week’s meeting to complete its Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) document on power-frequency EMFs, new information has emerged showing that the electric utility industry has played a major role at every stage of developing the review document.

Microwave News has learned that Mike Repacholi, the head of the WHO EMF project, recruited utility representatives to help write the original draft of the document and later asked them to review the completed draft. Then, as we reported last week, Repacholi invited eight utility representatives to attend next week’s task group meeting —the only observers who were invited (see our September 22 post). The task group and the industry observers will assemble at a WHO conference room in Geneva on Monday, October 3 to recommend exposure limits.