A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Yawei Zhang: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

February 17, 2020

Smartphones Irradiate the Thyroid:Is This a Cancer Risk?

Thyroid cancer among women is skyrocketing all over the world. Incidence is growing faster than for any other cancer. This has been going on for a long time, and the reasons why remain elusive.

The prevailing view is that there’s been an “epidemic of diagnosis” —that is, overdiagnosis— particularly following a screening program. The tumors have always been there, the argument goes, but new and better detection tools (ultrasound, for example) have made it easier to spot small ones, many of which would likely never present a real threat. In any case, thyroid cancer is not one of the bad ones; 98-99 percent of those diagnosed survive at least five years, the highest for all cancers. Watchful waiting is often the best prescription.

The only recognized cause for thyroid cancer is ionizing radiation.

January 21, 2020

Cell Phones and Cancer:Your Genes May Tell the Story

Last January, a team led by Yawei Zhang of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven published an epidemiological study on the possible link between thyroid cancer and cell phones. Though some “suggestive” associations were seen among long-term users, none was statistically significant. Still, the results “warrant further investigation,” they advised.

Zhang did follow up, and what she found could well change the way people think about cell phone cancer risks.

She discovered that some people have an innate susceptibility to thyroid cancer when exposed to cell phone radiation. These individuals have small variations in their DNA which affect the functioning of seven different genes.

All seven genes regulate DNA repair.