A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Ignorance Drowns Out Precaution

NY Times Tech Columnist Has Hands Slapped

Friday, March 20, 2015

Last updated April 19, 2015

The New York Times went into damage control mode yesterday after Nick Bilton, a tech columnist and a rising star at the newspaper, suggested that precaution is the best approach to the use of cell phones and wearable electronics.

No sooner had Bilton’s column hit print than Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ Public Editor, chastised Bilton for his naive analysis. (It was posted on the Web a day earlier.) Sullivan targeted the lack of “sophisticated evaluation of serious research.”

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RF Cancer Promotion:
Animal Study Makes Waves

Germany’s Alex Lerchl Does a U-Turn

Friday, March 13, 2015

Last updated March 14, 2015

The RF–cancer story took a remarkable turn a few days ago. A new animal study challenged many of the assumptions which lie at the heart of claims that RF radiation —whether from cell phones, cell towers or Wi-Fi— are safe.

The new study, from Germany, a replication of an earlier experiment, also from Germany, found that weak cell phone signals can promote the growth of tumors in mice. It used radiation levels that do not cause heating and are well below current safety standards. Complicating matters even further, lower doses were often found to be more effective tumor promoters than higher levels; in effect, turning the conventional concept of a linear dose-response on its head.

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No Cancer Risk from Power Lines,
Says the New York Times

Big Score for Industry Scientists

Monday, December 1, 2014

Last updated March 20, 2015

”Still worried about power lines and cancer? That’s so retro, says the New York Times. You’re just stuck in the 1980’s.

This is what the “newspaper of record” wants you to know about the risk of childhood leukemia from power lines: A “fairly broad consensus among researchers holds that no significant threat to public health has materialized.”

The full message is told in a new 7+ minute video, produced by the Times’ RetroReport, which boasts a staff of 13 journalists and 10 contributors, led by Kyra Darnton. The video even credits a fact checker. What was missing is the common sense to do some digging when reporting on a controversial issue.

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CDC Calls for Caution on Cell Phones, Then Gets Cold Feet

First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Last updated January 1, 2016

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention —CDC— is the first U.S. health agency to call for precaution in the use of cell phones.

But not for long. As soon as word of the CDC’s new outlook spread, the precautionary advice was withdrawn. Our original story is below, followed by an August 20 addendum.

“Along with many organizations worldwide, we recommend caution in cell phone use,” the CDC stated on its Web site’s FAQ About Cell Phones and Your Health and followed up with a call for more research to answer the unresolved cancer question.

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EMF Cancer Promotion: An Old Idea Makes a Strong Comeback

Large Study Shows Recent, But Not Lifetime, Exposures Lead to Brain Tumors

Monday, June 30, 2014

Last updated June 9, 2017

Power-frequency magnetic fields can promote brain tumors, according to the largest epidemiological study of its kind ever undertaken. The study promises to breathe new life into the idea that extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs are more likely to be cancer promoters than causes of cancer. This hypothesis gained support a generation ago but has lost currency in recent years.

The new results, published online earlier this month by the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, come from INTEROCC, an international project with seven participating countries designed to investigate occupational health risks from chemicals and EMFs. The project is directed by Elisabeth Cardis at CREAL in Barcelona with $1.5 million from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (though none of the tumor cases are from the U.S.).

The INTEROCC team found that those who were exposed to elevated EMF exposures at work during the five years prior to diagnosis had significantly higher rates of glioma compared to those who were least exposed during that time on the job. The greater the exposure, the greater the tumor risk.

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NCI ‘Cancer Bioelectricity’ Conference

August 26, 2024

On September 12^th, the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) will host a conference on cancer bioelectricity via Zoom. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

Michael Levin, a professor of biology and biomedical engineering at Tufts University in Massachusetts, will be the keynote speaker.

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Another WHO RF Review Challenged

August 21, 2024

Last updated September 6, 2024

A third RF systematic review commissioned by the World Health Organization’s EMF Project is under fire. This one is on RF–induced oxidative stress.

Last month, two other WHO reviews —on pregnancy outcomes and on tinnitus— were both called into question as critics called for them to be retracted.

A team of 14 from six countries, led by Felix Meyer of the German Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), identified 11,599 studies on oxidative stress in the frequency range 800-2450 MHz. They then eliminated 11,543 of them as not meeting their criteria for inclusion.

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Italy’s 6 V/m RF Limit at Risk

March 14, 2024

The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) has written to Italian government officials to support the country’s strict 6 V/m RF exposure limit.

The letter, dated March 13, expresses “great concern” that the standard might be weakened. It is signed by Ronald Melnick, the chair of ICBE-EMF, and by Elizabeth Kelley, its managing director.

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“NTP Lite”: Update from Japan

March 12, 2024

The Japanese group running a partial repeat of the NTP RF cancer study has not observed genotoxic effects among male rats exposed to 900 MHz CDMA radiation at 4 W/Kg, according to a paper to be presented tomorrow at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology in Salt Lake City, UT (SOT2024).

The analysis of the cancer data is ongoing and will not be reported.

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Schwannoma Puzzle

September 14, 2023

Last updated September 16, 2023

Three medical doctors have published a case report of a 40-year-old Italian man who developed a tumor in his thigh, near where he “habitually” kept his smartphone in a trouser pocket.

The case was published at the end of August in Radiology Case Reports, a peer-reviewed, open access journal.

The tumor, a painless mass, gradually expanded in the man’s left thigh over a period of six months, they wrote.

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Korean NTP Lite: Progress Report

June 16, 2023

Last updated June 17, 2023

A Korean RF genotoxicology study —part of a joint project with Japan— has been delayed due to the unexpected death of four of the RF–exposed rats early in the accompanying two-year cancer experiment, according to Young Hwan Ahn of Ajou University medical school.

Ahn presented a progress report on the Korean arm of the project in Geneva last week at a meeting of the WHO EMF Project’s International Advisory Committee. Microwave News has obtained a copy of Ahn’s PowerPoint presentation.

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“Tumour-Specific Amplitude-Modulated RF EMFs Induce Differentiation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma via Targeting Ca_v3.2 T-Type Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels and Ca²⁺ Influx,” EBioMedicince, posted May 31, 2019. The latest on using weak EMFs to treat liver cancer from Boris Pasche’s group. See also companion paper posted in the same journal on May 22. Both are open access. For more on this work, see our report from 2011 and later update.
“Microwave Emissions from Cell Phones Exceed Safety Limits in Europe and the U.S. When Touching the Body,” IEEE Access, posted April 18, 2019. “[New] data corroborate our findings that most cell phones will exceed the safety guidelines when held against the body by factors of 1.6–3.7 times for the European/ICNIRP standard or by factors as high as 11 if 1-g SAR values were to be measured as required by the U.S. FCC.” By Om Gandhi. Open access.
“Cardiovascular Response as a Marker of Environmental Stress Caused by Variations in Geomagnetic Feld and Local Weather,” Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, May 2019. From the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“Glioblastomas Have Doubled in Number in England Since Mobile Phones Were Introduced in 1995,” Pandora Foundation for Independent Research, March 19, 2019. It's been a year since the Philips paper was published. This is the first discussion of its implications. See our report published last March.
Peggy Olive who developed a variant of NP Singh’s comet assay to detect DNA breaks, died last December. She was 70. Olive played a key role in a long-running controversy involving Motorola, Joe Roti Roti, John Moulder and Radiation Research to discredit the Lai-Singh work showing that microwave radiation can be genotoxic (more here.)
“How Much Is Safe?: Radiation Authorities Rely on Controversial Group for Safety Advice,” March 14, 2019. Investigate Europe takes a close look at ICNIRP.
“Blue Light-Dependent Human Magnetoreception in Geomagnetic Food Orientation,” PLoS1, online February 14, 2019. “Blue-light dependent human magnetoreception occurs in the eyes in a manner that appears to involve the brain and glucose.” From Korea; open access.
“Low-Intensity EMFs Induce Human Cryptochrome To Modulate Intracellular Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS),” PLoS Biology, October 2, 2018. “Here, we show … that exposure of mammalian cells to weak pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) stimulates rapid accumulation of ROS, a potentially toxic metabolite with multiple roles in stress response and cellular ageing. Following exposure to PEMF, cell growth is slowed, and ROS-responsive genes are induced. These effects require the presence of cryptochrome, a putative magnetosensor that synthesizes ROS. We conclude that modulation of intracellular ROS via cryptochromes represents a general response to weak EMFs, which can account for either therapeutic or pathological effects depending on exposure.” Funded by USAF. Also this follow-up: “Cryptochrome: The Magnetosensor with a Sinister Side?” (Both open access)
“Mobile Phone Use and Incidence of Brain Tumour Histological Types, Grading or Anatomical Location: A Population-Based Ecological Study,” BMJ Open, posted December 9, 2018. “We found no evidence that mobile phone use increased any brain tumour histological types or subtypes.” See also the press release. Open access.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

NY Times Tech Columnist Has Hands Slapped

Germany’s Alex Lerchl Does a U-Turn

Big Score for Industry Scientists

First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down

Large Study Shows Recent, But Not Lifetime, Exposures Lead to Brain Tumors

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

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