A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Sunday, May 22, 2011

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has removed Anders Ahlbom of the Karolinska Institute from its panel of experts which is set to evaluate the cancer risks posed by mobile phones. The committee will meet in Lyon, France, for a week beginning this coming Tuesday, May 24. In an e-mail sent out earlier today, Ahlbom wrote, "IARC has excluded me from the RF Working Group because of 'possible perception of conflict of interest'."

Thursday, May 19, 2011

A hard-hitting documentary aired on French television last night alleges that René de Sèze, a well-known member of the French RF community, worked to delay, if not bury, a study that would be detrimental to the mobile phone industry. The 90-minute show reports that de Sèze coordinated a study on behalf of Bouygues Telecom, a leading cell phone operator, and when the results supported a radiation health risk, he did everything he could to discredit it. De Sèze works for French National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Hazards (INERIS).

Monday, April 18, 2011

Chinese researchers in Beijing are seeing some of the highest rates of cancer ever reported in any cell phone study. They have found that long-term, heavy users have rates of malignant parotid gland tumors that are seven to 13 times higher than might otherwise be expected.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

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 GSMA will all be allowed to attend the IARC review. The meeting will be held in Lyon, France, May 24-31.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

"Cell Phones Affect Brain Activity." That headline has appeared all over the world since Nora Volkow published a PET scan of a brain lit up by a cell phone last month. Her colorful graphics, published in the high impact Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), guaranteed Volkow a large and attentive audience. But all the hoopla shouldn't obscure the fact that for more than a decade many others, notably Peter Achermann's group at the University of Zurich, have shown similar types of radiation-induced changes in the brain as well as much more.

Pages

Short Takes

May 7, 2026

A systematic review pointing to evidence that exposure to RF radiation causes cancer in animals has captured the world’s attention.

The review, prepared by an eight-member team from six countries, led by Meike Mevissen of Switzerland’s University of Bern, was commissioned by the World Health Organization in Geneva. It was published by Environment International last April.

A few days ago, the editors of Environment International announced that Mevissen’s review was the journal’s most-downloaded paper of 2025.

January 18, 2026
Last updated July 31, 2026

Korean researchers working on NTP Lite have joined their Japanese collaborators in reporting no evidence of adverse effects among rats chronically exposed to cell phone radiation.

“Long-term exposure to CDMA-modulated 900 MHz RF was neither carcinogenic or genotoxic at an SAR of 4 W/Kg in male rats,” Young Hwan Ahn and coworkers write in Toxicological Sciences, the same journal that published the Japanese results a few days ago. The Korean paper was posted on January 16. 

January 13, 2026
Last updated July 31, 2026

The Japanese team working on a partial repeat of the NTP RF–animal cancer study has reported seeing no “reproducible” effects on cancer or genotoxicity in RF-exposed male rats.

The project —nicknamed NTP Lite— is a scaled-down version of the $30+ million project carried out by the U.S. National Toxicology Program which found “clear evidence” that RF radiation can cause cancer in rats.

The Japanese results were published in the journal Toxicological Sciences yesterday, January 12. The paper is open access. 

February 9, 2025
Last updated March 28, 2025

One of the longest-running newsletters on the health and environmental impact of electromagnetic fields and radiation —the ElektrosmogReport— is now available in English.

Diagnose:Funk, the publisher, is translating the German-language original and making it available at no charge. Both versions come out quarterly. D:F is a consumer and environmental protection group with offices in Germany and Switzerland.

August 26, 2024

On September 12th, 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.

August 21, 2024
Last updated January 21, 2025

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.

 


  Microwave News The Web

Hot new papers & articles

Pages

Microwave News  is...

“Meticulously researched and thoroughly documented.”
— Time Magazine

 

 

 

 


MWN May-June 1990

Free access to 23 years of detailed EMF/RF history:
Microwave News print edition, 1981-2003