A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

How NTP Controlled Coverage
of Cell Phone Cancer Story

Did New York Times Have an Inside Track?

Friday, November 9, 2018

Much of the press coverage of the final NTP cell phone/cancer report was lousy. This time, the NTP seems to have wanted it that way.

Reporters were given very little notice to join the NTP teleconference on the release of the report. Nor was there much time to prepare a story for publication.

I received an email at 10:45 am on October 31 for a teleconference at 2 pm that same day. Many reporters missed the advisory and the call. Editors had little time to assign the story.

Attendance on the teleconference was spotty.

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Cell Phone Radiation Leads to Cancer, Says U.S. NTP in Final Report

Rats Developed Rare Heart Tumor
Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

Thursday, November 1, 2018

“We believe that the link between radiofrequency (RF) radiation and tumors in male rats is real,” says John Bucher, the former associate director of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP).

The announcement accompanies this morning’s release of the NTP final reports of studies on cancer in rats and mice exposed to cell phone radiation. Bucher’s project, the largest in NTP history, cost $30 million and took more than ten years to complete.

The NTP found what it calls “clear evidence” that two different types of cell phone signals, GSM and CDMA, increased the incidence of malignant tumors in the hearts of male rats over the course of the two-year study.

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Location, Location, Location
Aggressive Brain Tumors Tell a Story

GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

Friday, October 26, 2018

Last updated October 29, 2018

A U.K. epidemiologist has confirmed that glioblastoma (GBM), the most aggressive type of brain tumor, is on the rise in England. In a new paper, Frank de Vocht of the University of Bristol reports that he sees a significant and consistent increase in GBM in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain over the last 20-30 years.

Alasdair Philips, an independent researcher based in Scotland, and three colleagues first documented the increase last March. It was not due to improved diagnosis, they said, but they could not pinpoint which “environmental or lifestyle factor” was responsible. There was one obvious possibility: cell phones.

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Japan and Korea Planning Their Own Cell Phone Animal Studies

Verifying NTP Cancer Findings

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Japanese and Korean officials are working on a partial replication of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) animal study on cancer risks from cell phone radiation. The project is expected to be approved and get underway late next year.

Though collaborating on a common experimental design, each country will carry out its own exposures with animals from the same breeder. If the designs are similar enough, the two sets of data will be combined in a joint analysis.

“We have been discussing this issue in Japan,” said Masao Taki of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Tokyo Metropolitan University, who was a member of ICNIRP from 1996 to 2008.

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Hail and Farewell
NIOSH’s Joe Bowman Dies at 73

An Expert on Exposure Assessment, He Never Gave Up

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Members of the EMF/RF research community are not known as risk takers. Some have sold their souls, but most simply follow the prescribed dogma: They keep a low profile and eke out a grant or contract here and there.

In this environment, original ideas are rare and greeted cautiously. Joe Bowman, who died on July 14, was different. As one colleague told me on hearing the news last week, “Joe was honest and he had guts.”

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Short Takes

Physicist Robert Adair Dead at 96

January 6, 2021

Last updated January 7, 2021

Robert K. Adair, the former chairman of the physics department at Yale University and a leading critic of any and all claims that weak EMFs can have biological effects, died on September 28. He was 96.

A particle physicist, Adair held one of Yale’s prestigious Sterling professorships. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Dutch Advisory Panel Calls for Caution on 5G

November 11, 2020

An advisory panel to the Health Council of the Netherlands is recommending a “cautious approach” to 5G radiation exposures.

The committee is also advising that the 26 GHz frequency band (millimeter waves) not be used “for as long as the potential health risks have not been investigated.”

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In Memoriam: Moris Shore

October 10, 2020

“A safe level of microwave exposure was arbitrarily established —no dissent from the arbitrary safe standard was tolerated— in a largely thermal (i.e., high-exposure level) microwave research program … [It] and the averaging provisions … may represent a directed verdict rather than a culmination of objective and unbiased scientific judgment.”

Does that sound familiar?

Actually ...

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5G Waveforms in Dispute

September 25, 2020

Very little has been written in the popular media about the waveforms used in 5G signals. Two outstanding questions are: How fast are the pulses? How powerful are they?

In 2018, Esra Neufeld and Niels Kuster of the IT’IS Foundation in Zurich issued a warning in a...

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Does Cockpit RF Disorient Pilots?

September 15, 2020

Last updated September 16, 2020

Spatial disorientation among U.S. Air Force pilots has been linked to 72 severe accidents between 1993 and 2013, resulting in 101 deaths and the loss of 65 aircraft. Now DARPA, the defense department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, wants to know whether RF radiation in the cockpit of combat aircraft may be at least partly to blame.

Under the new initiative, with the acronym ICEMAN, DARPA is seeking a contractor to measure the...

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ICNIRP’s Principal Patron: Germany

June 25, 2020

The German government is the main sponsor of ICNIRP, the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), which is the bureaucratic parent of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), has contributed 70-80% of ICNIRP’s annual income in each of the last three years. This...

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Hot new papers & articles

“Evaluation of the Genotoxicity of Cell Phone RFR in Male and Female Rats and Mice following Subchronic Exposure,” Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, posted October 21, 2019. From the NTP: "[S]ignificant increases in the levels of DNA damage measured by the comet assay were seen in several tissues from rats and mice, indicating that RFR may be capable of causing increases in DNA damage.” More here and here.
“Parental Occupational Exposure to Low-Frequency Magnetic Fields and Risk of Leukaemia in the Offspring,” Occupational & Environmental Medicine, July 29, 2019. “We did not find any associations.” Pooled analysis of 11 case-control studies by the Childhood Leukaemia International Consortium, including Joachim Schüz of IARC and Elisabeth Cardis. Open access.
“Untargeted Metabolomics Unveil Alterations of Biomembranes Permeability in Human HaCaT Keratinocytes upon 60 GHz Millimeter Wave Exposure,” Scientific Reports, June 27, 2019. Millimeter waves “might alter the permeability of cell membranes.” An “unexpected” finding. Open access.
“Neuroimaging Findings in U.S. Government Personnel With Possible Exposure to Directional Phenomena in Havana, Cuba,” JAMA, July 23/30, 2019. “…advanced brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed significant differences in whole brain white matter volume, regional gray and white matter volumes, cerebellar tissue microstructural integrity…”
Health Effects Linked to Low-Frequency EMFs, from ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, released June 21, 2019. French government agency recommends precaution especially for children and pregnant women. Also: No high-voltage lines & substations near schools & hospitals. ... And more research. Full report here.
“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.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

How NTP Controlled Coverage
of Cell Phone Cancer Story

Did New York Times Have an Inside Track?

Cell Phone Radiation Leads to Cancer, Says U.S. NTP in Final Report

Rats Developed Rare Heart Tumor
Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

Location, Location, Location
Aggressive Brain Tumors Tell a Story

GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

Japan and Korea Planning Their Own Cell Phone Animal Studies

Verifying NTP Cancer Findings

Hail and Farewell
NIOSH’s Joe Bowman Dies at 73

An Expert on Exposure Assessment, He Never Gave Up

Pages

Short Takes

Physicist Robert Adair Dead at 96

Dutch Advisory Panel Calls for Caution on 5G

In Memoriam: Moris Shore

5G Waveforms in Dispute

Does Cockpit RF Disorient Pilots?

ICNIRP’s Principal Patron: Germany

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A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Did New York Times Have an Inside Track?

Rats Developed Rare Heart TumorCancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

Verifying NTP Cancer Findings

An Expert on Exposure Assessment, He Never Gave Up

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

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Rats Developed Rare Heart Tumor
Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible