A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

breast cancer: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

August 16, 2023

“Mammography Using Low‐Frequency EMFs with Deep Learning,” Scientific Reports, August 15, 2023. New system, operating at 200 MHz, for detecting anomalies inside the human female breast. It could not only detect benign and malignant tumors, but also their size and location. “Remarkably, deep learning models were found to achieve very high classification accuracy.”

February 27, 2016

Power-Frequency EMFs Promote Cancer in Massive Animal Study

Once again, power-frequency magnetic fields have been found to act as a cancer promoter.

Eighteen months ago an international team led by Elisabeth Cardis in Spain showed cancer promotion in workers exposed to chemicals and extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs. Now an Italian team has found essentially the same promotional effect in animals exposed to ionizing radiation and ELF EMFs.

The new study, which was carried out at the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, is part of the most ambitious EMF–animal project ever attempted.

July 29, 2014

“Circadian and Melatonin Disruption by Exposure to Light at Night Drives Intrinsic Resistance to Tamoxifen Therapy in Breast Cancer,” Cancer Research, posted online July 25, 2014.

Light exposure at night “may represent a unique and previously unappreciated risk factor that could account for some forms of intrinsic and possibly acquired tamoxifen resistance and may even lead to a shortened survival time and even a decreased survival rate.” From a team at Tulane University, including David Blask.

July 19, 2014

“Relationship Between Exposure to ELF EMFs and Breast Cancer Risk: A Meta-Analysis,” European Journal of Gynecological Oncology, Vol.35, pp.264-269, 2014.

“[Our analysis] indicated that, for the premenopausal group, the occurrence of breast cancer may be related to exposure to ELF-EMFs, but for the menopausal group it has no relationship. The specific mechanism still requires further study. … It is suggested that premenopausal female should minimize exposure to ELF-EMFs.” From China.

November 21, 2013

“Occupational ELF Magnetic Field Exposure and Selected Cancer Outcomes in a Prospective Dutch Cohort,” Cancer Causes and Control, posted online November 16, 2013.

“For lung, breast and brain cancer, we found no evidence of an association.…We did observe associations between ELF-EMF exposure and follicular lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia in men although AML did not show clear exposure-response relationship.” From the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University.

September 25, 2013

The Shrill CryTo Stop EMF Research

"Now it is enough!" claims Maria Feychting of Sweden's Karolinska Institute. Feychting wants to stop wasting money on any more epidemiological studies of breast cancer risks from power-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF EMFs).

"We can be confident that exposure to ELF magnetic fields does not cause breast cancer," she writes in an invited commentary published last week in the influential American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE). Feychting's call to stop research was prompted by a new study of breast cancer among Chinese textile workers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, which found no association with ELF magnetic field exposures. Feychting's confidence is based in large part on the exposure assessment used in the textile study, which, she believes, was "better than in previous studies."

If Feychting's call to halt research is heeded, she will have shattered a key driver for EMF–cancer research that has held sway for the last 25 years: the melatonin hypothesis.

September 19, 2013

“Multifocal Breast Cancer in Young Women with Prolonged Contact Between Their Breasts and Their Cellular Phones,” Case Reports in Medicine, 2013.

Based on four cases among women, aged 21 to 39. “[U]nlike the brain which is protected by the skull as well as a spatial distance from the cellular device, each patient here had direct contact between their device and their breast.” Open access paper from a team of California physicians. For a local TV news report featuring two of the authors of these case reports, click here [no longer available]. And here is the American Cancer Society’s outlook, posted in May 2014 [also no longer available]—about a decade ago, ACS’s Ted Gansler, who wrote this opinion, promoted the idea that any link between cell phones and cancer is a “myth” (see MWN, M/J03, p.3).

March 30, 2004

Melatonin and Breast Cancer: No Link Found

A prospective epidemiological study —the first of its kind— has failed to find an association between a woman’s melatonin level and her risk of developing breast cancer. Ruth Travis and coworkers at the University of Oxford in the U.K. report in the March 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that, while they cannot rule out a “moderate” association, their results are a setback for the hypothesis that “endogenous melatonin concentration is a major factor in breast cancer etiology. ”