A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Japanese/Korean Project Two Years Late
Unlikely To Resolve NTP Cancer Findings

Monday, June 16, 2025

The Japanese/Korean partial repeat of the U.S. National Toxicology Project’s (NTP) RF–animal cancer study has been hit by delays. The project is two years behind schedule, with results now not expected before the middle of next year.

“We hope we will present our data” next summer at the BioEM 2026 conference in Australia, Professor Katsumi Imaida of Kagawa University, the leader of the Japanese team, told Microwave News via email. The international NTP validation project —nicknamed “NTP Lite”— is in its “final stages,” he wrote.

The project was launched in 2019 to confirm or counter the $30+ million NTP animal study, which showed “clear evidence” that RF radiation can cause cancer in rats.

At Odds with ICNIRP, Most Health Agencies

Sunday, April 27, 2025
Last updated May 11, 2025

A major review of animal studies has found reliable evidence that RF radiation increases the risk of cancer.

The new systematic review was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) EMF office in Geneva as part of its ongoing assessment of RF health effects.

It concludes: “[T]here is evidence that RF EMF exposure increases the incidence of cancer in experimental animals with the [certainty of evidence] being strongest for malignant heart schwannomas and gliomas” (brain tumors).

This finding runs counter to the views of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the WHO itself, as well those of most national health agencies.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) has published a scathing assessment of the WHO systematic review on RF radiation and cancer.

Higher Risks When Cell Phone Is Carried Below the Waist

Monday, September 30, 2024

It’s a long-running medical mystery: Why have so many people under 50 in affluent countries been developing colorectal cancer in recent decades?

Something new is triggering a jump in what’s known as early-onset colon and rectal cancer (EOCRC). The rates have been going up for the last 20 years and no one knows why it’s happening. The usual risk factors for CRC —obesity, smoking, bad diet and lack of exercise— don’t fully explain the increase.

Five years ago, De-Kun Li, a senior epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, offered a new possibility: carrying a cell phone below the waist.

Decoding New WHO–ICNIRP Cancer Review
Game Over? Likely Not

Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Last updated January 31, 2025

An international team of researchers, many with close ties to ICNIRP, is trying to put to rest the very possibility that RF radiation can lead to brain cancer —and, by extension, any type of cancer.

On August 30, they published a detailed systematic review of RF and cell phone epidemiological studies, which concludes that there is little evidence to justify continued concern over a possible cancer link.

“We can now be more confident that exposure to radio waves from mobile phones or wireless technologies is not associated with an increased risk of brain cancer,” declares Ken Karipidis in the press release. He is an assistant director of the ARPANSA, Australia’s radiation protection agency, and the vice chair of ICNIRP.

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Short Takes

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.

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.

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.

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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