A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

2004 Articles

March 10, 2004

Prof. Kwan-Hoong Ng of the University of Malay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, attempts to debunk the idea that there are any health risks associated with mobile phones in a new 30-page pamphlet. Radiation, Mobile Phones, Base Stations and Your Health reassures that there are no established nonthermal effects resulting from exposure to RF radiation and warns that science can never “prove that something is absolutely safe and harmless.”

March 10, 2004

Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the U.K. Health Protection Agency as well as the chairman of the NRPB, will give the opening address at the International Scientific Conference on Childhood Leukemia. The meeting, to be held in London, September 6-10, will examine all the possible risk factors including genetics, ionizing radiation, EMFs, chemicals and viruses. Those signing up before June 30 will get close to a 20% discount on the registration fee.

March 10, 2004

A U.K. panel has thrown some cold water on the idea that charged particles (ions) created by power lines could increase cancer rates among those living nearby. In a report issued on March 10, the advisory group on non-ionizing radiation (AGNIR) to the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) concludes that “it seems unlikely that corona ions would have more than a small effect on the long-term health risks associated with particulate air pollution.”

March 3, 2004

On March 15, Richard Saunders, head of the non-ionizing radiation effects group at the U.K.’s National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), will join the WHO’s EMF project in Geneva for an 11-month sabbatical. Saunders, who received his doctorate in zoology and comparative physiology in 1973, has spent most of the last 30 years at the NRPB. He is a member of ICNIRP’s standing committee on biology.

February 27, 2004

WHO’s Mike Repacholi and his radiation program are under fire over allegedly suppressing a report on the hazards associated with depleted uraninium, according to the Sunday Herald in Scotland.

$500,000 Prize

February 25, 2004

Dr. Frank Barnes, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has been awarded the Bernard Gordon prize by the National Academy of Engineering. The honor comes with a check for $500,000. Barnes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, was cited for “pioneering an interdisciplinary telecommunications program,” which helps engineering students master economics and policy issues.

February 23, 2004

On February 23, the National Toxicology Program released its request for proposals (No. NIH-ES-04-06) for large-scale animal studies to evaluate the possible toxic and carcinogenic effects of cell phone radiation. The FDA originally asked for these studies more than five years ago (see MWN, N/D99, p.5; J/A00, p.5; M/J01, p.1; and M/J03, p.17). The total cost of the project will be on the order of $10 million. Proposals are due by April 8.

February 9, 2004

At a conference in the summer of 2002, Maren Fedrowitz of Wolfgang Löscher’s group at the Hannover Medical School in Germany explained why the Battelle labs in the U.S. had been unable to repeat Meike Mevissen and Löscher’s experiments showing that EMFs can promote breast cancer in rats. It was because of genetic variations among substrains of rats, she said.

February 9, 2004

In their new book, Votre GSM, Votre Santé: On Vous Ment! [Your GSM Mobile Phone, Your Health: They Are Lying to You!] four French researchers lay out their assessment of the risks associated with cell phones. Richard Gautier, Pierre Le Ruz, Daniel Oberhausen and Roger Santini call for EMF policies free from the political and economic pressures of the telecom, electronic and electric utility industries and for a national RF exposure standard of 0.6 V/m or 0.1 µW/cm2.

February 1, 2004

Wolfgang Löscher has suffered numerous personal attacks for his work on EMFs and breast cancer. But he struggled on, and now he may have resolved a fundamental problem in EMF research: Why different labs doing what appear to be identical experiments, produce conflicting results.

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