A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

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Karolinska's Maria Feychting on the Tumor Risk

January 26, 2007

The latest Interphone findings pointing to a link between brain tumors and long-term use of a mobile phone (see January 22) should not be dismissed, according to members of the European research team that published the new results. "This is something you have to take seriously," Maria Feychting of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm told the Expressen, a Swedish national tabloid. Feychting advises those who are concerned to use a hands-free set to reduce radiation exposures.

January 22, 2007

An international team of researchers has found new evidence that long-term use of a mobile phone may lead to the development of a brain tumor on the side of the head the phone is used. In a study which will appear in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Cancer, epidemiologists from five European countries report a nearly 40% increase in gliomas, a type of brain tumor, among those who had used a cell phone for ten or more years. The increase is statistically significant. In addition, there was a trend showing that the brain tumor risk increased with years of use. The new paper is posted on the journal's Web site.

January 19, 2007

Three senior members of the public health community —each with extensive experience with EMF health research— have called for precautionary policies to limit leukemia risks to children.At a public hearing convened by the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) on January 9, David Carpenter, Raymond Neutra and Daniel Wartenberg testified in support of prudent avoidance, as advocated by the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH).

Read our special report on the Connecticut hearing, with extended excerpts from Carpenter, Neutra and Wartenberg's prepared testimony. (See also our previous coverage of Connecticut's efforts to establish a state EMF policy.)

January 18, 2007

The latest issue (Vol.25, No.4, 2006) of Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine features a selection of papers presented at the Conference on the Precautionary Approach to EMF, held in Benevento, Italy, last February. Among the authors are Martin Blank, Alvaro de Salles and Mikhail Zhadin and Livio Giuliani. Also included are the full texts of the 2002 Catania and 2006 Benevento Resolutions.

January 13, 2007

Today's New York Times has an obituary for Martin Kruskalz, a mathematician who taught at Princeton and Rutgers. He died on December 26. One of the principal reasons Kruskal merited a signed obit, with photo, is his work on solitons. The Times credits him and Norman Zabusky, his collaborator, with coining the term. (Solitons are solitary waves that can travel long distances without being dissipated; see, for example, this very short video.) The obit prompted a Proustian moment, taking us back to the days when Ross Adey (1922-2004) would speculate on possible mechanisms for the low-level EMF effects that he was seeing in his lab....

January 12, 2007

Are they victims of mind-control dirty tricks or are they simply nuts? Sharon Weinberger presents the stories of a number of TIs —targeted individuals who believe they are being assaulted by electromagnetic weapons— in Sunday's (January 14) Washington Post magazine. Her cover story, "Mind Games," centers on Harlan Girard, who for many years has run the International Committee on Offensive Microwave Weapons out of his home in Philadelphia.

January 11, 2007

Björn Nordenström died in Stockholm on December 31. Nordenström, a professor emeritus of diagnostic radiology at the Karolinska Institute, had been ill for some time. He is perhaps best known for developing new biopsy techniques for diagnosing lung cancer.

Nordenström also used electricity to treat cancer. The latter research was quite controversial, at least partially because he worked alone and published few papers. in 1983, he summarized his ideas in Biologically Closed Electric Circuits and later helped establish the International Association of Biologically Closed Electric Circuits, The association held its last meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, last May.  

December 21, 2006

It's long been known that children with Down's syndrome have a much greater chance of developing acute leukemia —up to 20 times greater or even higher. Now, in the first study of its kind, a group of Mexican researchers have shown that Down's children exposed to magnetic fields of 6 mG (0.6 µT) or more had close to four times the risk of developing acute leukemia compared to other Down's children. (The analysis was based on spot measurements, rather than the more commonly used 24-hour readings.) Writing in the January 2007 issue of Epidemiology, Juan Mejia-Arangure and coworkers conclude that genetic susceptibility to leukemia may well modify the effects of EMFs.

Strenghtens brain tumor link?

December 20, 2006

A Swedish research team led by Lennart Hardell and Kjell Mild has found no association between the use of wireless phones and testicular cancer.

In a paper posted on the Internet today, and to be published next year in the International Journal of Andrology, they caution that they could not adequately evaluate possible long-term risks: Only 14 cases in their case-control study (888 men with testicular cancer and 870 controls) had used a phone for more than ten years.

December 11, 2006

Electrical sensitivity continues to be a controversial subject. But as the number of WiFi hot spots multiplies, the press is paying more attention to the possibility that it may be a real condition. A good example is Nicki Daniels’s piece, “WiFi Should We Be Worried?”, in today's London Times. Be sure to read it to the end so you don’t miss Poppy Rhodes’s case history, “I Felt Dizzy and Nauseous.”

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