A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Ashok Agarwal: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

November 30, 2014

“Are Men Talking Their Reproductive Health Away?” Asian Journal of Andrology, posted online November 18, 2014.

“Until proven otherwise, it is recommended that those with subfertility issues or seeking assisted reproduction minimize their exposure to environmental RF‐EMW radiation to alleviate its potential negative impact on sperm quality.” By Ashok Agarwal and Damayanthi Durairajanayagam of the Cleveland Clinic; open access.

February 14, 2010

LA Times: The Two Sides of the EMF Controversy

Tomorrow's Los Angeles Times features a package of four stories on the EMF–health controversy:
• "On Different Wavelengths over EMFs"
• "Victims of Electrosensitivity Syndrome Say EMFs Cause Symptoms"
• "Electromagnetic Field Studies Reach Different Conclusions"
• "How Strong Are Different Magnetic Fields?"

August 16, 2009

Keep That Phone Out of Your Trouser Pocket!

It's the strongest warning yet. John Aitken, a well-known fertility researcher, is advising men who want to have children not to keep active mobile phones below their waists. This issue, he says, "deserves our immediate attention."

May 8, 2007

Agarwal Paper Linking Cell Phones to Poor Semen Quality Published

A study that stirred worldwide uneasiness last fall —as well as quite a bit of disbelief— is now in print. In October, Ashok Agarwal of the Cleveland Clinic presented a paper at a fertility conference showing that men who used their cell phones for more than four hours a day had poorer semen quality than those who went phone-free (see our October 26, 2006 post).

Agarwal's paper has been posted on the Fertility and Sterility Web site and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal. Here is his conclusion: "Use of cell phones decrease the semen quality in men by decreasing the sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology. The decrease in sperm parameters was dependent on the duration of daily exposure to cell phones and independent of the initial semen quality."

October 27, 2006

Robert Park: Don't Believe Fertility Effect

The American press may be ignoring the cell phone–sperm story, but not so physicist Robert Park. That slayer of voodoo science wants it dead and buried. [Disclosure: We have had vehement disagreements with Park over the years, especially when back in 2001, he called Microwave News a "fear merchant" based on little more than his own self-deceptions.]

October 26, 2006

"It Could Be Having a Devastating Effect on Fertility"

The last time we checked earlier today, there were 124 different articles listed on Google News pegged to a report that cell phones can damage sperm quality. The more hours a day men spent on their phones, the greater the harm to the count, motility, viability and morphology of their sperm, according to a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, being held this week in New Orleans. Every major paper in England ran a detailed story, as did news media in Australia, India and New Zealand. (We didn't check foreign language outlets, though we did see links to some in China and Turkey.)