IARC: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

Just over a year ago, the Danish Cancer Society (DCS) issued a news advisory with some alarming news: The number of men diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most malignant type of brain cancer, had doubled over the last ten years. Hans Skovgaard Poulsen, the head of neuro-oncology at Copenhagen University Hospital was quoted in the release as saying that this was a “frightening development.”

At the time, Christoffer Johansen, a senior researcher at the DCS told us: “I think the data is true and valid.” And Joachim Schüz, a long time collaborator of Johansen’s at the DCS who is now at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon told Microwave News that the news was “indeed a concern.” He said that he could not explain it. (See our report here.)

After that, there was silence.

^{“Cancer Risks Related to Low-Level RF/MW Exposures, Including Cell Phones,”}

by Poland's Stan Szmigielski, posted online by Electromagnetic Medicine and Biology, on January 15, 2013: "[S]o far, the published studies do not show that mobile phones can increase considerably the risk of cancer. This conclusion is backed up by the lack of a solid biological mechanism, and the fact that brain cancer rates are not going up significantly. However, all of the studies so far have weaknesses, which make it impossible to entirely rule out a risk."

A new analysis from the U.S. National Cancer Institute has found that the rates of brain tumors (glioma) in the United States are inconsistent with the results of Lennart Hardell’s group in Sweden. The NCI team, led by Mark Little, does allow that “the U.S. data could be consistent with the modest excess risks in the Interphone study.’’

Italy's National Health Council is recommending a precautionary approach to the use of cell phones by children, according to La Repubblica, a leading national newspaper.

Although the announcement comes right after the airing of a hard hitting TV program last night (see item below), La Repubblica reports that the decision to advise precaution was made at the council's November 15 meeting. In a...

The latest update of the Danish cell phone-cancer study is being touted as the biggest and best ever. It shows “no link between mobile phone use and [brain] tumors,” according to the press release.

Don’t believe a word of it.

On October 20, the British Medical Journal released the third installment of the Danish Cancer Society’s cohort study, which has been tracking some 400,000 mobile phones subscribers since the 1980s. The whole enterprise has been dogged by controversy and political suspicions since the first results were published ten years ago.

Last year, sensing that the upcoming IARC assessment might undercut his legacy at both the WHO and ICNIRP, Mike Repacholi assembled a team to prepare its own assessment of the possible tumor risks from RF radiation: That review has just been released...

The Interphone results on acoustic neuroma (AN) are —finally— out. As in the Interphone analysis of brain tumors, there does appear to be a higher risk among the heaviest users of cell phones. Yet, as before, the results are uncertain and open to alternative explanations.

A mother's exposure to weak power-frequency magnetic fields during pregnancy substantially increases the chances her child will develop asthma, according to a new study by De-Kun Li and coworkers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA. An average magnetic field exposure of just 2 mG (0.2 µT) during pregnancy more than triples the child's risk of getting asthma by the age of 13, they report in a paper released today by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA).

More mixed messages this weekend. In an interview headlined "Cell Phones and Cancer: Is There a Connection?," Nora Volkow, while acknowledging the uncertainties in Interphone and other epidemiological studies, continues to argue that precaution is the most sensible course of action. "I would feel...