Linda Birnbaum: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

In the summer of 2012, Paul Brodeur sent me an email that began, “Don’t forget that when I croak, you’re supposed to give some credit to me as the original microwave pioneer.” I came across it in my files after learning that Brodeur had died on August 2^nd at the age of 92. It was among his many letters, notes and clippings I had stashed away over the last 50 years.

The story begins on a rainy fall afternoon in 1977 at the New York office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a public-interest environmental law firm, where I was working at the time. Brodeur, then a star investigative reporter at The New Yorker, came by with copies of his new book, The Zapping of America, an exposé on the dangers of microwave radiation and how they were being covered up. The previous December, the magazine had run two long articles by Brodeur which caused a national sensation and drew attention to the otherwise obscure world of electromagnetic health.

“Wireless Technologies, Non-Ionizing EMFs and Children: Identifying and Reducing Health Risks,” Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, March 23, 2023. “We conclude that consistent with advice in pediatric radiology, an approach that recommends that microwave radiation exposures be As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) seems sensible and prudent.” Open access. Last month, many of the same authors recommended precauction in a separate paper. This paper runs 49 pages and is open access.

“How the FCC Shields Cellphone Companies from Safety Concerns,” ProPublica, November 10, 2022. By Peter Elkind. “The wireless industry is rolling out thousands of new transmitters amid a growing body of research that calls cellphone safety into question. Federal regulators say there’s nothing to worry about — even as they rely on standards established in 1996.” Also Elkind’s: “The Girl Scouts’ Latest Business Project: Hailing 5G Cellphone Technology,” ProPublica December 9, 2022.

A new analysis from the radiation group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) calls into question the agency’s own classification of wireless radiation as a possible human carcinogen.

On May 27, IARC’s Isabelle Deltour presented the new analysis of the incidence of malignant brain tumors (glioma) in the Nordic countries —Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden— over the last several decades. She spoke at an online colloquium hosted by the German Federal Office of Radiation Protection, known as the BfS.

Deltour argued that the trends are mostly not “compatible” with those seen in the epidemiological studies —principally, Interphone and Lennart Hardell’s— that were the basis of IARC’s 2011 designation of RF radiation as a possible, or 2B, human carcinogen.

Why was the NTP so ambivalent about its cell phone cancer findings at the press conference last Friday when two years ago the same scientific evidence prompted a public health warning?

Some of the pathology numbers got tweaked since they were first released in 2016, but the changes were minor. It’s the same data set —but with a very different interpretation. The NTP mindset somehow shifted from we need to release this important new health data now to this is “not a high-risk situation.”

Who or what moved the NTP managers to change their outlook? There’s no shortage of suspects and suspicions.

Video of presentation and discussion of the NTP RF study at the NTP Board of Counselors Meeting, June 2016.

Also here. Mostly Michael Wyde’s talk with important comments by NTP Director Linda Birnbaum and Associate Director John Bucher. Birnbaum calls the link between RF and Schwannomas of the heart “unequivocally clear” (@43:20-minute mark). A few minutes later, she describes it as having a “beautiful dose-relationship.” Bucher talks about the continuity in the spectrum between hyperplasia and glioma.