A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Linda Birnbaum: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

December 12, 2022

IARC Will Soon Reassess RF Cancer Risk — Or Maybe Not

On November 23, Elisabete Weiderpass, the Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), revealed that a new assessment of the evidence linking radiofrequency (RF) radiation to cancer would likely take place in early 2024. A formal decision could come within a few months.

Calls for a new IARC evaluation have been mounting for some years following the release of two large animal studies showing elevated tumor counts after lifelong exposure to RF radiation. Many believe that the animal experiments leave the Agency little choice but to increase the cancer risk classification at least one notch to “probable” from the current “possible,” or perhaps to its highest classification, a known human carcinogen.

But, as Weiderpass made clear on making the announcement at a conference in Paris, the RF–cancer risk might instead be downgraded and the “possible” classification removed.

The stakes are high.

November 10, 2022

“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.

January 25, 2022

Pressure Mounts To Retract Grimes RF–Cancer Review

Senior environmental health scientists are calling for JAMA Oncology to retract a review of RF radiation and cancer by David Robert Grimes, a physicist at Dublin City University.*

Grimes’s paper, which was posted on the journal’s website on December 9^th, has prompted a barrage of letters of protest to Nora Disis, the editor of JAMA Oncology.

Among those calling for retraction is Linda Birnbaum, who, for ten years, 2009-2019, was the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Ronald Melnick, who led the team that designed the NTP RF–cancer study, is another harsh critic.

February 7, 2018

What Changed at NTP?

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.

September 6, 2016

NTP: Cell Phone RF Breaks DNA

In May, the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) announced that male rats exposed to cell phone radiation developed higher rates of cancer. Soon, the NTP will explain how that might have happened.

The same RF/microwave radiation that led male rats to develop brain tumors also caused DNA breaks in their brains. Female rats —which did not have significant elevated tumor counts— had fewer DNA breaks.

All these findings are part of the same $25 million NTP project.

The NTP results provide “strong evidence for the genotoxicity of cell phone radiation,” Ron Melnick told Microwave News.

September 3, 2016

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.

May 26, 2016

NTP Releases Draft Cancer Report

This evening, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released a draft of the report on its two-year cell phone cancer study. Linda Birnbaum, the director of the NIEHS, and John Bucher, the leader of the study, will present the report at a teleconference tomorrow, Friday. They are the director and associate director of the NTP, respectively. [Birnbaum did not...

May 25, 2016

Cell Phone Radiation Boosts Cancer Rates in Animals;$25 Million NTP Study Finds Brain Tumors

The cell phone cancer controversy will never be the same again.

The U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) is expected to issue a public announcement that cell phone radiation presents a cancer risk for humans. The move comes soon after its recently completed study showed statistically significant increases in cancer among rats that had been exposed to GSM or CDMA signals for two-years.

Discussions are currently underway among federal agencies on how to inform the public about the new findings. NTP senior managers believe that these results should be released as soon as possible because just about everyone is exposed to wireless radiation all the time and therefore everyone is potentially at risk.