A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

Om Gandhi: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

June 3, 2019

Colorectal Cancer Soaring in Young Adults; Are Smartphones in the Mix?

De-Kun Li wants to change the conversation on cell phones and cancer. Li, a senior epidemiologist and veteran EMF researcher, believes that brain tumors have been getting too much attention at the expense of other types of cancer, notably colorectal cancer.

Efforts to reduce colon and rectal cancers have been a striking success story for those over 50 years old. Incidence among older Americans declined 32% between 2000 and 2013, due largely to better screening. But the story for young adults is very different. Those born around 1990 now face four times the risk of developing rectal cancer and twice the risk of colon cancer in their 20s, compared to those born around 1950, according to the American Cancer Society.

“No one can explain this apparent contradiction,” Li told Microwave News. Known risk factors for colorectal cancer include obesity, an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, but Li doesn’t think they can resolve the paradox.

April 23, 2019

“Microwave Emissions from Cell Phones Exceed Safety Limits in Europe and the U.S. When Touching the Body,” IEEE Access, posted April 18, 2019.

“[New] data corroborate our findings that most cell phones will exceed the safety guidelines when held against the body by factors of 1.6–3.7 times for the European/ICNIRP standard or by factors as high as 11 if 1-g SAR values were to be measured as required by the U.S. FCC.” By Om Gandhi. Open access.

July 13, 2015

“Yes the Children Are More Exposed to RF Energy from Mobile Telephones than Adults,” IEEE Access, posted online July 10, 2015.

“[I]t is very hard to understand why the FCC allows the use of a [model based on the] head size of the U.S. military recruits for [peak spatial] SAR compliance testing against safety guidelines” (open access). See also our “Children and Cell Phones: Time To Start Making Sense.”

May 3, 2010

Children and Cell Phones: Time To Start Talking Sense

Fifteen years ago Om Gandhi pointed out that children are exposed to higher levels of radiation from cell phones than adults. He was right then and he is right today. Yet, no one could blame you for thinking otherwise.

In an article published in the May issue of Harper's, Nathaniel Rich uses this putative controversy, among a number of other examples, to make the case that confusion reigns in all aspects of cell-phone research. "The brain of a child absorbs a much greater amount of radiation from a cell phone than does the brain of an adult," he writes, adding immediately after, "No, it does not."

August 18, 2009

Senator Arlen Specter Said To Hold a Cell Phone Hearing

Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) will hold a hearing on cell phones and health on September 14. So says Devra Davis, an activist scientist at the University of Pittsburgh. If Specter follows through, it would be the centerpiece of a conference she is organizing that week in Washington, as well as a triumph for Davis herself. She is on a mission to make cell phones a more visible public health issue in the U.S. and to secure funding for a major research program. It would be the first time in more than 30 years that the U.S. Senate has addressed RF/microwave health risks.

May 24, 2007

NAS Announces RF Research Panel

Rick Jostes at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced his picks for the members of the committee that will review the current state of cell phone health research and identify future needs. Frank Barnes of the University of Colorado, Boulder, will chair the panel. Of the other six members, three are with ICNIRP: Finland’s Maila Hietanen, Germany’s Rüdiger Matthes and France’s Bernard Veyret. The other members are Om Gandhi of the University of Utah, Leeka Kheifets of UCLA and EPRI and David McCormick of IITRI in Chicago. Kheifets, who serves on ICNIRP's epidemiology panel, used to be Mike Repacholi’s sidekick at the WHO EMF project in Geneva. McCormick is planning some large-scale RF-animal experiments for the National Toxicology Program. The FDA requested these studies back in 1999.

August 5, 2005

A few more words about the potential health risks to children from mobile phones...

A literature review on the topic by Luc Martens of Belgium’s Ghent University was posted on the Bioelectromagnetics Web site a few days ago. Anyone who doubts how little we know about all this should check it out.

Not counting the abstract, references and acknowledgments, the review runs just three pages —that’s it. There’s not much to say because we don’t know much.

Even the relatively long-running controversy over whether children absorb more radiation than adults due to their thinner skulls and whether the radiation penetrates deeper into their heads —sometimes referred to as Salt Lake City vs. Zurich or Gandhi vs. Kuster— remains unresolved (see MWN, N/D01, p.8). Or as Martens puts it, “There is still an inconsistency in the literature.”