A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Users of cell phones have another reason to be cautious. An Austrian team has found that the risk of developing tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, doubled after four years. This is one of the first epidemiological studies to investigate the long-term effects of mobile phones on hearing.

Hans-Peter Hutter of the Institute of Environmental Health at the Medical University of Vienna, and coworkers report that the observed association is "unlikely" to be spurious and could have important implications for public health. Their new epidemiological study, based on 100 cases and 100 controls, will appear in an upcoming issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has recruited Joachim Schüz to lead its Section on Environment. Among his duties in Lyon, Schüz will supervise the still-unfinished work of theInterphone project. He will also play an advisory role in next year’s IARC review of the possible cancer risks associated with RF radiation. Schüz, who begins at the agency on August 2, will report to Christopher Wild, the director of IARC.

Monday, May 17, 2010

There’s an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Welcome to Interphone.

The good news is that the Interphone paper has finally been made public after a four-year stalemate within the 13-country research team. But it comes at a price. A series of compromises over how to interpret the results of the largest and most expensive study of cell phones and brain tumors ever attempted has left the paper with no clear conclusions other than more research is needed.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Paper — E. Cardis et al. (The Interphone Study Group), "Brain Tumour Risk in Relation to Mobile Telephone Use: Results of the Interphone International Case-Control Study," International Journal of Epidemiology, 2010 (open access)
Supplementary DataAppendix 1 and Appendix 2 (open access)
Commentary— R. Sarraci & J. Samet, "Call Me on My Mobile Phone … Or Better Not? — A Look at the Interphone Study Results," International Journal of Epidemiology, 2010 (open access)
Press Releases:
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — "Interphone Study Reports on Mobile Phone Use and Brain Cancer Risk"  May 17
International Union Against Cancer (UICC) — "Interphone Study Reports on Mobile Phone Use and Brain Cancer Risk" undated
Audio of Press Conference, held at WHO Headquarters, Geneva,  May 17

Monday, May 17, 2010

An essential part of the Interphone story is Appendix 2. Although not included in the paper, it offers a way to look at the risks free of some of the bias that so muddled the published results. It also provides a window on the controversy that deadlocked the Interphone group for four years.

There is a general consensus that the large number of abnormally low risks observed in Interphone is a sign of a systematic problem —selection bias— in the way that the study was carried out. As the Interphone group acknowledges, it is “unlikely” that cell phones could immediately provide protection against brain tumors (see main Interphone Story).

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Short Takes

March 14, 2024

The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) has written to Italian government officials to support the country’s strict 6 V/m RF exposure limit.

The letter, dated March 13, expresses “great concern” that the standard might be weakened. It is signed by Ronald Melnick, the chair of ICBE-EMF, and by Elizabeth Kelley, its managing director.

March 12, 2024

The Japanese group running a partial repeat of the NTP RF cancer study has not observed genotoxic effects among male rats exposed to 900 MHz CDMA radiation at 4 W/Kg, according to a paper to be presented tomorrow at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology in Salt Lake City, UT (SOT2024).

The analysis of the cancer data is ongoing and will not be reported.

September 14, 2023
Last updated September 16, 2023

Three medical doctors have published a case report of a 40-year-old Italian man who developed a tumor in his thigh, near where he “habitually” kept his smartphone in a trouser pocket.

The case was published at the end of August in Radiology Case Reports, a peer-reviewed, open access journal.

The tumor, a painless mass, gradually expanded in the man’s left thigh over a period of six months, they wrote.

June 16, 2023
Last updated June 17, 2023

A Korean RF genotoxicology study —part of a joint project with Japan— has been delayed due to the unexpected death of four of the RF–exposed rats early in the accompanying two-year cancer experiment, according to Young Hwan Ahn of Ajou University medical school.

Ahn presented a progress report on the Korean arm of the project in Geneva last week at a meeting of the WHO EMF Project’s International Advisory Committee. Microwave News has obtained a copy of Ahn’s PowerPoint presentation.

June 5, 2023
Last updated June 8, 2023

ICNIRP continues to dominate EMF policies at the WHO, according to documents made available to Microwave News.

The documents were recently distributed by Emilie van Deventer as she prepared to host a briefing this week for its International Advisory Committee (IAC) in Geneva.

March 30, 2023

A newly declassified, though heavily redacted, report from the intelligence community has put renewed emphasis on the possibility that the condition known as “Havana Syndrome” could be caused by pulsed RF energy.

“Electromagnetic energy, particularly pulsed signals in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics [of Havana Syndrome, also called ‘anomalous health incidents’] although information gaps exist,” the intelligence panel concluded.