A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Smartphones Irradiate the Thyroid:
Is This a Cancer Risk?

Looking Beyond Overdiagnosis as
Tumors Continue To Surge

Monday, February 17, 2020

Last updated April 28, 2021

Thyroid cancer among women is skyrocketing all over the world. Incidence is growing faster than for any other cancer. This has been going on for a long time, and the reasons why remain elusive.

The prevailing view is that there’s been an “epidemic of diagnosis” —that is, overdiagnosis— particularly following a screening program. The tumors have always been there, the argument goes, but new and better detection tools (ultrasound, for example) have made it easier to spot small ones, many of which would likely never present a real threat. In any case, thyroid cancer is not one of the bad ones; 98-99 percent of those diagnosed survive at least five years, the highest for all cancers. Watchful waiting is often the best prescription.

The only recognized cause for thyroid cancer is ionizing radiation.

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Cell Phones and Cancer:
Your Genes May Tell the Story

Genetic Susceptibility and RF Radiation Modulate Thyroid Cancer

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Last January, a team led by Yawei Zhang of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven published an epidemiological study on the possible link between thyroid cancer and cell phones. Though some “suggestive” associations were seen among long-term users, none was statistically significant. Still, the results “warrant further investigation,” they advised.

Zhang did follow up, and what she found could well change the way people think about cell phone cancer risks.

She discovered that some people have an innate susceptibility to thyroid cancer when exposed to cell phone radiation. These individuals have small variations in their DNA which affect the functioning of seven different genes.

All seven genes regulate DNA repair.

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GBM Incidence Rates Relatively
Steady in U.S. and Canada

Unlike the Doubling Seen in England

Friday, December 13, 2019

The incidence of glioblastoma multiforme, GBM, the most aggressive type of brain tumor, though rising slowly over the last 20 years, has not jumped up in the U.S. and Canada, as it has in England and a number of other northern European countries, according to a new analysis of national brain tumor registry data.

Between 1995 and 2015, GBM rates went up 10% in the U.S. and 26% in Canada. In contrast, the increase in England over the same period was 110%.

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Open Season on 5G Critics

First NY Times, Now Scientific American

Friday, December 6, 2019

Last updated February 19, 2020

Simply saying that more health research is needed on 5G —the latest generation of cell phone technology— can be hazardous to your reputation.

Last May, the New York Times tried to take down David Carpenter, a public health physician and the country’s most prominent 5G critic. Veteran science writer William Broad painted Carpenter as a willing tool of a disinformation campaign promoted by RT America, a Russian TV network. Two months later, Broad was back for another hit on Carpenter. Much of what Broad wrote was fiction.

Now Scientific American has ambushed Joel Moskowitz, one of the few other academics willing to state the obvious: No one knows whether 5G is safe.

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NTP Turns to Mechanisms

DNA Breaks, Oxidative Stress and
Gene Expression Are on the Agenda

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Last updated October 22, 2019

The U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) will soon embark on a new phase of its long-running RF project. Last year, the NTP concluded that RF radiation causes cancer; now it will begin a systematic search for mechanisms to explain how and why the tumors developed. Work is expected to begin by the end of the year.

The research plan is wide-ranging. It will include studies on gene expression, oxidative stress and DNA damage and repair, as well as on the possible role played by heat. Other priorities on the NTP agenda are studies on behavior and stress.

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Short Takes

Italy’s 6 V/m RF Limit at Risk

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.

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“NTP Lite”: Update from Japan

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.

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Schwannoma Puzzle

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.

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Korean NTP Lite: Progress Report

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.

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ICNIRP Still Runs RF at WHO

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.

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Pulsed RF: Plausible Cause of Havana Syndrome

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.

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Hot new papers & articles

“Changes in the Excitability of Primary Hippocampal Neurons Following Exposure to 3.0 GHz RF EMFs,” Scientific Reports, March 3, 2022. The results show that RF-EMF exposure can alter neuronal activity after a 60-minute exposure to 3.0 GHz at a low dose (SAR <1 W/Kg). From the U.S. Air Force. Open access.
“Associations Between a Polymorphism in the Rat 5-HT1A Receptor Gene Promoter Region (rs198585630) and Cognitive Alterations Induced by Microwave Exposure,” Frontiers in Public Health, February 2022. “Rats carrying rs198585630 C allele…were more susceptible to 30 mW/cm² MW exposure, showing cognitive deficits and inhibition of brain electrical activity. These findings suggest SNP rs198585630…is an important target for further research exploring the mechanisms of hypersensitivity to MW exposure.”
“Assessment of Cortisol Secretory Pattern in Workers Chronically Exposed to ELF-EMF Generated by High-Voltage Transmission Lines and Substation,” Environment International, February 1, 2022. “This study strongly suggests that chronic exposure to ELF-EMFs alters the peak-time serum cortisol levels.” From France.
“Possible Health Effects on the Human Brain by Various Generations of Mobile Telecommunication: A Review Based Estimation of 5G Impact,” International Journal of Radiation Biology, posted January 7, 2022. By Hiie Hinrikus’s group at the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). “Urgent need for theoretical and experimental investigations of health effects by 5G.”
“Wireless Phone Use in Childhood and Adolescence and Neuroepithelial Brain Tumors: Results from the International MOBI-Kids Study,” Environment International, February 2022. It “provides no evidence of a causal association between wireless phone use and brain tumors in young people.” However, sources of bias prevent “ruling out a small increased risk.” Open access. May 2022: Critique of the study by Lennart Hardell and Joel Moskowitz.
“Radiofrequency Radiation and Cancer: A Review,” by David Grimes, JAMA Onclology, December 9, 2021. Incomplete and inaccurate. Astonishing that this was published by an AMA journal. [More here]
“Health Safety Guidelines and 5G Wireless Radiation” by James Lin, IEEE Microwave Magazine, January 2022. “Some of the updated [IEEE and ICNIRP] safety recommendations are marginal, questionable, and lack scientific justification from the perspective of safety protection.”
“The Ecology of Electricity and Electroreception,” Biological Reviews, October 12, 2021. A major effort, 31 pages. Open access.
“Computational Modeling Investigation of Pulsed High Peak Power Microwaves and the Potential for Traumatic Brain Injury,” Science Advances, October 29, 2021. Open access. “For sufficiently high incident power densities, a single [1 GHz, 5 µs] pulse could potentially result in biologically meaningful pressures.”
“Effect of Radiation Emitted by Wireless Devices on Male Reproductive Hormones: A Systematic Review,” Frontiers in Physiology: Reproduction, September 24, 2021. Open access. “[A]voiding long-term and excessive use of mobile phone is advisable to reduce the detrimental effect of RF-EMR.”

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Looking Beyond Overdiagnosis as Tumors Continue To Surge

Genetic Susceptibility and RF Radiation Modulate Thyroid Cancer

Unlike the Doubling Seen in England

First NY Times, Now Scientific American

DNA Breaks, Oxidative Stress and Gene Expression Are on the Agenda

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

Pages

Microwave News Reading

Microwave News is...

Looking Beyond Overdiagnosis as
Tumors Continue To Surge

DNA Breaks, Oxidative Stress and
Gene Expression Are on the Agenda