A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

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How To Succeed in Science

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trust
and the Art of Name Dropping

Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Last updated April 21, 2022

David Robert Grimes is a “got lemons, make lemonade” kind of guy. Or as his famous Irish countryman Oscar Wilde quipped more than 100 years ago, “a grapefruit is just a lemon that saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.”

Well, actually, though that line is attributed to Wilde on countless websites, he never said or wrote it. The first documented use was more than a decade after he died in Paris in 1900. But given so, it seems all the more appropriate to mention it in the context of the Grimes affair.

I bring all this up because I’m still trying to understand why JAMA Oncology would have commissioned or accepted a manuscript on a hotly controversial subject —a review of radiofrequency (RF) radiation and cancer— by a junior Irish academic-cum-columnist without any relevant qualifications, David Robert Grimes, at the time of Dublin City University.

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Pressure Mounts To Retract
Grimes RF–Cancer Review

Former Director of NIEHS Endorses Removal

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

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.

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Four Reasons Why David Grimes’s
RF-Cancer Review Must Be Retracted

Open Letter to Editor-in-Chief, AMA Journals

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Last updated April 21, 2022

Dear Dr. Phil Fontanarosa,

As you are already keenly aware, on December 9^th, JAMA Oncology, part of the AMA family of journals, published what purports to be a review of radiofrequency (RF) radiation and cancer by David Robert Grimes.

Grimes’s paper is rife with distortions and omissions. It is a disservice to the AMA and to all those who care about public health. I urge you, as the current editor-in-chief of all AMA journals, to retract this paper.

Here are four reasons why you should set the record straight as soon as possible...

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Abandoning Inconvenient Science

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier
Was Shut Down — Again
Reflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

Monday, January 10, 2022

Last updated May 7, 2022

Leif Salford celebrated his 80^th birthday on December 7. An emeritus professor at Sweden’s Lund University and a noted neurosurgeon, Salford spent much of his career treating patients with brain tumors. Over the years, he became frustrated as, all too often, he was unable to save them with a scalpel.

In 1987, Salford came across a paper in Neuroscience Letters from a group at the University of Western Ontario, who had found that rats undergoing the equivalent of a routine MRI scan showed changes in their blood-brain barrier. The BBB is a membrane that keeps potentially toxic substances in the bloodstream from getting into the brain. It’s not a perfect barrier —it can leak. The Canadians reported that something about the electromagnetic exposures during the MRI scan had increased the permeability of the rats’ BBB. It had become more porous.

If microwaves used in the MRI were responsible, Salford thought....

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The End of BEMS
A Merger or a Heist?

U.S. & European Research Societies Set
To Join and Become BioEM

Monday, November 29, 2021

Last updated June 2, 2022

The Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) and the European BioElectromagnetics Association (EBEA), the two leading research groups in Western countries, will soon join together and become BioEM. Like its predecessors, the new society will be a forum on the interactions of all types of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields and radiation with living organisms. BioEM will be based in Zurich, Switzerland.

The move is hardly unexpected. Just the opposite. A union has been in the planning stages since at least 2016. Many favored a BEMS-EBEA consolidation even earlier, but it ran into one roadblock or another, at least partly because directors did not want to lose control.

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Short Takes

David Carpenter Reinstated

February 21, 2023

Last updated February 22, 2023

The University at Albany in New York State has closed its investigation of Professor David Carpenter, the director of its Institute for Health and the Environment, without taking any disciplinary action.

After being barred from going to his office most of last year, Carpenter may now once again “teach and conduct research on campus,” according to a statement released by the University on Tuesday evening.

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Abe Liboff Dies at 95

January 12, 2023

Last updated March 21, 2023

Abraham Liboff, a biophysicst and journal editor, died on January 9 at the age of 95.

Abe was a wonderful and generous man. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, I wrote an appreciation of his work. You can read it here.

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French Health Agency Seeks RF Research

November 16, 2022

ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, has issued a request for proposals for studies on RF radiation.

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RF Health Review, Paris in November

October 19, 2022

Last updated October 31, 2022

Two influential health agencies, both based in France, will host a one-day meeting on RF–health research, November 23 in Paris. The public is invited to attend in person or online. Registration is free.

The conference, organized by ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, and IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, will focus on potential effects of RF radiation on the brain and on cancer risks. The theme is “Research in a Fast-Moving Environment.”

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The MW Debate Continues
—in Norwegian

July 14, 2022

Last updated July 15, 2022

Close to 40 years after its first publication, The Microwave Debate, Nicholas Steneck’s history of research and regulation of microwave health effects, is back in print —this time in Norwegian.

The new translation comes with an epilogue by Thomas Butler, a professor at Ireland’s Cork University Business School, who has contributed seven chapters —about 30,000 words— to bring Steneck’s story up to the present.

The translation is the brainchild of Einar Flydal ...

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NIER Effects on Flora & Fauna:
A Major Review

September 27, 2021

Last updated November 25, 2022

A detailed examination —likely the most exhaustive ever attempted— of the environmental effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation has been published in Reviews on Environmental Health.

“Effects of Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Fields on Flora and Fauna” is in three parts, the last of which was posted today.

Taken together, the three papers run over 200 pages in the journal and include more 1,000 references.

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Hot new papers & articles

“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.
“He fell ill with cancer due to the use of his cell phone: Inail sentenced to pay a pension to the worker,” La Repubblica, November 5, 2022. In Turin, Italy: A 63-year-old technician who used a cell phone for >2½ hours/day for 13 years and who developed an acoustic neuroma, wins a disability pension on appeal. More another Italian acoustic neuroma case, go here.
Association Between Electronic Device Usage and Sperm Quality Parameters in Healthy Men Screened as Potential Sperm Donors,” Environmental Pollution, November 2022. New study from China shows negative, albeit modest, impact of using electronic devices on fertility. A perhaps surprising finding: Headset use also linked to lower sperm quality. Authors explain: Those using headsets may have phones closer to their reproductive organs.
“ELF Magnetic Fields Significantly Enhance the Cytotoxicity of Methotrexate and Can Reduce Migration of Cancer Cell Lines via Transiently Induced Plasma Membrane Damage,” Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, October 2022. “Our results suggest an important role for the use of ELF-MFs in the treatment of tumors that opens some new and exciting possibilities including using smaller therapeutic doses of chemotherapeutic agents and disrupting tumour metastasis.” In vitro experiment using 10 Hz EMFs at a very low intensity, 0.3 µT (3 mG). Open access.
“Low Intensity of Broadband Terahertz Radiation Promotes Neuronal Growth and Development,” Acta Physica Sinica, July 2022. In Chinese, with English abstract. Open access. “These results herald specific frequencies and energies of terahertz radiation as a novel neuromodulation technology for the treatment or intervention of diseases such as neurodevelopmental disorders.”
“Static Magnetic Fields from Earphones: Detailed Measurements Plus Some Open Questions,” Environmental Research, November 2022. From Argentina and Slovakia. Team includes Igor Belyaev. “Overall, it is concluded that the whole of the literature precludes assuming that, a priori, static magnetic fields from earphones are innocuous.”
“Interagency Committee on the Health Effects of Non-Ionising Fields: Report to Ministers,” New Zealand Ministry of Health, June 28, 2022. Report runs 107 pages: offers a full-throated endorsement of ICNIRP (on both RF and ELF EMFs) and recommends adoption of ICNIRP’s 2020 RF exposures guidelines. Strangely, committee members not named and they are not allowed to speak to the media.
“Use of Mobile Phones and the Incidence of Glioma Since 1979,” IARC’s Isabelle Deltour and Joachim Schüz for Germany’s Federal Office of Radiation Protection, June 30, 2022. Free access. An increased risk of brain tumors in the 10% heaviest mobile phone users remains “plausible.” But any risk would be ”very small”, and would only occur after “very long latency periods of several decades”, or only affect small subgroups within glioma patients. For context go here.
“Self-Referencing Authorships Behind the ICNIRP 2020 Radiation Protection Guidelines,” Else Nordhagen and Einar Flydal, Reviews on Environmental Health, June 27, 2022. Two key findings: “ICNIRP 2020 authors are involved in all literature reviews referenced in ICNIRP 2020 to underpin it”; and “a small and tight network of just 17 authors behind all the literature used to underpin ICNIRP 2020.” From Norway; open access.
“Selective Cell Cycle Arrest in Glioblastoma Cell Lines by Quantum Molecular Resonance Alone or in Combination with Temozolomid,” British Journal of Cancer, June 17, 2022. A new “innovative option” to treat all-too-lethal glioblastoma with 4-64 MHz nanosecond pulses. “Quantum molecular resonance” therapy reduces cell proliferation in malignant cell lines with little effect on healthy cells. From Italy. Open Access.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trustand the Art of Name Dropping Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

Former Director of NIEHS Endorses Removal

Open Letter to Editor-in-Chief, AMA Journals

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier Was Shut Down — AgainReflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

U.S. & European Research Societies Set To Join and Become BioEM

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Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

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Microwave News Reading

Microwave News is...

David Grimes, Oxford, The Wellcome Trust
and the Art of Name Dropping

Junk Science in a JAMA Journal

How RF Research on the Blood-Brain Barrier
Was Shut Down — Again
Reflections on Leif Salford’s 80th Birthday

U.S. & European Research Societies Set
To Join and Become BioEM