A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Chronic exposure to 3G (UMTS) cell phone radiation can promote the growth of tumors, according to a new animal study presented at a workshop in Berlin last week. This finding is "remarkable," according to the lead researcher, Thomas Tillmann of the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) in Hannover, Germany. At this point, only the conference abstract is available (p.10).

Monday, June 2, 2008

Editors and reviewers at Epidemiology thought long and hard before publishing the new paper suggesting that a child's behavioral problems can be traced, at least in part, to the mother's use of a cell phone use during pregnancy (see our May 14 post). This comes across in an editorial by David Savitz that appears the same issue (July) as the paper.

The study is "a nearly perfect recipe for 'inflammatory epidemiology'," acknowledged Savitz, an editor at the journal who has long been involved with EMF research. But, he went on, "reviewers and editors believe that these findings are worth consideration by the scientific community.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Some news notes on the Interphone study:

• Those who say there are no long-term cell phone risks often point to the Interphone study from Japan, published earlier this year, for support. As we have previously reported, the Japanese researchers said there was no association between cell phones and brain tumors, even though they found a close to sixfold increase in glioma among heavily-exposed users after ten or more years (see our February 15 post). That link was based on a small number of cases and was not statistically significant; the Japanese attributed the increase to recall bias. Bruce Hocking, an occupational and environmental health physician in Melbourne, Australia, suggests otherwise. In a letter published this week in the British Journal of Cancer, Hocking points out that the risk of meningioma (another type of brain tumor) is hardly raised at all (OR=1.14). He writes: "If recall bias is the true explanation for the increased risk of glioma, it should similarly have affected the meningioma group, but it has not. Therefore, the increased risk in the glioma group may be a true finding."

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Next-Up, the European activist group, has posted the entire Larry King Live show, "Cell Phones: Are They Dangerous?," on its Web site. Only the ads are missing. Click here to see the 44-minute video. A transcript is also available.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Robert O. Becker, a towering figure in bioelectromagnetics, died on May 14 due to complications from pneumonia. He was 84 and had been ailing for some time. Becker, best known for his research on "currents of injury" and the role they play in regeneration, made significant contributions to many areas of electrobiology. He was later drawn into public controversies over health effects — Becker is credited as the first to use the term "electromagnetic pollution"— and in the end paid dearly for speaking out.

"Bob Becker's passing marks the end of an era in bioelectromagnetics, that time when very few scientists believed that non-thermal electromagnetic exposures were biologically significant," said Abe Liboff, a physicist and the co-editor of Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. "All the work on applying electromagnetic fields to bone repair is attributable to Becker's reinterpretation of Carlo Matteucci's discovery of currents of injury," he said.

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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.

Continues

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.

Continues

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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