A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Monday, September 18, 2006

There’s an old English saying that goes “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

This also applies to cell-phone health studies according to a new analysis by a team from Switzerland’s University of Basel. In a paper accepted for publication in Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), Matthias Egger and Martin Röösli and coworkers found that: “Studies exclusively funded by industry reported the largest number of outcomes but were least likely to report a statistically significant result...compared to studies funded by public agencies or charities.”

Their analysis is based on 59 experimental studies published between 1995 and 2005. They note that a majority (68%) of these studies reported biological effects. Egger and Röösli advise that “the interpretation of the results from existing and future studies of the health effects of [RF] radiation should take sponsorship into account.”

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Anyone trying to track the various European EMF and RF research efforts —both those of the EC (e.g. Interphone, REFLEX, etc.) and those of individual countries— will find a new report issued by yet another EC project (EMF-NET) quite useful. The bulk of the document is a table listing the various projects, often including the e-mail address of the principal investigator and a link to a report from that project. (Note that many of these links appear to be dead ends but that is because they have not been properly coded; the reports are in fact accessible by manually copying the posted URL in your Web browser.) For many of the projects, the table also presents when it began, how long it is supposed to last and how much it cost.

Saturday, September 9, 2006

The protocol for the Interphone epidemiological study has been released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France. IARC is coordinating researchers in 13 countries in an investigation of the possible link between the use of mobile phones and the development of brain and salivary gland tumors. Some results have been made public, but not the overall findings, which could come any time now. (See also our commentary on some of the already published Interphone papers.)

Friday, September 8, 2006

The WHO EMF Project may close down early next year unless more money is received soon.

According to its 2005-2006 progress report, the project had a deficit of $430,000 in its last fiscal year. Between July 2005 and June 2006, it spent $1,155,000 but raised only $750,000. (As in the past, the report does not give any details on where its money came from, though cell phone manufacturers have regularly chipped in $150,000 each year.) The annual report states that all its reserve funds have been depleted and that "if sufficient funds are not received by the end of 2006, the activities of the EMF Project will cease early in 2007."

Emilie van Deventer took over as the head of the project earlier this summer after Mike Repacholi stepped down.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Scientists from New Zealand, the U.K. and Finland are worried about a different kind of electromagnetic weapon: One that could wreck havoc with the world's communications systems —think HAARP run by a Herman Kahn wannabe. Check out the press release issued today by the University of Otago. For background, see "Nuclear Explosions in Orbit," a feature article originally published in Scientific American.

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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.