A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Most people don't notice those little boxes stuck on the sides of buildings, but if you live in a city, they're most likely to be your principal source of microwave exposure. That is, of course, when you're not using a cell phone.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The U.S. FDA has long sidestepped the cell phone-health controversy even though Congress gave the agency that responsibility.

This week's issue of BusinessWeek, asks whether Disney is making a smart move targeting young kids for its new Disney Mobile service. In its defense, the company says that it's "relying on the FDA" and that the FDA has repeatedly stated that there is no danger.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

A Swiss research team led by Peter Achermann of the University of Zurich has failed to replicate the Dutch TNO study (see yesterday's post). Achermann and his collaborators, Martin Röösli of the University of Bern and Niels Kuster of the IT'IS Foundation in Zurich, found no consistent effects on well-being or cognitive performance following a 45-minute exposure to 3G RF radiation, at either a 1 V/m or a 10 V/m.

The radiation signals were designed to mimic those from a mobile phone base station. The experiments were run double blind —that is, neither the subjects nor the investigators knew when the power was turned on.

No Effect Finding Expected

Monday, June 5, 2006

The results of the attempted replication of the TNO study will be announced tomorrow in Zurich. The Dutch TNO study, caused quite a stir when it was released in the fall of 2003. It suggested that 3G RF fields as low as 1 V/m could be detrimental to a person's sense of well-being and has been widely cited by those opposed to the siting of mobile phone towers near schools and in residential neighborhoods.

Peter Achermann of the University of Zurich, Niels Kuster of IT'IS (see June 2, below) and Martin Röösli of the University of Bern will present their findings at a press conference scheduled to begin at 10:30am Swiss time. Their paper has been accepted for publication and will be posted on the Internet after the press conference. The word on the street is that they failed to repeat the TNO findings —but no one expected the TNO to find such effects in the first place. More tomorrow.

SPEAG/IT’IS Ad Campaign

Friday, June 2, 2006

We've been tempted to think that some junior X-men have jumped off the big screen onto the streets of New York City. Well, not really, it just seems like that with so many people linking Bluetooth headsets to their cell phones.

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Short Takes

February 9, 2025

One of the longest-running newsletters on the health and environmental impact of electromagnetic fields and radiation —the ElektrosmogReport— is now available in English.

Diagnose:Funk, the publisher, is translating the German-language original and making it available at no charge. Both versions come out quarterly. D:F is a consumer and environmental protection group with offices in Germany and Switzerland.

August 26, 2024

On September 12th, the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) will host a conference on cancer bioelectricity via Zoom. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

Michael Levin, a professor of biology and biomedical engineering at Tufts University in Massachusetts, will be the keynote speaker.

August 21, 2024
Last updated January 21, 2025

A third RF systematic review commissioned by the World Health Organization’s EMF Project is under fire. This one is on RF–induced oxidative stress.

Last month, two other WHO reviews —on pregnancy outcomes and on tinnitus— were both called into question as critics called for them to be retracted.

A team of 14 from six countries, led by Felix Meyer of the German Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), identified 11,599 studies on oxidative stress in the frequency range 800-2450 MHz. They then eliminated 11,543 of them as not meeting their criteria for inclusion.

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.