A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

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Hiding in Plain Sight
Neglected Low-Level EM Effects

A Reminiscence on the Occasion of Abe Liboff’s 90^th Birthday

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Today is Abe Liboff’s 90^th birthday. Liboff is a physicist —he was the chairman of the physics department at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, for many years, and, before that, a professor at NYU. He used to be a coeditor of the journal, Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine.

As long as I have known him, Liboff has been asking questions about the world he sees all around. When possible, he runs experiments to test out his ideas. He continues to have a lively correspondence with those who share his interests in electromagnetic field effects, especially the role of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Back in 1984 when I first got to know him, Liboff had recently completed a two-year fellowship at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. He was back at Oakland but continued to collaborate with a psychologist at NMRI, John Thomas, who was doing research for the New York Power Line Project.

Liboff’s work at NMRI led to two startling experimental findings.

Continues

Peer Review in the Raw

N.P. Singh, the Comet Assay and
“Radiation Research”

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Last updated May 9, 2019

Narendra P. Singh, known to friends and colleagues simply as NP, died last December at the age of 69. When his family wrote to me with the news, Singh’s wife asked me not to publish a tribute or an obituary at that time. I honored her request, but now, after a decent interval, I break my silence, in part to make good on a promise and to settle some unfinished business.

Singh was a proud and honest man; he was also gentle and unassuming. “He cannot tell a lie, even a white lie,” Henry Lai, his long-time collaborator at the University of Washington in Seattle, told me years ago. Perhaps most of all, Singh was a meticulous experimentalist who believed in the power of science.

Continues

NTP Paper on DNA Breaks Delayed,
Will Be Included in Final RF Report

Peer Reviewers Had Sought More Information;
Cell Phone-Cancer Report Due in December

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has changed course and will not —at least for the time being— publish its findings of increased DNA breaks among rats exposed to cell phone radiation as a stand-alone paper.

The DNA study, which is part of NTP’s landmark experiment showing that RF radiation can lead to tumors in the brains and hearts of laboratory animals, will now be incorporated in NTP’s Technical Report on the $25 million project, the NTP has told Microwave News.

Continues

RadioBio: DARPA To Explore Cell-to-Cell Communications

Investigating “Natural Antennas” Sending and Receiving Messages at kHz to THz Frequencies

Thursday, February 16, 2017

The Pentagon wants to know more about how cells use electromagnetic radiation to talk to each other.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA or ARPA, is embarking on a new program, called RadioBio, to determine whether cells are able to exchange information with EM signals and, if so, what the cells are saying and how they do it.

Continues

Making It Up As He Goes Along

Paolo Boffetta, Italian Epidemiologist,
Distorts Power Line Health Risks

Monday, January 9, 2017

Facts don’t seem to mean much anymore. We live in a “post-truth” time. So much so that post-truth was recently named the international word of the year. As 2017 opened for business, a stark example of the new reality came to our attention courtesy of Paolo Boffetta, an Italian epidemiologist now at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

In an interview with Fox News, Boffetta said that the link between power lines and childhood leukemia had been debunked. In response to a question as to whether it was safe for a pregnant woman to live next to a “huge power line,” Boffetta advised that there was no reason for concern.

According to Boffetta, the 1979 classic study by Nancy Wertheimer and Ed Leeper pointing to higher rates of leukemia among children living near high-current power lines had been contradicted by “newer and better” studies, carried out with improved methodology. Boffetta sent a clear message that “very high exposures” to power line EMFs are safe for pregnant women and children.

Boffetta has lost his truth compass.

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Short Takes

Rich Rewards for Bad Behavior

February 8, 2021

Alexander Lerchl’s bogus campaign against the REFLEX project and members of Hugo Rüdiger’s lab did nothing to harm his career. Just the opposite, Lerchl thrived as he gained stature and a succession of rich research grants from the German government.

Over the last 20 years, Germany’s Federal Office of Radiation Protection —the Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, or BfS for short— has given Lerchl $5 million in contracts. Lerchl has been the best-funded RF lab researcher in Germany, Europe, and, most likely, the world.

Continues

Physicist Robert Adair Dead at 96

January 6, 2021

Last updated January 7, 2021

Robert K. Adair, the former chairman of the physics department at Yale University and a leading critic of any and all claims that weak EMFs can have biological effects, died on September 28. He was 96.

A particle physicist, Adair held one of Yale’s prestigious Sterling professorships. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Dutch Advisory Panel Calls for Caution on 5G

November 11, 2020

An advisory panel to the Health Council of the Netherlands is recommending a “cautious approach” to 5G radiation exposures.

The committee is also advising that the 26 GHz frequency band (millimeter waves) not be used “for as long as the potential health risks have not been investigated.”

Continues

In Memoriam: Moris Shore

October 10, 2020

“A safe level of microwave exposure was arbitrarily established —no dissent from the arbitrary safe standard was tolerated— in a largely thermal (i.e., high-exposure level) microwave research program … [It] and the averaging provisions … may represent a directed verdict rather than a culmination of objective and unbiased scientific judgment.”

Does that sound familiar?

Actually ...

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5G Waveforms in Dispute

September 25, 2020

Very little has been written in the popular media about the waveforms used in 5G signals. Two outstanding questions are: How fast are the pulses? How powerful are they?

In 2018, Esra Neufeld and Niels Kuster of the IT’IS Foundation in Zurich issued a warning in a...

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Does Cockpit RF Disorient Pilots?

September 15, 2020

Last updated September 16, 2020

Spatial disorientation among U.S. Air Force pilots has been linked to 72 severe accidents between 1993 and 2013, resulting in 101 deaths and the loss of 65 aircraft. Now DARPA, the defense department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, wants to know whether RF radiation in the cockpit of combat aircraft may be at least partly to blame.

Under the new initiative, with the acronym ICEMAN, DARPA is seeking a contractor to measure the...

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“A Prospective Cohort Study of Adolescents’ Memory Performance and Individual Brain Dose of Microwave Radiation from Wireless Communication,” Environmental Health Perspectives, online July 23, 2018. “We found preliminary evidence suggesting that RF-EMF may affect brain functions such as figural memory in regions that are most exposed during mobile phone use.”
“Thermal and Non-Thermal Health Effects of Low Intensity Non-Ionizing Radiation: An International Perspective,” Environmental Pollution, posted July 6, 2018. An “urgent” call for action from D. Belpomme, L. Hardell, I. Belyaev, E. Burgio & D. Carpenter.
“ELF EMFs Impair the Cognitive and Motor Abilities of Honey Bees,” Scientific Reports, posted May 21, 2018. “Together our results show that acute exposure to ELF EMFs, at intensities ranging from those at ground level to those near transmission lines, can have profound effects on honey bees.” Open access.
“Exposure to Non-Ionizing EMFs Emitted from Mobile Phones Induced DNA Damage in Human Ear Canal Hair Follicle Cells,” Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, posted April 18, 2018. This study shows “a positive correlation betwen duration of exposure and DNA damage.”
“Exposure of Insects to RF EMFs from 2 to 120 GHz,” Scientific Reports, posted March 2, 2018. SImulations show that, “A shift of 10% of the incident power density to frequencies above 6 GHz would lead to an increase in absorbed power between 3–370%. This could lead to changes in insect behaviour, physiology and morphology over time due to an increase in body temperatures from dielectric heating. The studied insects that are smaller than 1 cm show a peak in absorption at frequencies” above 6 GHz, which will to used by 5G. (Open access)
“A Circadian Clock in the Blood-Brain Barrier Regulates Xenobiotic Efflux,” Cell, April 5, 2018. “We report a rhythm of BBB permeability driven by a clock within the BBB.”
“Comparison of RF EMF Exposure Levels in Different Everyday Microenvironments in an International Context,” Environment International, May 2018. “Exposure levels tended to increase with increasing urbanity. In most microenvironments downlink from mobile phone base stations is the most relevant contributor.” One exception: Australia where broadcast radiation was #1.
“Intensity-Time Dependence Dosing Criterion in the EMF Exposure Guidelines in Russia,” Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, online March 1, 2018. From the Research Institute of Occupational Health in Moscow.
“Effect of Tumor-Treating Fields Plus Maintenance Temozolomide vs Maintenance Temozolomide Alone on Survival in Patients with Glioblastoma: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” JAMA, December 19, 2017. Supplementing chemotherapy with 200 kHz E-fields increased progression-free survival (by 2.7 months to 6.7 months) and overall survival (by 4.9 months to 20.9 months) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Both are statistically significant improvements.
“Two-Year Oncogenicity Evaluations of Cell Phone RF Radiation in Sprague-Dawley Rats and B6C3F1 Mice,” Toxicology Letters, Supplement 1, October 20, 2017. “Considering (a) the conflicting results of RF epidemiology studies and (b) the lack of generally accepted biophysical or molecular mechanisms through which RF could induce or promote neoplasia, data from animal bioassays will play a central role in ‘weight-of-the-evidence’ assessments of the possible health effects of RF exposure.” Abstract only. By IITRI’s David McCormick, who ran the exposures for the NTP–cell phone cancer study.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Hiding in Plain Sight
Neglected Low-Level EM Effects

A Reminiscence on the Occasion of Abe Liboff’s 90^th Birthday

Peer Review in the Raw

N.P. Singh, the Comet Assay and
“Radiation Research”

NTP Paper on DNA Breaks Delayed,
Will Be Included in Final RF Report

Peer Reviewers Had Sought More Information;
Cell Phone-Cancer Report Due in December

RadioBio: DARPA To Explore Cell-to-Cell Communications

Investigating “Natural Antennas” Sending and Receiving Messages at kHz to THz Frequencies

Making It Up As He Goes Along

Paolo Boffetta, Italian Epidemiologist,
Distorts Power Line Health Risks

Pages

Short Takes

Rich Rewards for Bad Behavior

Physicist Robert Adair Dead at 96

Dutch Advisory Panel Calls for Caution on 5G

In Memoriam: Moris Shore

5G Waveforms in Dispute

Does Cockpit RF Disorient Pilots?

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A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

A Reminiscence on the Occasion of Abe Liboff’s 90th Birthday

N.P. Singh, the Comet Assay and “Radiation Research”

Peer Reviewers Had Sought More Information;Cell Phone-Cancer Report Due in December

Investigating “Natural Antennas” Sending and Receiving Messages at kHz to THz Frequencies

Paolo Boffetta, Italian Epidemiologist, Distorts Power Line Health Risks

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

Pages

Microwave News Reading

Microwave News is...

A Reminiscence on the Occasion of Abe Liboff’s 90^th Birthday

N.P. Singh, the Comet Assay and
“Radiation Research”

Peer Reviewers Had Sought More Information;
Cell Phone-Cancer Report Due in December

Paolo Boffetta, Italian Epidemiologist,
Distorts Power Line Health Risks