A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

News Media Nix NTP Cancer Study
“Don’t Believe the Hype”

Are More People Getting Brain Tumors?
GBMs, the Most Virulent Type, Are Rising

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Last updated June 2, 2016

Senior managers at the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released the preliminary results of their cell phone radiation study late last week. They were so concerned about the elevated rates of two types of cancer among exposed rats that they felt an immediate public alert was warranted. They considered it unwise to wait for the results to wend their way into a journal sometime next year. Not surprisingly, the NTP report generated worldwide media attention.

There were some startling reactions. Both the American Cancer Society (ACS) and Consumer Reports immediately shelved their long-held, wait-and-see positions. In a statement issued soon after the NTP’s press conference, Otis Brawley, ACS’ chief medical officer, called the NTP report “good science.” Consumer Reports said that the new study was “groundbreaking” and encouraged people to take simple precautions to limit their exposures.

However, much of the mainstream media saw it very differently. The Washington Post ran its story under the headline, “Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? Don’t Believe the Hype.”

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Cell Phone Radiation Boosts Cancer Rates in Animals;
$25 Million NTP Study Finds Brain Tumors

U.S. Government Expected To Advise Public of Health Risk

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

The cell phone cancer controversy will never be the same again.

The U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) is expected to issue a public announcement that cell phone radiation presents a cancer risk for humans. The move comes soon after its recently completed study showed statistically significant increases in cancer among rats that had been exposed to GSM or CDMA signals for two-years.

Discussions are currently underway among federal agencies on how to inform the public about the new findings. NTP senior managers believe that these results should be released as soon as possible because just about everyone is exposed to wireless radiation all the time and therefore everyone is potentially at risk.

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Power-Frequency EMFs Promote Cancer in Massive Animal Study

Italians Call for a “Reevaluation of the
Safety of Non-Ionizing Radiation”

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Last updated May 24, 2016

Once again, power-frequency magnetic fields have been found to act as a cancer promoter.

Eighteen months ago an international team led by Elisabeth Cardis in Spain showed cancer promotion in workers exposed to chemicals and extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs. Now an Italian team has found essentially the same promotional effect in animals exposed to ionizing radiation and ELF EMFs.

The new study, which was carried out at the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, is part of the most ambitious EMF–animal project ever attempted.

Continues

NCRP Pressured CDC To Remove
Cell Phone Safety Advice

You Say “Caution,” We Say “Precaution,”
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The NCRP was the driving force behind the removal of cautionary advice in a CDC fact sheet on cell phone use. Senior officials at the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements pressured the Centers for Disease Control into deleting the cautionary language in August 2014.

The NCRP is an influential policy-setting group, chartered by the U.S. Congress to serve the public health.

Continues

Institute of Environmental Health Secrets:
NIEHS Mum on $25 Million RF Animal Project

Skirts Freedom of Information Act

Monday, November 30, 2015

Last updated December 1, 2015

NIEHS really doesn’t want to talk about it. Ten years into a $25+ million project to assess the cancer risk of wireless radiation in laboratory animals, the staff at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences remains tight-lipped and refuses to release project documents.

NIEHS has many reasons for keeping a low profile. The RF project, the most expensive in National Toxicology Program history, is years late and two-to-three times over budget. A more immediate concern is that it could force the institute into a position it would desperately prefer to avoid: Being at the center of the ever-contentious controversy over cell phone radiation and cancer.

Continues

Pages

Short Takes

ICNIRP’s Principal Patron: Germany

June 25, 2020

The German government is the main sponsor of ICNIRP, the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), which is the bureaucratic parent of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), has contributed 70-80% of ICNIRP’s annual income in each of the last three years. This...

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ICNIRP Issues Revised RF Guidelines

March 11, 2020

The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has issued updated guidelines for exposures to RF/microwave radiation.

“The guidelines have been developed after a thorough review of all relevant scientific literature, scientific workshops and an extensive public consultation process. They provide protection against all scientifically substantiated adverse health effects due to EMF exposure in the 100 kHz to 300 GHz range,” according to...

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NTP Scientists Endorse Precaution

January 17, 2020

NTP scientists have decided to follow the science.

In a recent revision to the information it offers the public on cell phone radiation, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) revealed that its scientists are now taking precautions by spending less time on cell phones and, when on a call, increasing the distance between their heads and the...

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French Govt Seeks To Limit Exposures from Cell Phones

October 28, 2019

French health officials want cell phone users to be better informed of potential risks and are urging them to take precautionary steps to limit their radiation exposures.

The move comes after an government health and safety agency (ANSES) issued an October 21 advisory warning the public not to carry phones in shirt or trouser pockets.

The French government wants the European Commission to require measurements indicating how much...

Continues

EMF Studies: Industry Funding
Sways Findings

September 4, 2019

Industry-funded studies have promoted false doubts about EMF cancer risks and led to the failure of the public health community to reduce exposures, argues David Carpenter in a paper published last week in Environmental Research.

Carpenter, the director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany in upstate New York, shows that, over the last 20 years, findings on the link...

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FCC Proposes No Change to Its RF Standards

August 8, 2019

Last updated August 9, 2019

After six years of study, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided not to revise its current safety limits for RF radiation. The rules, which were first adopted in 1996 and are the only ones governing cell phone exposures in the U.S., will continue to be based only on thermal effects.

“After a thorough review of the record and consultation with [the...

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Hot new papers & articles

“Brain Cancer Patients Survive Longer By Sending Electric Field Through Their Heads,” IEEE Spectrum, November 22, 2016. Novocure’s 200 kHz signals kept 43% of GBM patients alive compared to 30% on the standard treatment.
“The Intracranial Distribution of Gliomas in Relation to Exposure from Mobile Phones: Analysis from the Interphone Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology, posted online November 3, 2016. The latest analysis from Interphone. The same tensions continue with no clear consensus.
“Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents,“ JAMA Internal Medicine, published online September 12, 2016. “This historical account of industry efforts demonstrates the importance of having reviews written by people without conflicts of interest and the need for financial disclosure.” From Stanton Glantz’s Center for Tobacco Research. Open access. More than 10 years ago the electric utility industry paid Leeka Kheifets $50,000 for a literature review.
“The Effects of RF EM Radiation on Sperm Function,” Reproduction, posted September 6, 2016. “We propose a mechanistic model in which RF-EMR exposure leads to defective mitochondrial function associated with elevated levels of ROS production…” From Australia, open access.
“Magnetite Pollution Nanoparticles in the Human Brain,” PNAS, posted online September 6, 2016. “This discovery is important because nanoscale magnetite can respond to external magnetic fields, and is toxic to the brain, being implicated in production of damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS).” See also Newsweek story.
“Tumor Specific Frequencies and Ocular Melanoma,” Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, posted online August 23, 2016. Sam Milham and David Stetzer point to a link between kHz signals from variable frequency drives on electric motors at an LNG plant and a cluster of a very rare cancer.
Video of presentation and discussion of the NTP RF study at the NTP Board of Counselors Meeting, June 2016. Also here. Mostly Michael Wyde’s talk with important comments by NTP Director Linda Birnbaum and Associate Director John Bucher. Birnbaum calls the link between RF and Schwannomas of the heart “unequivocally clear” (@43:20-minute mark). A few minutes later, she describes it as having a “beautiful dose-relationship.” Bucher talks about the continuity in the spectrum between hyperplasia and glioma.
“Smart Skin Enables Magnetoreception,” The Scientist, September 2016. “It would truly be a sixth-sense technology.”
“Increasing Incidence of Thyroid Cancer in the Nordic Countries with Main Focus on Swedish Data,” BMC Cancer, July 7, 2016. New from Lennart Hardell’s group in Sweden. “With the emergence of the smartphones in the mid and late 2000s, the internal antenna location started to shift from the top of the phone to the bottom of the phone.” This would entail greater RF exposure of the thyroid gland than earlier phones. (Open access) … In a report issued on August 18, IARC maintains that, “the growing epidemic of thyroid cancer reported in recent decades in several high-income countries is largely due to overdiagnosis.” Read the IARC press release here. We asked Hardell whether the IARC analysis changed his outlook on the possible role played by smart phones. “No,” he replied.
“EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of EMF-Related Health Problems and Illnesses,” Reviews on Environmental Health, posted online July 25, 2016. Open access.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

News Media Nix NTP Cancer Study
“Don’t Believe the Hype”

Are More People Getting Brain Tumors?
GBMs, the Most Virulent Type, Are Rising

Cell Phone Radiation Boosts Cancer Rates in Animals;
$25 Million NTP Study Finds Brain Tumors

U.S. Government Expected To Advise Public of Health Risk

Power-Frequency EMFs Promote Cancer in Massive Animal Study

Italians Call for a “Reevaluation of the
Safety of Non-Ionizing Radiation”

NCRP Pressured CDC To Remove
Cell Phone Safety Advice

You Say “Caution,” We Say “Precaution,”
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

Institute of Environmental Health Secrets:
NIEHS Mum on $25 Million RF Animal Project

Skirts Freedom of Information Act

Pages

Short Takes

ICNIRP’s Principal Patron: Germany

ICNIRP Issues Revised RF Guidelines

NTP Scientists Endorse Precaution

French Govt Seeks To Limit Exposures from Cell Phones

EMF Studies: Industry Funding
Sways Findings

FCC Proposes No Change to Its RF Standards

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A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Are More People Getting Brain Tumors?GBMs, the Most Virulent Type, Are Rising

U.S. Government Expected To Advise Public of Health Risk

Italians Call for a “Reevaluation of the Safety of Non-Ionizing Radiation”

You Say “Caution,” We Say “Precaution,” Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

Skirts Freedom of Information Act

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

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Microwave News Reading

Microwave News is...

Are More People Getting Brain Tumors?
GBMs, the Most Virulent Type, Are Rising

Italians Call for a “Reevaluation of the
Safety of Non-Ionizing Radiation”

You Say “Caution,” We Say “Precaution,”
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off