A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

How NTP Controlled Coverage
of Cell Phone Cancer Story

Did New York Times Have an Inside Track?

Friday, November 9, 2018

Much of the press coverage of the final NTP cell phone/cancer report was lousy. This time, the NTP seems to have wanted it that way.

Reporters were given very little notice to join the NTP teleconference on the release of the report. Nor was there much time to prepare a story for publication.

I received an email at 10:45 am on October 31 for a teleconference at 2 pm that same day. Many reporters missed the advisory and the call. Editors had little time to assign the story.

Attendance on the teleconference was spotty.

Continues

Cell Phone Radiation Leads to Cancer, Says U.S. NTP in Final Report

Rats Developed Rare Heart Tumor
Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

Thursday, November 1, 2018

“We believe that the link between radiofrequency (RF) radiation and tumors in male rats is real,” says John Bucher, the former associate director of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP).

The announcement accompanies this morning’s release of the NTP final reports of studies on cancer in rats and mice exposed to cell phone radiation. Bucher’s project, the largest in NTP history, cost $30 million and took more than ten years to complete.

The NTP found what it calls “clear evidence” that two different types of cell phone signals, GSM and CDMA, increased the incidence of malignant tumors in the hearts of male rats over the course of the two-year study.

Continues

Location, Location, Location
Aggressive Brain Tumors Tell a Story

GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

Friday, October 26, 2018

Last updated October 29, 2018

A U.K. epidemiologist has confirmed that glioblastoma (GBM), the most aggressive type of brain tumor, is on the rise in England. In a new paper, Frank de Vocht of the University of Bristol reports that he sees a significant and consistent increase in GBM in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain over the last 20-30 years.

Alasdair Philips, an independent researcher based in Scotland, and three colleagues first documented the increase last March. It was not due to improved diagnosis, they said, but they could not pinpoint which “environmental or lifestyle factor” was responsible. There was one obvious possibility: cell phones.

Continues

Japan and Korea Planning Their Own Cell Phone Animal Studies

Verifying NTP Cancer Findings

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Last updated December 10, 2023

Japanese and Korean officials are working on a partial replication of the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) animal study on cancer risks from cell phone radiation. The project is expected to be approved and get underway late next year.

Though collaborating on a common experimental design, each country will carry out its own exposures with animals from the same breeder. If the designs are similar enough, the two sets of data will be combined in a joint analysis.

“We have been discussing this issue in Japan,” said Masao Taki of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Tokyo Metropolitan University, who was a member of ICNIRP from 1996 to 2008.

Continues

Hail and Farewell
NIOSH’s Joe Bowman Dies at 73

An Expert on Exposure Assessment, He Never Gave Up

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Members of the EMF/RF research community are not known as risk takers. Some have sold their souls, but most simply follow the prescribed dogma: They keep a low profile and eke out a grant or contract here and there.

In this environment, original ideas are rare and greeted cautiously. Joe Bowman, who died on July 14, was different. As one colleague told me on hearing the news last week, “Joe was honest and he had guts.”

Continues

Pages

Short Takes

ElektrosmogReport Now in English Too

February 9, 2025

Last updated March 28, 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.

Continues

NCI ‘Cancer Bioelectricity’ Conference

August 26, 2024

On September 12^th, 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.

Continues

Another WHO RF Review Challenged

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.

Continues

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.

Continues

“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

Help Support
Microwave News

Sign Up Here for
E-Mail Alerts

Hot new papers & articles

“Possible Health Effects on the Human Brain by Various Generations of Mobile Telecommunication: A Review Based Estimation of 5G Impact,” International Journal of Radiation Biology, posted January 7, 2022. By Hiie Hinrikus’s group at the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). “Urgent need for theoretical and experimental investigations of health effects by 5G.”
“Wireless Phone Use in Childhood and Adolescence and Neuroepithelial Brain Tumors: Results from the International MOBI-Kids Study,” Environment International, February 2022. It “provides no evidence of a causal association between wireless phone use and brain tumors in young people.” However, sources of bias prevent “ruling out a small increased risk.” Open access. May 2022: Critique of the study by Lennart Hardell and Joel Moskowitz.
“Radiofrequency Radiation and Cancer: A Review,” by David Grimes, JAMA Onclology, December 9, 2021. Incomplete and inaccurate. Astonishing that this was published by an AMA journal. [More here]
“Health Safety Guidelines and 5G Wireless Radiation” by James Lin, IEEE Microwave Magazine, January 2022. “Some of the updated [IEEE and ICNIRP] safety recommendations are marginal, questionable, and lack scientific justification from the perspective of safety protection.”
“The Ecology of Electricity and Electroreception,” Biological Reviews, October 12, 2021. A major effort, 31 pages. Open access.
“Computational Modeling Investigation of Pulsed High Peak Power Microwaves and the Potential for Traumatic Brain Injury,” Science Advances, October 29, 2021. Open access. “For sufficiently high incident power densities, a single [1 GHz, 5 µs] pulse could potentially result in biologically meaningful pressures.”
“Effect of Radiation Emitted by Wireless Devices on Male Reproductive Hormones: A Systematic Review,” Frontiers in Physiology: Reproduction, September 24, 2021. Open access. “[A]voiding long-term and excessive use of mobile phone is advisable to reduce the detrimental effect of RF-EMR.”
“RF Exposure of the Yellow Fever Mosquito (A. aegypti) from 2 to 240 GHz,” PLoS Computational Biology, October 28, 2021. “For a given incident RF power, the absorption increases with increasing frequency between 2 and 90 GHz with a maximum between 90 and 240 GHz.” Open access.
“Mobile Phone Use and Time Trend of Brain Cancer Incidence Rate in Korea,” Bioelectromagnetics, September 20, 2021. Lots to chew over here.
Auditory Effects of Microwave Radiation, a new 348-page book by James Lin, published by Nature Springer. Lin, an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, is the editor-in-chief of Bioelectromagnetics. From 2004 to 2016, he was a member of ICNIRP.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Did New York Times Have an Inside Track?

Rats Developed Rare Heart TumorCancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible

GBM Rise Only in Frontal and Temporal Lobes

Verifying NTP Cancer Findings

An Expert on Exposure Assessment, He Never Gave Up

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

Pages

Microwave News Reading

Microwave News is...

Rats Developed Rare Heart Tumor
Cancer Link Was Once Thought Impossible