A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

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.

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Ignorance Drowns Out Precaution

NY Times Tech Columnist Has Hands Slapped

Friday, March 20, 2015

Last updated April 19, 2015

The New York Times went into damage control mode yesterday after Nick Bilton, a tech columnist and a rising star at the newspaper, suggested that precaution is the best approach to the use of cell phones and wearable electronics.

No sooner had Bilton’s column hit print than Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ Public Editor, chastised Bilton for his naive analysis. (It was posted on the Web a day earlier.) Sullivan targeted the lack of “sophisticated evaluation of serious research.”

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RF Cancer Promotion:
Animal Study Makes Waves

Germany’s Alex Lerchl Does a U-Turn

Friday, March 13, 2015

Last updated March 14, 2015

The RF–cancer story took a remarkable turn a few days ago. A new animal study challenged many of the assumptions which lie at the heart of claims that RF radiation —whether from cell phones, cell towers or Wi-Fi— are safe.

The new study, from Germany, a replication of an earlier experiment, also from Germany, found that weak cell phone signals can promote the growth of tumors in mice. It used radiation levels that do not cause heating and are well below current safety standards. Complicating matters even further, lower doses were often found to be more effective tumor promoters than higher levels; in effect, turning the conventional concept of a linear dose-response on its head.

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No Cancer Risk from Power Lines,
Says the New York Times

Big Score for Industry Scientists

Monday, December 1, 2014

Last updated March 20, 2015

”Still worried about power lines and cancer? That’s so retro, says the New York Times. You’re just stuck in the 1980’s.

This is what the “newspaper of record” wants you to know about the risk of childhood leukemia from power lines: A “fairly broad consensus among researchers holds that no significant threat to public health has materialized.”

The full message is told in a new 7+ minute video, produced by the Times’ RetroReport, which boasts a staff of 13 journalists and 10 contributors, led by Kyra Darnton. The video even credits a fact checker. What was missing is the common sense to do some digging when reporting on a controversial issue.

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CDC Calls for Caution on Cell Phones, Then Gets Cold Feet

First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Last updated January 1, 2016

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention —CDC— is the first U.S. health agency to call for precaution in the use of cell phones.

But not for long. As soon as word of the CDC’s new outlook spread, the precautionary advice was withdrawn. Our original story is below, followed by an August 20 addendum.

“Along with many organizations worldwide, we recommend caution in cell phone use,” the CDC stated on its Web site’s FAQ About Cell Phones and Your Health and followed up with a call for more research to answer the unresolved cancer question.

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Short Takes

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, it’s from a paper delivered more than 40 years ago by Moris Shore, the former director of the Division of...

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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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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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Hot new papers & articles

“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.
“NTP Toxicology and Carcinogenicity Studies of Cell Phone RF Radiation”; Michael Wyde’s PowerPoint presentation at the BioEM2016 meeting in Ghent, Belgium, June 8, 2016. Covers pathology, survival and genetic toxicology results.
“Mechanosensory Hairs in Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Detect Weak Electric Fields,” PNAS, posted online May 31, 2016. Open access.
“Synergism Between Sinusoidal 50 Hz Magnetic Field and Formaldehyde in Triggering Carcinogenic Effects in Male [SD] Rats,” American Journal of Industrial Medcine, posted online May 24, 2016. “Life-span exposure to MF and formaldehyde induces statistically significant carcinogenic effects in male rats.” From the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna. See also our detailed report on the same project.

A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

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

Skirts Freedom of Information Act

Ignorance Drowns Out Precaution

NY Times Tech Columnist Has Hands Slapped

RF Cancer Promotion:
Animal Study Makes Waves

Germany’s Alex Lerchl Does a U-Turn

No Cancer Risk from Power Lines,
Says the New York Times

Big Score for Industry Scientists

CDC Calls for Caution on Cell Phones, Then Gets Cold Feet

First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down

Pages

Short Takes

In Memoriam: Moris Shore

5G Waveforms in Dispute

Does Cockpit RF Disorient Pilots?

ICNIRP’s Principal Patron: Germany

ICNIRP Issues Revised RF Guidelines

NTP Scientists Endorse Precaution

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A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

News & Comment

Skirts Freedom of Information Act

NY Times Tech Columnist Has Hands Slapped

Germany’s Alex Lerchl Does a U-Turn

Big Score for Industry Scientists

First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down

Pages

Short Takes

Hot new papers & articles

Pages

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