By Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie
Things didn't end well between George Carlo and Tom Wheeler; the last time the two met face-to-face, Wheeler had security guards escort Carlo off the premises. As president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), Wheeler was the wireless industries point man in Washington. Carlo was the scientist handpicked by Wheeler to defuse a public-relations crisis that threatened to strangle his infant industry in its crib. This was back in 1993, when there were only six cell-phone subscriptions for every 100 adults in the United States. But industry executives were looking forward to a booming future.
Remarkably, cell phones had been allowed onto the US consumer market a decade earlier without any government safety testing. Now, some customers and industry workers were being diagnosed with cancer. In January 1993, David Reynard sued the NEC America Company, claiming that his wife's NEC phone caused her lethal brain tumor. After Reynard appeared on national TV, the story went viral. A congressional subcommittee announced an investigation; investors began dumping their cell-phone stocks; and Wheeler and the CTIA swung into action.
A week later, Wheeler announced that his industry would pay for a comprehensive research program. Cell phones were already safe, Wheeler told reporters; the new research would simply "re-validate the findings of the existing studies: 'George Carlo seemed like a good bet to fulfill Wheeler's mission. He was an epidemiologist who also had a law degree, and he'd conducted studies for other controversial industries. After a study funded by Dow Corning, Carlo had declared that breast implants posed only minimal health risks. With chemical-industry funding, he had concluded that low levels of dioxin, the chemical behind the Agent Orange scandal, were not dangerous. In 1995, Carlo began directing the industry financed Wireless Technology Research project (WTR), whose eventual budget of $28.5 million made it the best-funded investigation of cell-phone safety to date.
Outside critics soon came to suspect that Carlo would be the front man for an industry whitewash. They cited his dispute with Henry Lai, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, over a study that Lai had conducted examining whether cell-phone radiation could damage DNA. In 1999, Carlo and the WTs general counsel sent a letter to the university's president urging that Lai be fired for his alleged violation of research protocols. Lai accused the WTR of tampering with his experiment’s results. Both Carlo and Lai deny the other's accusations.
Critics also attacked what they regarded as the slow pace of WTR research. The WTR was merely "a confidence game" designed to placate the public but stall real research, according to Louis Slesin, editor of the trade publication Microwave News. "By dangling a huge amount of money in front of the cash starved [scientific] community,” Slesin argued, "Carlo guaranteed silent obedience. Anyone who dared complain risked being cut off from his millions.” Carlo denies the allegation.
Whatever Carlo’s motives might have been, the documented fact is that he and Wheeler would eventually clash bitterly over the WTR’s findings, which Carlo presented to wireless-industry leaders on February 9, 1999. By that date, the WTR had commissioned more than 50 original studies and reviewed many more. Those studies raised "serious questions" about cell phone safety, Carlo told a closed-door meeting of the CTIA's board of directors, whose members included the CEOs or top officials of the industry's 32 leading companies, including Apple, AT&T, and Motorola.
Carlo sent letters to each of the industry's chieftains on October 7, 1999, reiterating that the WTR’S research had found the following: "The risk of rare neuro-epithelial tumors on the outside of the brain was more than doubled...in cell phone users"; there was an apparent "correlation between brain tumors occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head"; and "the ability of radiation from a phone's antenna to cause functional genetic damage [was] definitely positive...."
Carlo urged the CEOs to do the right thing: give consumers "the information they need to make an informed judgment about how much of this unknown risk they wish to assume," especially since some in the industry had "repeatedly and falsely claimed that wireless phones are safe for all consumers including children."
The very next day, a livid Tom Wheeler began publicly trashing Carlo to the media In a letter he shared with the CEOs, Wheeler told Carlo that the CTIA was "certain that you have never provided CTIA with the studies you mention"-an apparent effort to shield the industry from liability in the lawsuits that had led to Carlo's hiring in the first place. Wheeler charged further that the studies had not been published in peer-reviewed journals, casting doubt on their validity.
Wheeler's tactics succeeded in dousing the controversy. Although Carlo had in fact repeatedly briefed Wheeler and other senior industry officials on the studies, which had indeed undergone peer review and would soon be published, reporters on the technology beat accepted Wheeler's discrediting of Carlo and the WTR's findings. (Wheeler would go on to chair the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the wireless industry. He agreed to an interview for this article but then put all of his remarks off the record, with one exception: his statement that he has always taken scientific guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration, which, he said, "has concluded, 'the weight of scientific evidence had not linked cell phones with any health problems:")
Why, after such acrimony, Carlo was allowed to make one last appearance before the CTIA board is a mystery. Whatever the reason, Carlo flew to New Orleans in February 2000 for the wireless industry's annual conference, where he submitted the WTR's final report to the CTIA board. According to Carlo, Wheeler made sure that none of the hundreds of journalists covering the event could get anywhere near him. When Carlo arrived, he was met by two seriously muscled men in plain clothes; the larger of the two let drop that he had recently left the Secret Service. The security men steered Carlo into a holding room, where they insisted he remain until his presentation. When summoned, Carlo found roughly 70 of the industry's top executives waiting for him in silence. Carlo had spoken a mere 10 minutes when Wheeler abruptly stood, extended a hand, and said, "Thank you, George:' The two muscle men then ushered the scientist to a curbside taxi and waited until it pulled away.
In the years to come, the WTR's cautionary findings would be replicated by numerous other scientists in the United States and around the world, leading the World Health Organization in 2011 to classifY cell-phone radiation as a "possible" human carcinogen and the governments of Great Britain, France, and Israel to issue strong warnings on cell-phone use by children. But as the taxi carried Carlo to Louis Armstrong International Airport, the scientist wondered whether his relationship with the industry might have turned out differently if cell phones had been safety-tested before being allowed onto the consumer market, before profit took precedence over science. But it was too late: Wheeler and his fellow executives had made it clear, Carlo told The Nation, that "they would do what they had to do to protect their industry, but they were not of a mind to protect consumers or public health."
This article does not argue that cell phones and other wireless technologies are necessarily dangerous; that is a matter for scientists to decide. Rather, the focus here is on the global industry behind cell phones-and the industry's long campaign to make people believe that cell phones are safe.
That campaign has plainly been a success: 95 out of every 100 adult Americans now own a cell phone; globally, three out of four adults have cell-phone access, with sales increasing every year. The wireless industry is now one of the fastest growing on Earth and one of the biggest, boasting annual sales of $440 billion in 2016.
Carlo's story underscores the need for caution, however, particularly since it evokes eerie parallels with two of the most notorious cases of corporate deception on record: the campaigns by the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries to obscure the dangers of smoking and climate change, respectively. Just as tobacco executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1960s) that smoking was deadly, and fossil-fuel executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1980s) that burning oil, gas, and coal would cause a "catastrophic" temperature rise, so Carlo's testimony reveals that wireless executives were privately told by their own scientists (in the 1990s) that cell phones could cause cancer and genetic damage.
Carlo's October 7, 1999, letters to wireless-industry CEOs are the smoking-gun equivalent of the November 12, 1982, memo that M.B. Glaser, Exxon's manager of environmental-affairs programs, sent to company executives explaining that burning oil, gas, and coal could raise global temperatures by a destabilizing 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. For the tobacco industry, Carlo's letters are akin to the 1969 proposal that a Brown & Williamson executive wrote for countering anti tobacco advocates. "Doubt is our product," the memo declared. "It is also the means of establishing a controversy...at the public level."
Like their tobacco and fossil-fuel brethren, wireless executives have chosen not to publicize what their own scientists have said about the risks of their products. On the contrary, the industry-in America, Europe, and Asia-has spent untold millions of dollars in the past 25 years proclaiming that science is on its side, that the critics are quacks, and that consumers have nothing to fear. This, even as the industry has worked behind the scenes-again like its Big Tobacco counterpart-to deliberately addict its customers. Just as cigarette companies added nicotine to hook smokers, so have wireless companies designed cell phones to deliver a jolt of dopamine with each swipe of the screen.
This The Nation investigation reveals that the wireless industry not only made the same moral choices that the tobacco and fossil fuel industries did; it also borrowed from the same public relations playbook those industries pioneered. The playbook's key insight is that an industry doesn't have to win the scientific argument about safety; it only has to keep the argument going. That amounts to a win for the industry, because the apparent lack of certainty helps to reassure customers, even as it fends off government regulations and lawsuits that might pinch profits.
Central to keeping the scientific argument going is making it appear that not all scientists agree. Again like the tobacco and fossil fuel industries, the wireless industry has "war gamed" science, as a Motorola internal memo in 1994 phrased it. War-gaming science involves playing offense as well as defense: funding studies friendly to the industry while attacking studies that raise questions; placing industry-friendly experts on advisory bodies like the World Health Organization; and seeking to discredit scientists whose views depart from the industry's.
Funding friendly research has perhaps been the most important component of this strategy, because it conveys the impression that the scientific community truly is divided. Thus, when studies have linked wireless radiation to cancer or genetic damage-as Carlo's WTR did in 1999; as the WHO's Interphone study did in 2010; and as the US National Toxicology Program did in 2016-industry spokespeople can point out, accurately, that other studies disagree. "[T]he overall balance of the evidence" gives no cause for alarm, asserted Jack Rowley, research and sustainability director for the Groupe Special Mobile Association (GSMA), Europe's wireless trade association, speaking to reporters about the WHO's findings.
A closer look reveals the industry's sleight of hand. When Henry Lai, the professor whom Carlo tried to get fired, analyzed 326 safety-related studies completed between 1990 and 2005, he learned that 56 percent found a biological effect from cell-phone radiation and 44 percent did not; the scientific community apparently was split. But when Lai recategorized the studies according to their funding sources, a different picture emerged: 67 percent of the independently funded studies found a biological effect, while a mere 28 percent of the industry-funded studies did. Lai's findings were replicated by 2007 analysis in Environmental Health Perspectives that concluded industry-funded studies were two and a half times less likely than independent studies to find a health effect.
One key player has not been swayed by all this wireless friendly research: the insurance industry. The Nation has not been able to find a single insurance company willing to sell a product-liability policy that covered cell-phone radiation. “Why would we want to do that?" one executive chuckled before pointing to more than two dozen lawsuits outstanding against wireless companies, demanding a total of $1.9 billion in damages. Some judges have affirmed such lawsuits, including a judge in Italy who refused to allow industry-funded research as evidence.
Even so, the industry's neutralizing of the safety issue has opened the door to the biggest, most hazardous prize of all: the proposed revolutionary transformation of society dubbed the "Internet of Things." Lauded as a gigantic engine of economic growth, the Internet of Things will not only connect people through their smartphones and computers but will connect those devices to a customer's vehicles and home appliances, even their baby's diapers-all at speeds faster than can currently be achieved.
There is a catch, though: The Internet of Things will require augmenting today's 4G technology with 5G, thus "massively increasing" the general population's exposure to radiation, according to a petition signed by 236 scientists worldwide who have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed studies and represent ''a significant portion of the credentialed scientists in the radiation research field," according to Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped circulate the petition. Nevertheless, like cell phones, 5G technology is on the verge of being introduced without pre-market safety testing.
Lack of definitive proof that a technology is harmful does not mean the technology is safe, yet the wireless industry has succeeded in selling this logical fallacy to the world. In truth, the safety of wireless technology has been an unsettled question since the industry's earliest days. The upshot is that, over the past 30 years, billions of people around the world have been subjected to a massive public-health experiment: Use a cell phone today, find out later if it causes cancer or genetic damage. Meanwhile, the wireless industry has obstructed a full and fair understanding of the current science, aided by government agencies that have prioritized commercial interests over human health and news organizations that have failed to inform the public about what the scientific community really thinks. In other words, this public-health experiment has been conducted without the informed consent of its subjects, even as the industry keeps its thumb on the scale.”The absence of absolute proof does not mean the absence of risk;' Annie Sasco, the former director of epidemiology for cancer prevention at France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research, told the attendees of the 2012 Childhood Cancer conference. "The younger one starts using cell phones, the higher the risk," Sasco continued, urging a public-education effort to inform parents, politicians, and the press about children's exceptional susceptibility.
For adults and children alike, the process by which wireless radiation may cause cancer remains uncertain, but it is thought to be indirect.Wireless radiation has been shown to damage the blood-brain barrier, a vital defense mechanism that shields the brain from carcinogenic chemicals elsewhere in the body (resulting, for example, from secondhand cigarette smoke). Wireless radiation has also been shown to interfere with DNA replication, a proven progenitor of cancer. In each of these cases, the risks are higher for children:Their skulls, being smaller, absorb more radiation than adults' skulls do, while children's longer life span increases their cumulative exposure.
The wireless industry has sought to downplay concerns about cell phones' safety, and the Federal Communications Commission has followed its example. In 1996, the FCC established cell-phone safety levels based on "specific absorption rate," or SAR Phones were required to have a SAR of l.6 watts or less per kilogram of body weight. In 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised the FCC that its guidelines "do not account for the unique vulnerability and use patterns specific to pregnant women and children:' Nevertheless, the FCC has declined to update its standards.
The FCC has granted the industry's wishes so often that it qualifies as a "captured agency," argued journalist Norm Alster in a report that Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics published in 2015. The FCC allows cell-phone manufacturers to self-report SAR levels, and does not independently test industry claims or require manufacturers to display the SAR level on a phone's packaging. “Industry controls the FCC through a soup-to-nuts stranglehold that extends from its well-placed campaign spending in Congress through its control of the FCC's congressional oversight committees to its persistent agency lobbying," Alster wrote. He also quoted the CTIA website praising the FCC for "its light regulatory touch."
The revolving-door syndrome that characterizes so many industries and federal agencies reinforces the close relationship between the wireless industry and the FCC. Just as Tom Wheeler went from running the CTIA (1992- 2004) to chairing the FCC (2013-2017), Meredith Atwell Baker went from FCC commissioner (2009-2011) to the presidency of the CTIA (2014 through today). To ensure its access on Capitol Hill, the wireless industry made $26 million in campaign contributions in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and spent $87 million on lobbying in 2017.
Neutralizing the safety issue has been an ongoing imperative because the research keeps coming, much of it from outside the United States. But the industry’s European and Asian branches have, like their US counterpart, zealously war gamed the science, spun the news coverage, and thereby warped the public perception of their products' safety.
The WHO began to study the health effects of electric- and magnetic-field radiation (EMF) in 1996 under the direction of Michael Repacholi, an Australian biophysicist. Although Repacholi claimed on disclosure forms that he was "independent" of corporate influence, in fact Motorola had funded his research: While Repacholi was director of the WHO's EMF program, Motorola paid $50,000 a year to his former employer, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which then transferred the money to the WHO program. When journalists exposed the payments, Repacholi denied that there was anything untoward about them because Motorola had not paid him personally. Eventually, Motorola's payments were bundled with other industry contributions and funneled through the Mobile and Wireless Forum, a trade association that gave the WHO's program $150,000 annually. In 1999, Repacholi helped engineer a WHO statement that "EMF exposures below the limits recommended in international guidelines do not appear to have any known consequence on health."
Two wireless trade associations contributed $4.7 million to the Interphone study launched by the WHO's International Agency for Cancer Research in 2000. That $4.7 million represented 20 percent of the $24 million budget for the Interphone study, which convened 21scientists from 13 countries to explore possible links between cell phones and two common types of brain tumor:glioma and meningioma The money was channeled through a "firewall" mechanism intended to prevent corporate influence on the IACR's findings, but whether such firewalls work is debatable. "Industry sponsors know [which scientists] receive funding; sponsored scientists know who provides funding," Dariusz Leszczynski, an adjunct professor of biochemistry at the University of Helsinki, has explained.
To be sure, the industry could not have been pleased with some of the Interphone study's conclusions. The study found that the heaviest cell-phone users were 80 percent more likely to develop glioma (The initial finding of 40 percent was increased to 80 to correct for selection bias.) The Interphone study also concluded that individuals who had owned a cell phone for 10 years or longer saw their risk of glioma increase by nearly 120 percent. However, the study did not find any increased risk for individuals who used their cell phones less frequently; nor was there evidence of any connection with meningioma.
When the Interphone conclusions were released in 2010, industry spokespeople blunted their impact by deploying what experts on lying call "creative truth-telling." "Interphone's conclusion of no overall increased risk of brain cancer is consistent with conclusions reached in an already large body of scientific research on this subject," John Walls, the vice president for public affairs at the CTIA, told reporters. The wiggle word here is "overall": Since some of the Interphone studies did not find increased brain-cancer rates, stipulating "overall" allowed Walls to ignore those that did. The misleading spin confused enough news organizations that their coverage of the Interphone study was essentially reassuring to the industry's customers. The Wall Street Journal announced "Cell Phone Study Sends Fuzzy Signal on Cancer Risk," while the BBC's headline declared: "No Proof of Mobile Cancer Risk."
The industry's $4.7 million contribution to the WHO appears to have had its most telling effect in May 2011, when the WHO convened scientists in Lyon, France, to discuss how to classify the cancer risk posed by cell phones. The industry not only secured "observer" status at Lyon for three of its trade associations; it placed two industry-funded experts on the working group that would debate the classification, as well as additional experts among the "invited specialists" who advised the group. Niels Kuster, a Swiss engineer, initially filed a conflict-of interest statement affirming only that his research group had taken money from "various governments, scientific institutions and corporations." But after Kuster co-authored a summary of the WHO's findings in The Lancet Oncology, the medical journal issued a correction expanding on Kuster's conflict-of-interest statement, noting payments from the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Sony, GSMA, and Deutsche Telekom. Nevertheless, Kuster participated in the entire 10 days of deliberations.
The industry also mounted a campaign to discredit Lennart Hardell, a Swedish professor of oncology serving on the working group. Ha rdell's studies, which found an increase in gliomas and acoustic neuromas in long-term cell-phone users, were some of the strongest evidence that the group was considering.
Hardell had already attracted the industry's displeasure back in 2002, when he began arguing that children shouldn't use cell phones. Two scientists with industry ties quickly published a report with the Swedish Radiation Authority dismissing Hardell's research. His detractors were John D. Boice and Joseph K. McLaughlin of the International Epidemiology Institute, a company that provided "Litigation Support" and "Corporate Counseling" to various industries, according to its website. Indeed, at the very time Boice and McLaughlin were denigrating Hardell's work, the institute was providing expert witness services to Motorola in a brain-tumor lawsuit against the company.
The wireless industry didn't get the outcome that it wanted at Lyon, but it did limit the damage. A number of the working group's scientists had favored increasing the classification of cell phones to Category 2A, a "probable" carcinogen; but in the end, the group could only agree on an increase to 2B, a "possible" carcinogen. That result enabled the industry to continue proclaiming that there was no scientifically established proof that cell phones are dangerous. Jack Rowley of the GSMA trade association said that "interpretation should be based on the overall balance of the evidence." Once again, the slippery word "overall" downplayed the significance of scientific research that the industry didn't like.Industry-funded scientists had been pressuring their colleagues for a decade by then, according to Leszczynski, another member of the Lyon working group. Leszczynski was an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School when he first experienced such pressure, in 1999. He had wanted to investigate the effects of radiation levels higher than the SAR levels permitted by government, hypothesizing that this might better conform to real-world practices. But when he proposed the idea at scientific meetings, Leszczynski said, it was shouted down by Mays Swicord, Joe Elder, and C.K. Chou-scientists who worked for Motorola As Leszczynski recalled, "It was a normal occurrence at scientific meetings-and I attended really a lot of them-that whenever [a] scientist reported biological effects at SAR over [government-approved levels], the above mentioned industry scientists, singularly or as a group, jumped up to the microphone to condemn and to discredit the results."
Years later, a study that Leszczynski described as a "game changer" discovered that even phones meeting government standards, which in Europe were a SAR of 2.0 watts per kilogram, could deliver exponentially higher peak radiation levels to certain skin and blood cells. (SAR levels reached a staggering 40 watts per kilogram-20 times higher than officially permitted.) In other words, the official safety levels industry-funded scientists obstructed research on the health impacts.
"Everyone knows that if your research results show that radiation has effects. the funding flow dries up." Leszczynski said in an interview in 2011. Sure enough, the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland. where Leszczynski had a long career. discontinued research on the biological effects of cell phones and discharged him a year later.
According to scientists involved in the process, the WHO may decide later this year to reconsider its categorization of the cancer risk posed by cell phones; the WHO itself told The Nation that before making any such decision, it will review the final report of the National Toxicology Program, a US government initiative. The results reported by the NTP in 2016 seem to strengthen the case for increasing the assessment of cell-phone radiation to a "probable" or even a "known" carcinogen. Whereas the WHO's Interphone study compared the cell-phone usage of people who had contracted cancer with that of people who hadn't, the NTP study exposed rats and mice to cell-phone radiation and observed whether the animals got sick.
"There is a carcinogenic effect," announced Ron Melnick, the designer of the study. Male rats exposed to cell-phone radiation developed cancer at a substantially higher rate, though the same effect was not seen in female rats. Rats exposed to radiation also had lower birth rates, higher infant mortality, and more heart problems than those in the control group. The cancer effect occurred in only a small percentage of the rats, but that small percentage could translate into a massive amount of human cancers. "Given the extremely large number of people who use wireless communications devices, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease...could have broad implications for public health," the NTP's draft report explained.
But this was not the message that media coverage of the NTP study conveyed, as the industry blanketed reporters with its usual "more research is needed'' spin. “Seriously, stop with the irresponsible reporting on cell phones and cancer," demanded a Vox headline. "Don't Believe the Hype," urged The Washington Post. Newsweek, for its part, stated the NTP's findings in a single paragraph, then devoted the rest of the article to an argument for why they should be ignored.
The NTP study was to be peer-reviewed at a meeting on March 26-28, amid signs that the program's leadership is pivoting to downplay its findings. The NTP had issued a public-health warning when the study's early results were released in 2016. But when the NTP released essentially the same data in February 2018, John Bucher, the senior scientist who directed the study, announced in a telephone press conference that "I don't think this is a high-risk situation at all," partly because the study had exposed the rats and mice to higher levels of radiation than a typical cell-phone user experienced.
Microwave News's Slesin speculated on potential explanations for the NTP's apparent backtracking: new leadership within the program, where a former drug-company executive, Brian Berridge, now runs the day-to-day operations; pressure from business-friendly Republicans on Capitol Hill and from the US military, whose weapons systems rely on wireless radiation; and the anti-science ideology of the Trump White House. The question now: Will the scientists doing the peer review endorse the NTP's newly ambivalent perspective, or challenge it? Technologies in general can cause cancer and genetic damage is not definitive, but it is abundant and has been increasing over time. Contrary to the impression that most news coverage has given the public, 90 percent of the 200 existing studies included in the National Institutes of Health's PubMed database on the oxidative effects of wireless radiation -its tendency to cause cells to shed electrons, which can lead to cancer and other diseases-have found a significant impact, according to a survey of the scientific literature conducted by Henry Lai. Seventy-two percent of neurological studies and 64 percent of DNA studies have also found effects.
The wireless industry's determination to bring about the Internet of Things, despite the massive increase in radiation exposure this would unleash, raises the stakes exponentially. Because SG radiation can only travel short distances, antennas roughly the size of a pizza box will have to be installed approximately every 250 feet to ensure connectivity. "Industry is going to need hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of new antenna sites in the United States alone," said Moskowitz, the UC Berkeley researcher. "So people will be bathed in a smog of radiation 24/7:'
There is an alternative approach, rooted in what some scientists and ethicists call the "precautionary principle;• which holds that society doesn't need absolute proof of hazard to place limits on a given technology. If the evidence is sufficiently solid and the risks sufficiently great, the precautionary principle calls for delaying the deployment of that technology until further research clarifies its impacts. The scientists' petition discussed earlier urges government regulators to apply the precautionary principle to SG technology. Current safety guidelines "protect industry-not health," contends the petition, which "recommend[s] a moratorium on the roll-out of [5G]...until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry."
No scientist can say with certainty how many wireless technology users are likely to contract cancer, but that is precisely the point: We simply don't know. Nevertheless, we are proceeding as if we do know the risk, and that the risk is vanishingly small. Meanwhile, more and more people around the world, including countless children and adolescents, are getting addicted to cell phones every day, and the shift to radiation-heavy 5G technology is regarded as a fait accompli.
Which is just how Big Wireless likes it.
More on recent studies finding RFR cancer links:
Statement on Radiofrequency from the FDA:
As part of our work to assess this important public health and consumer safety issue, the FDA has reviewed many sources of scientific and medical evidence related to the possibility of adverse health effects from radiofrequency energy exposure in both humans and animals and will continue to do so as new scientific data are published. We have reviewed the 2016 interim NTP results and are currently reviewing the full set of data from the NTP draft final report. The FDA will work quickly to thoroughly review the data and consider any impact of this work within the context of the full body of scientific evidence on this exposure.
In the meantime, I want to underscore that based on our ongoing evaluation of this issue and taking into account all available scientific evidence we have received, we have not found sufficient evidence that there are adverse health effects in humans caused by exposures at or under the current radiofrequency energy exposure limits. Even with frequent daily use by the vast majority of adults, we have not seen an increase in events like brain tumors. Based on this current information, we believe the current safety limits for cell phones are acceptable for protecting the public health.https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm595144.htm
"Clear Evidence of Cancer" Concludes U.S. National Toxicology Program Expert Panel on Cell Phone RadiationScientific panel advises there is evidence for an association between both heart and brain cancers and cell phone radiation in large-scale animal studyhttp://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/clear-evidence-of-cancer-concludes-us-national-toxicology-program-expert-panel-on-cell-phone-radiation-957534.htmTriangle Park, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/30/2018 -- Scientists concluded there is "clear evidence" linking cell phone radiation to the development of cancers in rats. The U.S. government invited an expert panel to make a majority-rules declaration in response to the $25 million U.S. government National Toxicology Program (NTP) study of cell phone radiation in animals. After a three-day review of the study data, they voted to strengthen the conclusions that cell phone radiation caused health effects in the cell phone radiation exposed rats and mice. This week Scientific American and The Nation both ran stories on the topic along with The News and Observer entitling their piece, "Can your cellphone cause cancer? Scientists find definitive link in study of rats."
The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences released a statement on the conclusions of the panel for each endpoint found here:
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/about_ntp/trpanel/2018/march/actions_508.pdf.
The peer review panel voted that the malignant schwannoma tumors found in the heart of male rats be scientifically categorized as "clear evidence of carcinogenicity" and that the malignant gliomas found in the brain of male rats be categorized as "some evidence of carcinogenicity." In addition, they voted that the increased tumors of the adrenal medulla in male rats exposed to the GSM type of cell phone radiation be categorized as "some evidence of carcinogenicity," adding a new type of tumor thought to be caused by the exposure. The expert panel advised strengthening the conclusions regarding seven different health effects. The panel called attention to statistically significant increases in an unusual pattern of cardiomyopathy, or damage to heart tissue, in exposed male and female rats. The panel highlighted that in Italy a recent animal study on radiofrequency radiation at much lower radiation levels than the NTP study found the same types of rare malignancies.
In addition to the heart and brain cancers, statistically significant increased numbers of tumors were found in other organs at one or more of the exposure levels studied, including the prostate gland, pituitary gland, adrenal gland, liver, and pancreas.
"What should happen now is the FDA should be immediately working on developing a quantitative risk assessment from this data and in the meantime the FDA, FCC and other agencies should promote precautionary measures for the population—especially for children," said Ronald Melnick PhD, who lead the design of the NTP study in his 28-year career as a scientist at the National Toxicology Program. Melnick is currently senior advisor to Environmental Health Trust(EHT).
"Enough is enough, how many more deaths would be needed before serious action is taken? Evidence just continues to accumulate. On March 28, 2018, the external peer reviewers of the National Toxicology Program voted to increase the level of evidence for the causal role of radiofrequency radiation for several tumors and other negative health effects. It's time for action," commented Annie Sasco MD, DrPH, former Chief of Research Unit of Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention at the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization and medical advisor to EHT.
"The NTP study found far more than evidence of cancer. Animals exposed in their lifetimes to the same amount of radiation that a human can receive in theirs gave birth to smaller babies with more defects in their hearts. What also makes these results especially compelling is the fact that all well-designed studies of people with 10 or more years of exposures to cell phones find higher risks for comparable tumors—gliomas and acoustic neuromas. Yet exposures continue to increase every day in schools and homes throughout this nation as children are handed two-way microwave radiating devices to use next to their young developing bodies," stated Devra Davis PhD, MPH, Visiting Professor of Medicine at Hebrew University and President of Environmental Health Trust, who added, "the Ramazzini Study published this week in Environmental Research found statistically significant increases of the same rare cancers as found in the National Toxicology Program study, but at radiation levels significantly lower than those of the NTP. Combined, these two studies strengthen the case that this radiation is a carcinogen. Cautionary action is urgently reduce exposures for children and the rest of us. As the chairman of our Business Advisory Group Frank Clegg, former President of Microsoft Canada, has advised: 'I come from a smart industry. Tell us what we need to do and we will get it done.'"
"This animal evidence, together with the extensive human evidence, coupled with the rising incidence of brain cancers in young people in the U.S., conclusively confirms that radiofrequency radiation is a Category 1 human carcinogen," explains Anthony Miller MD, University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health Professor Emeritus, medical advisor to EHT, who has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization.
"The peer reviewers reviewed the tumor data in a transparent scientific process. This landmark U.S. government study, in addition to the recently released Italian Ramazzini study, provides the scientific evidence governments needs to take swift action to protect the public," said Theodora Scarato, Executive Director of EHT who added, "The rollout of 5G small cells must be halted. Schools need to install wired internet networks. Communities should have maintained landlines. Solutions exist such as ethernet and fiber optic networks. Public Health Departments need to initiate public awareness campaigns to educate the public on how to reduce exposure. People need to understand just how easy it is to use safe wired technologies, especially at home. Employers need to prioritize this issue and make changes in the workplace to limit and minimize workplace exposures. We have a responsibility to future generations to take action on this issue now."
NEWS STORIESNew Studies Link Cell Phone Radiation with Cancer, Scientific American March 29, 2018:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/major-cell-phone-radiation-study-reignites-cancer-questions/
Can cellphones really cause cancer?, PITTSBURGH (KDKA):
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/03/29/can-cellphones-cause-cancer/
"Can your cellphone cause cancer? Scientists find definitive link in study of rats" The News and Observer March 28, 2018:http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/health-care/article207112454.html
The Nation: How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation: The disinformation campaign—and massive radiation increase—behind the 5G rollout. By Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie, The Nation, March 29, 2018:
https://www.thenation.com/article/how-big-wireless-made-us-think-that-cell-phones-are-safe-a-special-investigation/
Advocates for Tougher RFR Standards Welcome Expert Views, Paul Kirby, Senior Editor, TRDaily
About Environmental Health TrustEnvironmental Health Trust (EHT) educates individuals, health professionals and communities about controllable environmental health risks and policy changes needed to reduce those risks. Currently EHT is raising health concerns about cell phones and wireless in schools and recommends practical steps to reduce exposures. The Environmental Health Trust maintains a regularly updated database of worldwide precautionary policies on cell phone radiation and health. The foundation's website is the go-to place for clear, science-based information to prevent disease.
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This study was done by a lab that usually produces good studies.
The study is important for a few reasons:
(1) It was done without modulation and pulsation, just carrier wave & no communication waves therefore one of the significant deleterious health related symptom mechanisms is left out probably because of the industry dosimetry argument to prevent study from being thrown out see Panagopoulos et al:
https://rfsiteevaluations.weebly.com/blog/new-information-indicates-there-is-prevalent-misinformation-on-the-fact-that-it-is-really-the-new-avenue-of-information-that-is-first-making-us-stupid-and-may-soon-actually-kill-us also see “Regarding Point 1” below this list nevertheless harm was found (see more below).
(2) It was done on male rats through their adolescence - To the best of my knowledge it is the only study that has been done on the adolescence period.
(3) It strengthens the other 93 studies that show non-thermal levels of RF radiation cause oxidative stress (see “Regarding Point 3” below showing an older discovery dated back to 1975).
Regarding Point 1 that it was done without modulation or pulsation:
It is important that the oxidative stress harm was created from just the carrier wave, when there was no modulation or pulsation. Other studies show that the modulation and pulsation are a major contributor to creating adverse health effects and less harm seems to be found when it is just the carrier wave that is being tested.
Alan Frey's study from 1975 "Neural Function and Behavior: Defining the Relationship” — the same study that showed that the blood-brain barrier can be breached by exposure to non-thermal levels of RF — also showed that more neurological effects occurred when the mice were exposed to the modulated signal than to just the carrier wave.
This result of more effects from modulation than from the carrier wave is consistent. A paper that discusses this issue is Panagopoulos et al (2015) - "Real versus Simulated Mobile Phone Exposures in Experimental Studies."
According to the paper, "While experimental studies employing simulated EMF-emissions present a strong inconsistency among their results with less than 50% of them reporting effects, studies employing real mobile phone exposures (i.e. modulated signal D.T.) demonstrate an almost 100% consistency in showing adverse effects."
It seems that the wireless industry also noticed the phenomenon that modulation is causing more effects. As a result, industry studies are usually done with just carrier wave and without modulation or pulsation. Furthermore, likely as a result from industry's pressure, some international agencies refuse to consider studies which were done with real signal (i.e. - signal that also contains the modulation). For example, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer when deciding on the classification of RF radiation excluded from consideration experimental studies that used commercially available mobile phones.
The rationale for excluding studies with modulation is that real mobile phones include variations in their emissions, including variations due to modulation. Allegedly, these variations would make it impossible to reliably repeat a study in order to confirm or disprove it. Clearly this is not the real reason.
So the fact that this study was done just with carrier wave (without modulation or pulsation) will ensure that it will not be rejected, as it did not use real modulated signal.
Regarding Point 3 that it strengthens 93 other studies:
This new study strengthens the 93(!) other studies that prove non-thermal levels of RF radiation cause oxidative stress. The meta analysis paper - Yakymenko (2015) -Oxidative Mechanisms of Biological Activity of Low-Intensity Radiofrequency Radiation showed that 93 out of 100 studies found that non-thermal levels of RF radiation cause oxidative stress. The paper is attached.
This excellent paper is important as it contradicts the two main industry claims:
(1) It contradicts the industry claim that an overwhelming majority of studies show no effects. Clearly the industry did not count all the studies and nor did we. But we can count studies of various specific areas of study/harm and see which side has the "overwhelming majority." I will qualify though by saying that in science a "majority" of studies should not be what indicates proof of harm. Clearly the overwhelming majority of studies on oxidative stress show harm (93/100).
It is important to note that to prove harm we do not need to show overwhelming majority in every area. If there is sufficient evidence in one area, it should be sufficient to say without hesitation that at least this harm is proven — thereby disproving the industry and the FCC's stance. If there is proof of oxidative stress damage — and clearly there is more than enough of that proof — then it is proven that non-thermal levels of RF Radiation can cause harm.
(2) More importantly, this paper contradicts the industry's claim that there is no mechanism by which non-thermal levels of RF can cause harm and if there is no mechanism then there is no proof of harm. This is important as the industry has succeeded in convincing various decision makers and courts that lack of an established mechanism is a good reason to reject the existence of harm.
Dafna Tachover (a healthy RFR standards activist) attending an industry conference about Smart Cities spoke to a guy who works for the General Accountability Office ("GAO") of Congress (the GAO wrote the 2012 report that called upon the FCC to update its guidelines). She asked why they are not taking more acute action on this topic; he answered, "because there is no proven mechanism of harm."
Not only is it a false contention that we need a mechanism to prove harm — as mechanisms are unknown for many diseases yet we accept those diseases exist (one simple example is Migraines) — a mechanism does exist, as Oxidative Stress is a well established mechanism.