Smartphones, Wi-Fi routers and mobile phone masts – what impact do they have on your health?
Institute of Civil Affairs (Łódź, Poland), No. 281 / (20) 2025,
From Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, we are talking about the impact of electrosmog on our lives, the latest scientific research and government limits on electromagnetic radiation that are not safe.
Rafał Górski, Maksymilian Fojtuch: Let’s start our conversation with two photos. The first one depicts a building belonging to the District Thermal Energy Company in Gdynia, which leases its roof surface to mobile network operators. As you can see, two masts have been erected, which are located about 15 meters from a five-storey residential building from prefabricated concrete blocks. 100 meters behind the heating plant there is a large complex of school buildings.
The second photo was taken in the more rural district of Gdynia, in northern Poland. It presents a high mast located in the Remiza of the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Vistula in Gdynia.
What health problems will occur in residents and students exposed to this near source of electromagnetic radiation, commonly known as electrosmog?
Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz: Since 2013, I have been running the Saferemr.com website, which provides a selection of links to scientific articles about the health risks associated with mobile and wireless phones, mobile phone masts, Wi-Fi routers, smart meters, electric and hybrid cars, and various wireless devices.
Scientific research reviews on the health effects of mobile phone masts (e.g. “Biological effects from exposure electromagnetic to radiation emitted by cell tower base and other antenna arrays” and “Evidence for a health risk by RF on human living around mobile phone base stations: From radiofrequency sickness to cancer” showed headaches, skin rashes, sleep disorders, depression, decreased libido, increased rates of suicide, dizziness, memory changes, increased cancer risk.
How does electromagnetic radiation affect children and students aged 6-15 years in terms of their physical and mental health?
There is evidence that electromagnetic radiation can have a negative impact on cognitive development in children.
Children with higher exposure to telecommunications masts had shorter sleep, deteriorated motor skills, difficulty concentrating, deteriorated hand-eye coordination skills [hand-eye coordination is the ability to precisely synchronize hand movements with what the eye sees], and other health effects. On my website you can find a summary of these seven studies.
Does the distance from the cell phone base stations play a significant role in radiation?
Yes, the power density of the signal from the cell phone mast decreases rapidly with the distance from the mast due to the inverse square law. However, mobile phone users are likely to be exposed to greater radiation from their mobile phones if the signal strength from the nearest base station is poor, such as due to a long distance or terrain obstacles. This is because your mobile phone increases the power of the broadcast to keep the mast connected. As a result, the phone emits stronger electromagnetic radiation to level the weak signal.
The researchers recommend the location of cell phone base stations at a minimum distance of 500 meters from where people work, live or engage in physical activity in the open air.
What advice can you give to a person living within 100 m, 200 m and 300 m from such objects?
Monitor the biological effects of radiation. Consider changing your place of residence or shielding the apartment. Reduce the exposure of radiation from wireless devices, including Wi-Fi routers and mobile phones.
I asked artificial “intelligence” how many wireless devices are produced in the world. I received a reply that, according to various sources, in 2023, about 40-50 million smartphones were produced per month, which translates to about 1.3-1.6 million smartphones per day. In addition to this, there are tablets, laptops, wireless headphones, smartwatches, routers, mobile phone masts. In total, the production of wireless devices can reach several million units per day.
What impact does using these devices have on the health of children?
Wireless technology has an enormously detrimental impact on our children’s health. Numerous studies have shown that the physical and mental health of children and adolescents is adversely affected by the long time spent with the smartphone screen, as well as the exposure of the mobile phone user to the adverse effects of electromagnetic field radiation, associated with use of this addictive technology. As children are much more vulnerable, access to this technology should be very limited.
What are the three most important scientific studies indicating that electrosmog has a negative impact on health?
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) in the U.S. has published a multi-year study that has spent $30 million to taxpayers, which found “clear evidence” that cell phone radiation causes heart cancer and “certain evidence” that it causes brain cancer in male rats and DNA damage in male and female mice and rats.
The Ramazzini Institute in Italy reiterated its findings on cancer by using significantly less exposure to cell phone radiation.
It is difficult to choose the three most important scientific studies, talking about the negative impact of electrosmog on our health, because the results of thousands of tests are to be chosen. Please refer to my list of the most important studies that focus on the risk of cancer, the impact on reproductive health and electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
An excellent review of the biological and health risks of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) can be found in the landmark publication of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields. “Scientific evidence invalidates the health assumptions underlying the FCC and ICNIRP’s exposure limits on radiofrequency exposure limits: effects on 5G.”
It is worth quoting his summary here: “In the late 1990s. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) have adopted limits on exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) to protect society and workers from the negative effects of RFR. These limits were based on behavioral research conducted in the 1980s which included exposures ranging from 40 to 60 minutes in five monkeys and eight rats followed by arbitrary safety factors with respect to the observed level of energy absorption rate (SAR) of 4 W/kg). (SAR determines the amount of energy that the phone emits when connecting tiny antennas that are mounted in it, with mobile phone masts).
The limits were also based on two main assumptions: all biological effects were due to excessive tissue heating and no effects would occur below the assumed SAR threshold, as well as on twelve assumptions that were not determined by the FCC or by ICNIRP. In this article, we show how research conducted over the past 25 years on RFR shows that the underlying assumptions of the FCC and ICNIRP exposure limits are inappropriate and still pose a threat to public health. The negative effects observed at exposures below the SAR threshold include production of reactive oxygen species, DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, carcinogenicity, sperm damage, and neurological effects, including electromagnetic hypersensitivity. In addition, numerous human studies have shown statistically significant links between exposure to RFR and an increased risk of brain and thyroid cancers. Still, in 2020, in light of the evidence presented in this article, the FCC and ICNIRP reaffirmed the same limits that were set in the 1990s. Therefore, these exposure limits, based on false assumptions, do not adequately protect workers, children, hypersensitive people and the general public for short-term or long-term exposure to RFR.
Therefore, exposure limits to protecting human health and the environment are urgently needed.
These limits must be based on scientific evidence, not on erroneous assumptions, particularly in the face of increasing exposure of people and the environment to RFR, including new forms of radiation from 5G telecommunications, for which there are no adequate health-effect studies.”
- Who are you? What happened that you were interested in the impact of electrosmog on human health? Why would Polish women and Poles trust you?
I became interested in this area by accident. Over the past forty years, most of my research has focused on the prevention of tobacco-related diseases.
I first became interested in cell phone radiation in 2008 when Dr. Seung-Kwon Myung, a scientist and doctor at the National Cancer Center in South Korea, came to the Center for Family and Public Health, a research center I lead from the University of California, Berkeley. He participated in our research on smoking cessation and we worked with him and his team of colleagues on two reviews of the scientific literature, one of which concerned the risk of cancer caused by cell phone use.
I was skeptical at the time whether cell phone radiation could be harmful. However, since I doubted that cell phone radiation could cause cancer, I delved into the literature on the biological effects of low-intensity radiation emitted by mobile phones and other wireless devices.
Our 2009 review, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that intensive cell phone use was associated with an increased incidence of brain cancer, particularly in studies that used advanced quantitative methods with no research funding from the telecommunications industry.
After reading a number of toxicological studies on animals that have shown that this radiation can increase oxidative stress — free radicals, stress proteins, and DNA damage — I was increasingly convinced that what we found in our human research reviews was indeed a real threat.
In 2020, we updated our review published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health based on a meta-analysis of the results of 46 case-control studies – twice as many studies as in our 2009 study – and we received similar conclusions. Our core summary of this review is the following conclusion: about 1,000 hours or more of using your mobile phone for life or about 17 minutes a day for 10 years is associated with a statistically significant 60% increase in brain cancer risk. Since 2016, six other meta-analyses have led to similar conclusions, including a review of the results of the 2024 study.
What is ICNIRP and what do you think about the article. “Self-referencing authorships behind the ICNIRP 2020 radiation protection guidelines” published in the journal “Reviews on Environmental Health”?
ICNIRP is a non-governmental organization based in Germany that promotes telecommunications-friendly limits on non-ionizing radiation exposure (NIR).
The self-selected members and advisors of ICNIRP believe that their guidelines must protect people only from the temperature (thermal) effects resulting from acute exposure to NIR. Researchers at ICNIRP argue that thousands of peer-reviewed studies found harmful biological or health effects of chronic exposure to non-thermal NIR levels are insufficient to warrant more stringent safety guidelines. NIR covers RFRs used in wireless communication devices, excluding the frequency of power lines.
In 2019, investigative journalists from eight European countries published 22 articles in major newspapers and magazines that exposed conflicts of interest in ICNIRP.
Recently, Dr. James Lin, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering, bioengineering, and physiology and biophysics, as well as former ICNIRP commissioner, accused ICNIRP of “groupthink”—a psychological phenomenon that occurs when the group prioritizes harmony over critical thinking, which can lead to irrational or dangerous decisions.
The article, which you ask, by Nordhagen and Flydal, exposes this contemporary “Village from the Land of Oz” as a fraudster – moving in the midst of smoke and mirrors. Authors come to the following conclusions:
“The ICNIRP 2020 guidelines do not meet the fundamental scientific quality requirements and are therefore not suitable to be taken as a basis for setting limits on radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation exposure (RF EMF) to protect human health. Focusing on the thermal effect on tissues, ICNIRP is at odds with most of the research results and therefore needs to be supplemented by a solid scientific basis. Our analysis shows that, in fact, the case is the opposite of that in ICNIRP 2020, so these guidelines cannot form the basis for the relevant recommendations.”
Nordhagen and Flydal have revealed how ICNIRP is biased to evaluate its reviews of specialized literature to justify its liberal RF-EMF exposure guidelines:
“Our analysis showed that ICNIRP 2020 itself (and thus also the entire auxiliary literature) comes from a monogenic network of co-authors, the core of which is only 17 researchers, most of whom are associated with ICNIRP and/or IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (a global organization promoting development and implementation of electronic technologies). Moreover, the literature reviews submitted by ICNIRP 2020 as originating from independent committees are in fact the product of the same informal network of cooperating authors who are also members of these institutions. This exposes the fact that the ICNIRP 2020 Guidelines do not meet the fundamental scientific quality requirements and are therefore not adequate to adopt them as a basis for setting limits on exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RF EMF) to protect human health.”
Unlike ICNIRP, more than 260 scientists from 45 countries who have published peer-reviewed NIR and Biology or Health Studies, covering a total of more than 2,000 scientific papers, have signed an international appeal of researchers to protect against exposure to non-ionizing electromagnetic fields.
The petition calls on the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations and all member states to adopt much stricter guidelines on exposure to NIRs that protect humans and other species from nonthermal levels of non-ionizing radiation, and to issue health warnings about the risk of exposure to the above-mentioned radiation.
On January 1, 2021, the Polish government raised the limits of the radiation of the society to electromagnetic radiation 100 times. The permissible level of exposure to the electromagnetic field was 0.1 W/m2 (watt per square metre) for the frequencies used in cellular networks. After the change, the limit was increased to 10 W/m2. At the same time, the government launched SI2PEM, i.e. the Information System on Installations that produce ElectroMagnetic Radiation. It is a public database containing information about the electromagnetic field in the environment, conducted by the Minister of Digital Affairs. “Thanks to the system, every citizen will gain access to information, where the base station is located, to whom it belongs, when it has undergone all the necessary measurements and certifications, and what their results were.”
Please comment.
As I mentioned, more than 260 scientists in electromagnetic fields believe that this exposure limit is insufficient to protect the health of humans and other species. In 2021, the same scientists commissioned The International Commission On The Biological Effects Of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF). Its position, based on an objective assessment of scientific research, calls for the implementation of much stricter exposure limits to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields.
Why does electromagnetic hypersensitivity develop in some people and not in others?
Everyone is sensitive to electromagnetic fields because our cells operate on the basis of bioelectricity.
Some of us may be more sensitive to electromagnetic fields, depending on our biology (or genetic structure) and our cumulative exposure to biological toxins and toxic chemicals.
According to “Physician’s Weekly,” “Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), known in the past as a “environmental syndrome,” is a clinical syndrome characterized by a broad spectrum of non-specific multi-organ symptoms, typically involving central nervous system symptoms that occur as a result of an acute or chronic patient exposure to the effects of electromagnetic fields in the environment or at the workplace. Repeated exposure causes sensitization and, consequently, strengthening the reaction. Many hypersensitive patients appear to have impaired detoxification systems that are overloaded by the excessive stress produced by oxidizers.
Patients may experience neurological, neurohormonal and neuropsychiatric symptoms after exposure to electromagnetic fields as a result of nerve damage and hypersensitivity of neuronal reactions.”
How can people suffering from EHS who are a minority improve their situation in a democratic society? What will their future look like?
Unfortunately, the number of cases of EHS in Poland is likely to increase with the government adopting a significantly reduced radio frequency exposure limit, which is propagating ICNIRP.
A democratic society should prioritise the health protection of its most vulnerable members. People with EHS experience functional impairment and some people suffer from severe disability.
Many of them require adequate accommodation.
ICBE-EMF recently issued a statement calling EHS a “humanitarian crisis requiring an urgent response”:
“Our goal is to formally recognize EHS as an external cause of damage caused by electromagnetic fields by public health agencies around the world, and greater recognition of the needs of people with reduced proficiency due to EHS, so that they have access to safer homes, healthcare, education, employment, opportunities, facilities and equal access in all public spaces. Such recognition should lead to increased public awareness, research funding and increased efforts to reduce the limits for exposure to electromagnetic fields. People with EHS should be provided with a low EMF space for residence, work, school and general access to public spaces. It is urgent to create the necessary areas with low electromagnetic radiation values – not only to reduce the severity of people with EHS, but to significantly reduce EHS cases.”
Do you think there are any similarities between the tobacco industry and the telecommunications industry? I ask in the context of the book “EMF Electromagnetic Fields”, written by Dr. Joseph Mercola.
In studying the behavior of the tobacco industry for four decades and the telecommunications industry over the past 16 years, I’ve noticed numerous similarities between these two global corporate entities. Both industries produce consumer products that are very popular and are very profitable. Their products become addictive, even if they are used as intended, and in the long run harm those who are not their users and those who use them.
Both industries are allocating significant resources to influence state authorities to keep to a minimum public health and environmental regulations, and promote policies that minimize the financial liability of the industry.
Finally, both industries “war game” the science and manipulate mainstream media, using the help of industry-friendly “experts” to cause confusion and arouse a lack of confidence in scientific evidence confirming the harm of their products.
Is there a global legal tool that can be used to defend the right to live in a healthy environment?
The Precautionary principle. According to it, corporations implementing wireless communication should prove that electromagnetic radiation is not harmful to human health and the environment. They don't have that evidence today.
You reminded me of the interview I had with prof. Marek Zmyslomy. “For me the most important thing is human health.” An expert from the Institute of Occupational Medicine also refers to the precautionary principle. Belgian doctors in their Electromagnetic safety warning appeal refer to the precautionary principle. In Poland, the Demagog Association discredits you in the article entitled. “Bluetooth headphones harmful? Radiation is safe.” Please comment.
Although I don’t know the “Demagog” Association, it seems that this organization is guided by good intentions in its mission to check the facts.
Nevertheless, fact-checkers can make mistakes, because science is complex, especially when the advantage of the evidence collected does not support the interests of business and government.
The “Demagogue” text you mention quotes an article I wrote in 2019 for Scientific American: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe.” In this short article, I responded to a pro-industry opinion that the 5G network was secure, summing up the evidence that many electromagnetic field scientists believe that government exposure limits are insufficient. In this article, I did not discuss Bluetooth or wireless headphones. Scientific American then published an article full of deceptive arguments, which I rejected on my website because Scientific American refused to continue this debate. I encourage readers to read these articles and draw conclusions on their own.
What about wireless headphones?
I raised the issue of the security of wireless Bluetooth headphones in a series of posts on my website: “AirPods: are the new Appl e wireless in-ear headphones safe? (Research on the blood-brain barrier).” Although the results of the analysis are mixed, 16 studies have shown that low-intensity RFR radiation can open the blood-brain barrier, which would allow toxic chemicals found in the circulatory system to enter the brain, which must be alarming. While this health risk requires further research, I recommend using wired headphones.
Security recommendations from various reputable sources can be found on my website in the section entitled. “Guidelines for reducing exposure to wireless radiation.”
What important question has anyone asked you about this before? And what is your answer to this question?
For sixteen years I have been dealing with this topic, I have given interviews to hundreds of journalists who have asked virtually every question imaginable.
Unfortunately, we do not have unequivocal answers to many important questions due to limited research funds and active lobbying by government agencies and industry.
From the outset, the WHO EMF project, initially funded by the telecommunications industry, has been promoting the interests of the telecommunications industry beyond public health and the environment. ICBE-EMF recently published letters critical of two new reviews of the WHO study: “Critical assessment of the WHO’s systematic review of 2024 on the impact of RF-EMF exposure to erroneous noise, migraine/baxiglass and non-specific symptoms” and ‘A systematic review of exposure to RF-EMF radiation and cancer carried out by Karipidis and in 2024 have serious flaws that undermine the validity of the study’.
In a newly published article. “The World Health Organization’s systematic review of the EMF project on the link between RF exposure and health effects is experiencing difficulties, one of the world’s most famous electromagnetic field scientists Dr. James C. Lin, criticized the WHO’s systematic reviews of RF-EMF research because they reject compelling evidence of adverse biological and health effects of radio-electromagnetic fields.
“Criticism and the challenges faced by WHO-EMF’s published systematic reviews are brutal and include demands to withdraw. Strict reviews reveal serious concerns. In addition to scientific quality, they seem to impose the belief that when radiating radio fields, you should not worry about anything but heat. The subtle message that mobile phones do not pose a cancer risk is clear. In reviews, the lack of serious concerns about the conflict of interest and the recently announced ICNIRP guidelines on exposure to human radio safety are unequivocally supported.
Since its inception, WHO-EMF has maintained close links with ICNIRP, a private organization, often referred to as the WHO-EMF project’s scientific secretariat. What may not be so obvious in the case of systematic reviews under the aegis of the WHO-EMF is the lack of diversity of views. Many commissioners and members of the ICNIRP committees have been named as the authors of these WHO-EMF reviews; some were also leading authors. This should be of concern from the point of view of the reviewer’s independence and potential conflict of interest.”
In May, Environmental International published an article on the effects of electrosmog on cancer in animals (“Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic field field exposure on cancer in laboratory animal studies, a systematic review.” This is a broad overview of the scientific research on this subject. It was commissioned by the WHO. What are the results of this review?
Contrary to a scientific review by Karipidis et al. (2024) on human cancer studies, a WHO analysis confirmed that there is “high certainty” evidence linking radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation exposure to two types of cancer: brain cancer (i.e., in glial cells or glioma) and heart cancer (in schwann cells--a type of glial cell in the peripheral nervous system). Importantly, tumors in the same types of cells have also been found in human studies (i.e., glioma and vestibular schwannoma), which increases confidence that the observed effects are real, and that this review has implications for tumor risk in humans.
Thank you for the conversation.
