A Critical Analysis of the World Health Organization (WHO) Systematic Review 2024 on Radiofrequency Radiation Exposure and Cancer Risks (Response to Karipidis et al. 2024)
Hardell L, Nilsson M. A Critical Analysis of the World Health Organization (WHO) Systematic Review 2024 on Radiofrequency Radiation Exposure and Cancer Risks. Journal of Cancer Science and Clinical Therapeutics. 9 (2025): 09-26. doi: 10.26502/jcsct.5079261.
Abstract
Radiofrequency (RF) radiation was in 2011 classified as a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) at the WHO. Currently the WHO undertakes a systematic review of human studies on the cancer risks. In a publication by Karipidis et al (2024), commissioned by the WHO, it was argued that based on all available studies there would be “moderate certanity evidence” that mobile phone use “likely does not increase the risk of glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, pituitary tumours, and salivary gland tumours in adults, or of paediatric brain tumours.” However, the authors have overlooked results showing increased risks for brain tumours in the most exposed groups, the most exposed part of the head, and longest latency time from first exposure to tumour diagnosis. The authors also claimed that there would be “moderate certainty evidence” that transmitters and mobile phone base stations do not increase the risk of pediatric leukaemia. These conclusions are based on selective inclusion of very few and low exposure studies. This WHO evaluation is contradicted by scientific results that show increased risks of cancer from exposure to RF-radiation from mobile and cordless phones, transmitters, and base stations. Other scientists have concluded, after reviewing the available evidence, that RF-radiation may increase the risk of cancer. This article analysis the Karipidis et al review and highlights several errors, omissions, and conflicts of interests that may explain the conclusions of no cancer risk. The flawed evaluation of scientific facts should lead to retraction of the article.
Conclusion
The Karipidis group’s conclusions on no cancer risks from use of mobile and cordless phones, or exposure to RF radiation from transmitters and base stations, are based on several errors in their interpretation of scientific results, omission of facts contradicting the conclusions and inherent conflicts of interest. Further, most of the results on which the authors base their conclusions are based on very low exposure levels not representative for the public’s exposure today and the authors have excluded or ignored results based on highest exposure categories. The conclusions by the authors of various grades of “certainty” that RF-EMF exposures do not cause cancer are unscientific and unjustified in view of the available scientific evidence. Evaluations of health risks from RF radiation should be performed by scientists without ties to ICNIRP or industry. Industrial direct or indirect ties may compromise objective and sound scientific evaluation. The serious scientific malpractice by Karipidis et al [1] with fatally flawed evaluation of radiofrequency radiation and cancer risks, as outlined in this review, should lead to retraction of the article.
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Exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields and risk of cancer: Epidemiology is not enough! (Response to Karipidis et al. 2024)
Di Ciaula A, Petronio MG, Bersani F, Belpoggi F. Exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields and risk of cancer: Epidemiology is not enough! Environment International. Volume 196, 2025. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2025.109275.
No abstract
Open access paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/
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Related post:
==
January 15, 2025
WHO’s Cell Phone Radiation Cancer Study is “Seriously Flawed”
Accesswire Press Release, January 15, 2025
Contact: Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., jmm@berkeley.edu
Scientists conclude the review does not assure wireless safety, and should not be used to set public health policy
A Letter to the Editor published in the journal Environment International by the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) concludes that a recently published World Health Organization (WHO) systematic review and meta-analysis on cell phone radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and cancer risk by Karipidis et al. (2024) is scientifically flawed and does not provide a reliable assessment of the evidence on brain cancer risk associated with the use of cell phones and other wireless technologies. The ICBE-EMF are experts in researching the health effects of RFR from wireless devices and infrastructure including cell phones, Wi-Fi and cell towers.
ICBE-EMF’s scientific leadership points to numerous significant flaws in the WHO review that combine to understate the cancer risk from wireless exposure and undermine the validity of the study’s conclusions, raising serious concerns about its impact on public health policy.
“Cell phone and wireless safety is not assured. Conclusions of no cell phone cancer risk’ in the Karipidis et al. paper is a misleading representation of the science because credible scientific evidence from case-control studies suggests increased cancer risk from cell phone radiation,” stated ICBE-EMF. Seven meta-analyses published since 2016 have reported significant links between cumulative and long-term cellphone use and brain tumor risk including a 2024 review which highlighted the same methodological flaws that ICBE-EMF identified.
“The WHO review failed to follow widely-used scientific guidance for meta-analysis reviews,” stated John Frank MD, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, and ICBE-EMF member.
“It is dishonest to assure the public that cell phones and wireless radiation are safe based upon such a flawed review.” said Joel Moskowitz, PhD, Director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, also an ICBE-EMF member.
The key weaknesses include:
A Letter to the Editor published in the journal Environment International by the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) concludes that a recently published World Health Organization (WHO) systematic review and meta-analysis on cell phone radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and cancer risk by Karipidis et al. (2024) is scientifically flawed and does not provide a reliable assessment of the evidence on brain cancer risk associated with the use of cell phones and other wireless technologies. The ICBE-EMF are experts in researching the health effects of RFR from wireless devices and infrastructure including cell phones, Wi-Fi and cell towers.
ICBE-EMF’s scientific leadership points to numerous significant flaws in the WHO review that combine to understate the cancer risk from wireless exposure and undermine the validity of the study’s conclusions, raising serious concerns about its impact on public health policy.
“Cell phone and wireless safety is not assured. Conclusions of no cell phone cancer risk’ in the Karipidis et al. paper is a misleading representation of the science because credible scientific evidence from case-control studies suggests increased cancer risk from cell phone radiation,” stated ICBE-EMF. Seven meta-analyses published since 2016 have reported significant links between cumulative and long-term cellphone use and brain tumor risk including a 2024 review which highlighted the same methodological flaws that ICBE-EMF identified.
“The WHO review failed to follow widely-used scientific guidance for meta-analysis reviews,” stated John Frank MD, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, and ICBE-EMF member.
“It is dishonest to assure the public that cell phones and wireless radiation are safe based upon such a flawed review.” said Joel Moskowitz, PhD, Director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, also an ICBE-EMF member.
The key weaknesses include:
- The authors’ excessive reliance on simplistic categories such as “ever” versus “never” or “time since start of use,” which do not reflect a person’s actual exposure.
- The conclusion relied largely on cohort studies that were subject to serious exposure misclassification and considered uninformative regarding cancer risks during the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluation.
- Studies cited to support the conclusion do not capture unique exposure characteristics of groups with increased brain cancer risk, such as higher incidence in the temporal lobe and on the side of the head where the person held the cell phone.
- Sweeping conclusions of no cell phone cancer risk are not scientifically justified as the reviewed studies did not follow people for sufficient duration to diagnose late- developing cancers. The IARC Preamble (page 22) states “experience with human cancer indicates that the period from first exposure to the development of clinical cancer is sometimes longer than 20 years; therefore, latent periods substantially shorter than 30 years cannot provide evidence for lack of carcinogenicity.” Furthermore, combined analysis for tumor types, acoustic neuroma and glioma, strongly suggests increasing risk after moderate to long latencies.
- It is not scientifically acceptable to draw conclusions from analyses which combine disparate study designs.
ICBE-EMF continues to strongly recommend reducing public exposure to RFR from cell phones, cellular antennas and other wireless sources such as Wi-Fi. These recommendations are especially important during pregnancy and childhood, and for individuals who are medically vulnerable or electromagnetically sensitive.
Scientific Reference for ICBE-EMF letter
John W. Frank, Joel M. Moskowitz, Ronald L. Melnick, Lennart Hardell, Alasdair Philips, Paul Héroux, Elizabeth Kelley. The Systematic Review on RF-EMF Exposure and Cancer by Karipidis et al. (2024) has Serious Flaws that Undermine the Validity of the Study’s Conclusions. Environment International, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2024.109200.
Open access at https://www.sciencedirect.com/
PDF link
Media Resources
Fact Sheet on Key Weaknesses of the WHO Funded Review on Cell Phones And Wireless (PDF)
ICBE-EMF Overview of WHO Funded Reviews on Cell Phone and Wireless Radiation Health Risks
ICBE-EMF response to the Karipidis et al. rebuttal is posted here.
Dr. Moskowitz shares details in a Podcast
Dr. Joel Moskowitz did a radio interview about wireless radiation health effects and the WHO reviews on Green Street Radio that was broadcast on WBAI-FM in New York City on November 1, 2024. The podcast can be streamed or downloaded at https://bit.ly/Wireless_
Video Explainers by ICBE-EMF Experts
Joel Moskowitz Ph.D. detailed problems with the WHO-funded review in a presentation on September 24, 2024 in a webinar for the Collaborative on Health and the Environment entitled "Health Hazards of Wireless Technologies."
John Frank M.D. speaks about the WHO cell phone cancer risk review
About the ICBE-EMF
ICBE-EMF
is an international consortium of scientists, doctors and researchers
with expertise and peer-reviewed publications on the biological and
health effects of electromagnetic fields including RFR. The Commission
is committed to upholding the highest standards of scientific research
and makes science-based recommendations to ensure the protection of the
public and environment.
==
October 10, 2024
Relationship between radiofrequency-electromagnetic radiation from cellular phones and brain tumor: Meta-analyses using various proxies for RF-EMR exposure-outcome assessment
Today the journal Environmental Health
published a systematic review and meta-analytic study on cell phone use
and brain tumor risk by Moon et al. (2024). The study found
significantly elevated risks for three types of brain tumors when
examining tumors on the side of the head where cell phones were held and
for heavy, long-term cell phone use.
Six other systematic reviews and meta-analyses of case-control studies published in peer-reviewed journals since 2016 have also
also found significant associations between heavy,
long-term cellphone use and brain tumor risk (Wang & Guo, 2016; Bortkiewicz et al., 2017;
Carlberg & Hardell, 2017;
Prasad et al., 2017, Yang et al., 2017; Choi et al., 2020).
These seven peer-reviewed meta-analytic studies contradict the
conclusion of the recent WHO systematic review conducted by Karipidis et
al. (2024) that there is no evidence cell phone use causes brain
cancer. To learn about serious problems with the WHO systematic reviews
on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation see:
Wang & Guo (2016). Meta-analysis of association between mobile phone use and glioma risk. J Cancer Research Therapy http://bit.ly/2o1dVcn
Bortkiewicz et al (2017). Mobile phone use and risk of intracranial tumors and salivary gland tumors - A meta-analysis. Int J Occ Med Envir Health. http://bit.ly/2nVJC5d
Carlberg & Hardell (2017). Evaluation of mobile phone and cordless phone
use and glioma risk using the Bradford Hill viewpoints from 1965 on
association or causation. Biomed Res Int. http://bit.ly/2WwBX1K
Prasad et al (2017). Mobile phone use and risk of brain tumours: a
systematic review of association between study quality, source of
funding, and research outcomes. Neurol Sci. http://bit.ly/2Xxp83P
Yang et al (2017). Mobile phone use and glioma risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS One. https://bit.ly/3U0kafd
Choi, Moskowitz, et al (2020). Cellular phone use and risk of tumors: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Envir Res Public Health. https://doi.org/10.
Moon et al. (2024). Relationship between
radiofrequency-electromagnetic radiation from cellular phones and brain
tumor: meta-analyses using various proxies for RF-EMR exposure-outcome
assessment.
Environ Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/
Karipidis et al. (2024). The effect of exposure to
radiofrequency fields on cancer risk in the general and working
population: A systematic review of human observational studies - Part I:
Most researched outcomes. Environ Int. https://doi.org/10.1016/
Moon J, Kwon J, Mun Y. Relationship between
radiofrequency-electromagnetic radiation from cellular phones and brain
tumor: meta-analyses using various proxies for RF-EMR exposure-outcome
assessment.
Environ Health 23, 82 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/
Abstract
Introduction The
authors conducted meta-analyses regarding the association between
cellular and mobile phone use and brain tumor development by applying
various radiofrequency-electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) exposure
subcategories. With changing patterns of mobile phone use and rapidly
developing Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) technology (such as
Bluetooth), this study will provide insight into the importance of more
precise exposure subcategories for RF-EMR.
Methods The medical librarian searched MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library until 16 December 2020.
Results In these meta-analyses, 19 case-control studies and five cohort studies were included. Ipsilateral users reported a pooled odds ratio (OR) of 1.40 (95% CI 1.21–1.62) compared to non-regular users. Users with years of use over 10 years reported a pooled OR of 1.27 (95% CI 1.08–1.48). When stratified by each type of brain tumor, only meningioma (OR 1.20 (95% CI 1.04–1.39)), glioma (OR 1.45 (95% CI 1.16–1.82)), and malignant brain tumors (OR 1.93 (95% CI 1.55–2.39)) showed an increased OR with statistical significance for ipsilateral users. For users with years of use over 10 years, only glioma (OR 1.32 (95% CI 1.01–1.71)) showed an increased OR with statistical significance. When 11 studies with an OR with cumulative hours of use over 896 h were synthesized, the pooled OR was 1.59 (95% CI 1.25–2.02). When stratified by each type of brain tumor, glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma reported the pooled OR of 1.66 (95% CI 1.13–2.44), 1.29 (95% CI 1.08–1.54), and 1.84 (95% CI 0.78–4.37), respectively. For each individual study that considered cumulative hours of use, the highest OR for glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma was 2.89 (1.41–5.93) (both side use, > 896 h), 2.57 (1.02–6.44) (both side use, > 896 h), and 3.53 (1.59–7.82) (ipsilateral use, > 1640 h), respectively. For five cohort studies, the pooled risk ratios (RRs) for all CNS tumors, glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma, were statistically equivocal, respectively. However, the point estimates for acoustic neuroma showed a rather increased pooled RR for ever-use (1.26) and over 10 years of use (1.61) compared to never-use, respectively.
Excerpts
“In consideration of these rapidly changing mobile phone technologies, the currently used proxies for RF-EMR exposure assessment are crude and insufficient to clarify the relationship between RF-EMR exposure from cell phones and brain tumor incidence.... The usual exposure measures, such as the years of mobile phone use, the cumulative duration of calls, and the number of calls per week, are rough indicators of mobile phone use.... the authors conducted a series of meta-analyses and subgroup analyses using various exposure measuring categories, from crude to more precise ones. In consideration of crude exposure classifications used in previous meta-analyses, this study will give insight into the importance of more precise exposure subcategories in investigating this topic."
"... the authors analyzed the risk of bias regarding selection and recall
bias for the amount of cell phone use and misclassification and recall
bias for ipsilateral/contralateral use. A major reason was that typical
risk of bias rating tools such as the National Toxicology Program Office
of Health Assessment and Translation Risk of Bias rating tool (NTP OHAT
RoB rating tool, Supplementary material B)
were not appropriate for assessing individual studies regarding this
topic." [Note: Karipidis et al. (2024) relied on this rating tool.]
"With the conversion from 2G cellular phones through 3G and 4G mobile phones to current 5G mobile phones, transmission of large data became possible. With the introduction of 3G technology, all aspects of our society and daily lives have changed drastically. Currently, we are using mobile phones nearly continuously and putting mobile phones near our bodies even when we are not using them. For example, if people use their mobile phone for morning-alarming purposes, they might put their mobile phone near the bed, sometimes even beside their head, all night. These changed patterns of mobile phone use could increase exposure to RF-EMR from cellular and mobile phones. Therefore, precise exposure assessment for RF-EMR from mobile phones would become more complex in future studies."
"The results of cumulative meta-analyses according to precision
indicated that the pooled OR was biased downwards with the addition of
studies with lower precision. This indicates that the results of studies
with a lower precision should be interpreted cautiously."
"Because
brain tumors require a latency period to develop [29], an accurate
assessment of brain tumor risk associated with RF-EMR exposure requires a
long observation span. However, each included study did not consider a
sufficient latency period in their study design. This could have led to a
possible underestimation of brain tumor risk. Future studies with long
observation spans might resolve this problem.”
"In
this meta-analysis, as the applied exposure subcategories became more
concrete, the pooled ORs showed more increased values with statistical
significance. Even though the meta-analysis of cohort studies showed
statistically equivocal pooled effect estimates, (i) as the number of
included studies increases and (ii) as the applied exposure subcategory
becomes more concrete, the pooled RRs could show a different aspect in
future studies. Furthermore, changing patterns of mobile phone use and
increasing use of earphones or headphones with WPAN technology should be
sufficiently considered in future studies. Relatively short observation
spans for brain tumor incidence and age of starting exposure and brain
tumor diagnosis should also be considered in future studies. Previous
studies that adjusted for selection and recall bias for the amount of
cellphone use and misclassification and recall bias for
ipsilateral/contralateral use showed possible underestimations of
previous risk estimates. Future studies should try to adjust for these
biases in their study design."
Open access paper: https://ehjournal.
--
Commentary on the WHO-commissioned systematic review
on mobile phone use and tumor risk (Karipidis et al. 2024)
September 16, 2024 (Updated Sep 20, 2024)
On September 3, the lead author of a new WHO-commissioned systematic review of research on mobile phone use and tumor risk (Karipidis et al. 2024), issued a news release about the study which made the following claims:
- "This systematic review provides the strongest evidence to date that radio waves from wireless technologies are not a hazard to human health."
- "Overall, the results are very reassuring. They mean that our national and international safety limits are protective. Mobile phones emit low-level radio waves below these safety limits, and there is no evidence exposure to these has an impact on human health."
- "There remains no evidence of any established health effects from exposures related to mobile phones, and that is a good thing."
These assertions are highly irresponsible. Substantial disagreement has existed for decades among experts who study the effects of radio frequency radiation (RFR). The WHO-sponsored systematic reviews of this scientific literature will exacerbate these disagreements rather than alleviate them due to bias in the selection of review teams by the WHO and in the resulting papers which were recently published in a special issue of Environment International prior to publication of a forthcoming WHO monograph on this topic.
Following are concerns I have regarding the Karipidis et al (2024) study:
-
All human studies are likely biased toward the null due to exposure misclassification caused by unreliability in study participants' self-reported recall of number of phone calls and call time. Thus, meta-analysis of these studies underestimates the risks of harm.
- The cohort studies employed crude assessment of mobile phone use and/or insufficient followup periods, especially the studies of cancer or tumor risk.
- In most studies "regular cellphone use" was defined as at least one cellphone call weekly over the past six months. One would hardly expect to find any adverse effects with such little exposure to RFR; yet, the primary focus in Karipidis et al. used this definition of cellphone use.
- Call time, even if it were based on cellphone company records, has at best a moderate association with radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure because numerous factors affect exposure to RFR (e.g., proximity of phone to the body during calls; strength of signal from cell tower).
- Nonetheless, analyses of cumulative call time (CCT) are more useful to examine than analyses of "regular use." For the CCT analyses, Karipidis et al. employed multiple, meta-regression models which were separately conducted for different types of tumors. The resulting J-shaped curves suggested increased tumor risk with greater celllphone use after about 500 hours of cellphone use, but the confidence intervals were large. Karipidis et al. erroneously concluded there was no evidence of increased tumor risk because the results were not statistically significant; however, their analyses were underpowered because most of the individual studies contained relatively few users with substantial exposure. This was particularly problematic because separate analyses were conducted for each tumor type which limited the number of individual studies in any given analysis.
- In contrast to the current study, in a meta-analysis of 46 case-control studies, my colleagues and I (Choi et al , 2020) employed a more conventional approach to the meta-analysis of the cumulative call time data. We employed data from all tumor types and conducted separate random effects meta-analyses to examine low, medium, and higher-level mobile phone use. We found a significant increased tumor risk in the higher-level mobile phone use analysis which included 8 studies with more than 1000 hours of lifetime mobile phone call time. This analysis found statistically significant evidence for increased risk of tumors in the brain and salivary glands (OR = 1.60 (95% CI = 1.12 , 2.30)). Soon after our study was published, Karipidis and a few of his colleagues published letters to the editor that criticized our meta-analyses; however, we successfully defended our systematic review of the case-control studies in two peer-reviewed letters (see https://www.saferemr.com/2020/11/new-review-study-tumor-risk.html).
- In most case-control studies data collection ended by the mid-2000's. Although the results for meningioma were mixed, these studies were largely limited to malignant cases because tumor registries did not begin recording nonmalignant tumors until the mid-2000's. That the age-adjusted incidence of the most common brain tumor, nonmalignant meningioma, has increased substantially in the past two decades should be of great concern; yet, little attention has focused on the factors contributing to this trend.
- Most human research to date has focused on either cell phones or cell towers and ignored other sources of exposure (e.g., use of cordless phones or personal wireless devices) resulting in misclassification of individuals' overall RFR exposure.
- The Karipidis et al. review relied heavily on the Interphone studies which suffered from substantial selection bias; yet, judged these studies to be low risk of bias, and ignored the correction for selection bias in the pooled Interphone study which doubled the glioma risk estimate for mobile phone use > 1640 hours from OR = 1.40 (95% CI = 1.03, 1.89) in the main body of paper to 1.82 (1.15, 2.89) in Appendix 2.
- The justification in Karipidis et al. for excluding study results based on tumor location and laterality was inadequate. Meta-analyses of these results provide significant evidence of increased tumor risk with greater amounts of mobile phone use for brain tumors in the temporal lobe and ipsilateral tumors.
- The risk of bias assessment in Karipidis et al. may have been applied in a biased manner to the Hardell studies. Although we used different risk of bias rating criteria, we found in 2009 and again in 2020 the Hardell studies to be stronger methodologically than most other case-control studies.
- Karipidis et al. only examined human studies of mobile phone use, most of which likely underestimate the risk of cancer and nonmalignant tumors. They did not address the considerable evidence base of animal and mechanistic studies--the preponderance of which found oxidative effects, DNA damage and/or carcinogenicity from RFR exposure.
Limits on the generalizability of most human studies to date on mobile phone use and tumor risk:
- Since most case-control data were collected
in the early 2000's and there is a long latency for detection of solid
tumors, most studies primarily assessed the effects of GSM (2G) cellphone radiation, the most commonly used cellular technology in Europe where most of the research has been conducted. So little is known about the long-term effects of exposure to subsequent generations of cellular technology.
- With the introduction of the smartphone in the mid-2000's, cellphone technology has changed substantially. The phone's cellular transmission antenna was moved from the top to the bottom of the phone exposing the lower head and neck to the greatest radiation instead of the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain. This may increase the risk for tumors of the thyroid and salivary glands.
- How cellphones are used has changed over time. More texting, greater use of wired and wireless headsets may have lowered RFR exposure to the head. However, research suggests that exposure to low-intensity RFR may open the blood-brain barrier, exposing the brain to toxic chemicals in the body's circulatory system. The effects of cellphone radiation on a specific organ may depend on the carrier frequency, pulsing and modulation of the signal and is likely non-linear with regard to intensity of the exposure.
- Cell tower density has increased over time lowering RFR exposure from cellphones. However, with the introduction of "small cells," the proximity of base stations to users increased causing increased full-body 24-7 RFR exposure from towers.
- 5G employs different carrier frequencies (including, but not limited to, millimeter waves) and new features including massive MIMO and beamforming that cause brief, intense peak RFR exposures that exceed exposure limits (which are based on time-averaged exposures). Some research suggests that peak exposures are better predictors of harm than averaged exposures. Thus, 5G may pose greater health risks than its predecessors. A comprehensive program of research is essential but funding to study RFR effects has been quite limited. In fact, the U.S. has been grossly negligent in failing to support the research needed to develop safe RFR exposure limits for almost three decades.
In sum, this review suffered from numerous problems. The authors did not adequately deal with heterogeneity, i.e., differences in the original studies’ methods or results. They ignored the fact that most of the original studies had little power to detect effects due to use of crude measures of exposure and/or inadequate followup time. Tumors can require several decades to be diagnosed.
The only informative results in Karipidis et al. (2024) were the cumulative call time analyses which found that after about 500 hours of cellphone use, the risk of glioma and meningioma increased with call time. However, these results were not statistically significant because the original studies had relatively few users with substantial call time.
In contrast, in our 2020 review paper, we combined studies of different tumor types and found significantly increased risk for tumors in the brain and salivary glands after 1,000 hours of cumulative call time (OR = 1.60; 95% CI = 1.12, 2.30).
==
Russian National Committee for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection Chairman attacks
WHO-commissioned review that claims no cellphone-cancer link
Dr. Oleg A. Grigoriev, Sept 11, 2024
(Dr. Grigoriev, one of the world's leading experts, emailed me this message regarding the Karipidis et al. (2024) review and gave me permission to post it.)
A group of little-known scientists have claimed responsibility for all cases of cancer associated with exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. These scientists claim that possible, probable, and proven cancer from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields does not exist and never can exist. Thus, responsibility for misleading consumers, industry, and healthcare systems lies with several specific authors.
They made this conclusion based on an analysis of other people's articles, selected using a methodology not developed by them, using analysis criteria that they also did not develop. These scientists themselves are not known for their affiliation with scientific schools studying the biomedical effects of electromagnetism, their fundamental work in the field of biological effects of electromagnetic fields and hygiene is unknown. For an unknown reason, the scientists speak on behalf of the World Health Organization, whose employees remain silent and, in principle, do not have the authority (and competence) to make such categorical conclusions. As is well known, science has no categorical judgments, even geometry from the obvious Euclidean has become non-Euclidean, the theory of relativity has become relative. We do not discover "laws of nature", but only generalize what is known. The physical nature of the electromagnetic field has been and remains a subject of discussion, as well as human nature and the role of natural electromagnetism and electricity in it.
The discussion of the carcinogenic potential of radio frequencies has become one of the topics of the international electromagnetic project after 1996, and we have repeatedly discussed this issue with the participants of the WHO project. I have been directly involved in discussions since 1997. Every specialist involved in experimental work using several species of animals, with volunteers, with hygiene and epidemiology understands how dangerous it is to make a categorical judgment "this exists" or "this does not exist". We all need to be very careful when meeting the statements of such authors who "know the answer" in such a complex area for research as the bioeffects of the electromagnetic field.
Dr. Oleg A. Grigoriev
Dr. Sc. (radiobiology), Ph.D.(radiobiology & hygiene of non-ionizing radiation)
Chairman, Russian National Committee for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
Member of the Board, Scientific Council for Radiobiology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Chairman, Non-Ionizing Radiation Section, Russian National Radiobiological Society
Chief Expert of the State Commission on Sanitary Rules (retired)
Member of the IAC WHO EMF Int Project - now WHO Non-ionizing Project (since 2004)
Member of the Advisory Group to Recommend Priorities for the IARC Monographs
during 2020–2024
==
September 11, 2024
"Old Wine in New Bottles: Decoding New WHO–ICNIRP Cancer Review; Game Over? Likely Not," Microwave News, Sep 11, 2024. https://microwavenews.com/news-center/old-wine-new-bottlesMicrowave News reports on the 20-year history behind the ICNIRP's efforts to convince the scientific community and the public that cellphone radiation cannot cause cancer and the WHO's conflicted relationship with the ICNIRP.
"The fact is that there’s very little new here. The same people have been making similar claims for some 20 years. This is only their latest gambit to make them stick."
"In short, the new systematic review is an ICNIRP production.Indeed, ICNIRP’s scientific secretary, Dan Baaken, is another coauthor of the new review! He serves, with Karipidis, on the Commission’s board of directors. Baaken is on staff at the German Radiation Protection Office (BfS), the principal sponsor of ICNIRP.ICNIRP has always rejected a cancer risk. No one on ICNIRP has ever broken ranks.* This is not surprising: The Commission is a private, self-perpetuating club. Membership demands swearing allegiance to the no-cancer dogma. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.The results of this review were never in doubt. The WHO managers, who selected the Karipidis team, knew what to expect —and they got what they wanted."
==
September 3, 2024
Today, many major news outlets are promoting a biased review of the literature commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO)
which claims that cellphone use has no link to cancer.
In my professional opinion, the WHO selected scientists to conduct systematic literature reviews on the biologic and health risks of wireless radiation who had demonstrated their bias through prior publications by either not finding evidence of harm or dismissing any evidence they found.
Moreover, each WHO team has one or more members of the ICNIRP, a German NGO that issues exposure limits
for wireless radiation primarily based on
research produced by its own members, their former students and close
colleagues. The ICNIRP limits, designed to protect humans only from the acute effects
of heating induced by wireless radiation, are promoted by the WHO and are similar to those adopted by the FCC.
In 2019 investigative journalists from eight European countries
published 22 articles in major news media that exposed
conflicts of interest in this "ICNIRP cartel." The journalists report that the cartel promotes the ICNIRP guidelines by conducting biased reviews of the scientific literature that minimize health risks from electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure. These reviews have been conducted for the WHO and other government agencies. By preserving the ICNIRP exposure guidelines favored by industry, the cartel ensures that the cellular industry will continue to fund their research. Since then, a former ICNIRP member who served as editor in chief of the Bioelectromagnetics Society journal accused ICNIRP
of "groupthink."
Recently, the ICBE-EMF
published several peer-reviewed papers refuting the "thermal-only
paradigm" upon which the ICNIRP exposure limits are based because the preponderance of peer-reviewed research finds non-thermal effects.
International
Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields
(ICBE-EMF). Scientific evidence invalidates health assumptions
underlying the FCC and ICNIRP exposure limit determinations for
radiofrequency radiation: implications for 5G. Environmental Health.
2022. 21:92. DOI:10.1186/s12940-022-00900-9. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-022-00900-9
Héroux P, Belyaev I, Chamberlin K, Dasdag S, De Salles AAA, et al. on behalf of the ICBE-EMF. Cell phone radiation exposure limits and engineering solutions. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2023, 20, 5398. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20075398
Héroux P, Belyaev I, Chamberlin K, Dasdag S, De Salles AAA, et al. on behalf of the ICBE-EMF. Cell phone radiation exposure limits and engineering solutions. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2023, 20, 5398. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20075398
ICBE-EMF also published a critique of another WHO-commissioned review:
Frank,
J.W,, Melnick, R.L, Moskowitz, J.M., on behalf of the International
Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields
(ICBE-EMF). A critical appraisal of the WHO 2024 systematic review of
the effects of RF-EMF exposure on tinnitus, migraine/headache, and
non-specific symptoms. Reviews on Environmental Health. 2024. doi:
10.1515/reveh-2024-0069. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/reveh-2024-0069/html
The WHO-commissioned paper that has revived the controversy about the cancer risks of cellphone radiation is now available:
Karipidis K, Baaken D, Loney T, Blettner M, Brzozek C, Elwood M, Narh C, Orsini N, R̦̦sli M, Paulo MS, Lagorio S. The effect of exposure to radiofrequency fields on cancer risk in the general and working population: A systematic review of human observational studies РPart I: Most researched outcomes. Environment International (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
The paper's main conclusions seem biased (although not nearly as strong as reported in the news media)....
"For
near field RF-EMF [radio frequency electromagnetic fields] exposure to the head from mobile phone use, there was
moderate certainty evidence that it likely does not increase the risk
of glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, pituitary tumours, and salivary
gland tumours in adults, or of paediatric brain tumours.
For near field RF-EMF exposure to the head from cordless phone use, there was low certainty evidence that it may not increase the risk of glioma, meningioma or acoustic neuroma."
For near field RF-EMF exposure to the head from cordless phone use, there was low certainty evidence that it may not increase the risk of glioma, meningioma or acoustic neuroma."
My colleagues and I arrived at very different conclusions based upon our 2020 systematic review of 46 case-control studies
on cellphone use and tumor risk:
Choi Y-J,
Moskowitz JM, Myung S-K,
Lee Y-R, Hong Y-C.
Cellular Phone Use and Risk of Tumors: Systematic Review
and Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17(21):8079.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218079
"In
sum, the updated comprehensive meta-analysis of case-control studies
found significant evidence linking cellular phone use to increased tumor
risk, especially among cell phone users with cumulative cell phone use
of 1000 or more hours in their lifetime (which corresponds to about 17
min per day over 10 years), and especially among studies that employed
high quality methods. Further quality prospective studies providing
higher level of evidence than case-control studies are warranted to
confirm our findings."
A preliminary comparison of the differences between our review and the new WHO review indicates that our review:
- examined only case-control studies of tumor risk and cellphone use as we did not consider any occupational, cohort or time-trend studies to be of sufficient quality to warrant consideration;
- our rubric for rating risk of bias of individual studies resulted in very different results;
- and most importantly, we employed a more conventional approach to the analysis of the cumulative call time data that examined the effects of heavy cell phone use.
Furthermore, we successfully rebutted criticisms of our review made by three authors of the new WHO review in letters to the editor:
de Vocht F, Röösli M. Comment on Choi, Y.-J., et al. Cellular Phone
Use and Risk of Tumors: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int. J.
Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(6), 3125; doi: 10.3390/
Myung S-K, Moskowitz JM, Choi Y-J, Hong Y-C. Reply to Comment on Choi, Y.-J., et al. Cellular Phone
Use and Risk of Tumors: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(6), 3326; doi: 10.3390/
Brzozek C, Abramson MJ, Benke G, Karipidis K. Comment on Choi et al. Cellular Phone Use and Risk of Tumors: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 8079. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 18(10): 5459. 2021. doi: 10.3390/
Moskowitz JM, Myung S-K, Choi Y-J, Hong Y-C. Reply to
Brzozek et al. Comment on “Choi et al. Cellular Phone Use and Risk of
Tumors: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 8079”. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021,18(11), 5581. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18115581.https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5581
The new WHO review relies heavily on cohort and time-trend studies of cellphone use and cancer risk which we have found to be at least as problematic as case-control studies in terms of drawing causal inferences:
Hardell L, Moskowitz JM. A critical analysis of the MOBI-Kids study of wireless phone use in childhood and adolescence and brain tumor risk. Reviews on Environmental Health. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2022-0040
Moskowitz JM. RE: Cellular Telephone Use and the Risk of Brain Tumors: Update of the UK Million Women Study. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2022. Djac109. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djac109
Moskowitz JM, Frank JW, Melnick RL, Hardell L, Belyaev I et al., ICBE-EMF. COSMOS. A methodologically-flawed cohort study of the health effects from exposure to radiofrequency radiation from mobile phone use. Environment International, Volume 190, 2024, 108807, doi: 1016/j.envint.2024.108807. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024003933
Moskowitz JM. RE: Cellular Telephone Use and the Risk of Brain Tumors: Update of the UK Million Women Study. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2022. Djac109. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djac109
Moskowitz JM, Frank JW, Melnick RL, Hardell L, Belyaev I et al., ICBE-EMF. COSMOS. A methodologically-flawed cohort study of the health effects from exposure to radiofrequency radiation from mobile phone use. Environment International, Volume 190, 2024, 108807, doi: 1016/j.envint.2024.108807. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024003933
Although no scientific literature review is perfect, I believe that our 2020 review of cellphone use and tumor risk is less biased and will withstand the test of time better than the new review commissioned by the WHO.
