For years, studies on animals have raised alarms about the potential health dangers posed by exposure to cellphone radiation. Yet, the pursuit to explore a direct connection has come to an unexpected halt.
In a surprising turn of events, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), responsible for investigating potential toxic substances, declared it would cease its research into how cellphone radiation might be harmful to both animals and humans. This decision left many in the scientific community, including Devra Davis, a former senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, baffled and questioning the lack of scientific basis for such a sudden change.
Davis expressed her concern to The Epoch Times, highlighting the absence of a scientific rationale behind this abrupt policy shift.
The NTP had previously indicated that it found the additional studies on radiofrequency radiation (RFR) to be more technically demanding and resource-intensive than anticipated. Davis, however, argued that the complexity of a study should not deter research, especially when it concerns something as critical as cancer-causing agents in animals. She emphasized that historically, substances proven to cause cancer in humans have also been shown to do so in animals under thorough investigation.
Despite the NTP’s development of a new, smaller-scale RFR exposure system in 2019 aimed at refining previous findings, the program decided to halt further research. This system was limited to studying the effects of older 2G and 3G technologies, excluding the newer 4G and 5G technologies. Davis, who had advised on the adoption of smaller test chambers, found it incomprehensible to discontinue the project, especially considering the widespread daily exposure of millions of children to these devices.
The NTP has completed its work on the small-scale exposure system and the related research, stating that the findings will be made public on its website after internal reviews are concluded. However, as of now, the 2019 research remains unpublished.
In 2018, the NTP published results from two-year toxicology studies that showed a clear association between 2G/3G cellphone radiation and tumor development in male rats. Follow-up studies in 2019 further identified DNA damage in the brains, livers, and blood cells of the exposed rats and mice. Despite these findings, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which initially requested the studies, has dismissed the NTP’s conclusions.
In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maintained radiation exposure standards set in 1996, outdated by the advent of new 5G technologies. The FDA supported this decision with an unreviewed document in 2020, leading to a lawsuit by the Environmental Health Trust (EHT) against the FCC. In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the FCC had acted improperly and illegally by not updating its wireless radiation exposure limits and ignoring evidence of health risks below its current thresholds.
France, since 2019, has required cellphones to include warnings about radiation risks, especially to teens and pregnant women. The European Union has also invested in extensive research on RFR hazards. Davis questions why such animal study results indicating harm are overlooked, suggesting financial interests as the primary reason.
The FCC’s 2019 decision allowed carriers to phase out copper landlines, pushing consumers towards wireless options. Despite this, there are ways to minimize RFR exposure, such as not carrying phones in pockets or bras, using speakerphones, keeping devices away from the body, preferring wired connections over WiFi, and not sleeping near phones.