Director Sends Mixed Signals
Microwave News, December 12, 2022
On November 23, Elisabete Weiderpass, the Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), revealed that a new assessment of the evidence linking radiofrequency (RF) radiation to cancer would likely take place in early 2024. A formal decision could come within a few months.
Calls for a new IARC evaluation have been mounting for some years following the release of two large animal studies showing elevated tumor counts after lifelong exposure to RF radiation. Many believe that the animal experiments leave the Agency little choice but to increase the cancer risk classification at least one notch to “probable” from the current “possible,” or perhaps to its highest classification, a known human carcinogen.1
But, as Weiderpass made clear on making the announcement at a conference in Paris,2 the RF–cancer risk might instead be downgraded and the “possible” classification removed.
The stakes are high. RF health concerns have long been on the back burner, a situation made possible by industry-friendly exposure standards that discount cancer risk. An upgrade would most probably change all that. The ongoing siting of hundreds of thousands of new 5G antennas would add fuel to the fire.
This would be IARC’s second RF evaluation at what’s called a “Monograph Meeting,” a process widely considered the gold standard for classifying cancer risks from chemical and physical agents. The first was held in May 2011 when two dozen specialists from 14 countries agreed, almost unanimously, that RF is a Group 2B (possible) human carcinogen. Their detailed review of the literature was published in a 400+-page report, the 102nd volume in IARC’s Monographs Program.
In 2019, an IARC advisory group, taking a cue from the new animal data, urged the Agency to reassess RF radiation by 2024, calling it a “high priority.”3
Continue reading:
https://microwavenews.com/news-center/iarc-2nd-rf-monograph-meeting
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Elisabete Weiderpass at the podium in Paris |
Calls for a new IARC evaluation have been mounting for some years following the release of two large animal studies showing elevated tumor counts after lifelong exposure to RF radiation. Many believe that the animal experiments leave the Agency little choice but to increase the cancer risk classification at least one notch to “probable” from the current “possible,” or perhaps to its highest classification, a known human carcinogen.1
But, as Weiderpass made clear on making the announcement at a conference in Paris,2 the RF–cancer risk might instead be downgraded and the “possible” classification removed.
The stakes are high. RF health concerns have long been on the back burner, a situation made possible by industry-friendly exposure standards that discount cancer risk. An upgrade would most probably change all that. The ongoing siting of hundreds of thousands of new 5G antennas would add fuel to the fire.
This would be IARC’s second RF evaluation at what’s called a “Monograph Meeting,” a process widely considered the gold standard for classifying cancer risks from chemical and physical agents. The first was held in May 2011 when two dozen specialists from 14 countries agreed, almost unanimously, that RF is a Group 2B (possible) human carcinogen. Their detailed review of the literature was published in a 400+-page report, the 102nd volume in IARC’s Monographs Program.
In 2019, an IARC advisory group, taking a cue from the new animal data, urged the Agency to reassess RF radiation by 2024, calling it a “high priority.”3
Continue reading:
https://microwavenews.com/news-center/iarc-2nd-rf-monograph-meeting
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