How FDA Spins the Science on Cellphone Radiation and Human Health Risks

This is the first in a three-part series examining key questions in the public debate on the safety of wireless radiation. Part I addresses the question, How did the FDA arrive at its position on cellphones and cancer?

How FDA Spins the Science on Cellphone Radiation and Human Health Risks

Despite a $30-million “gold standard” study demonstrating clear cancer risks from cellphone radiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the telecom industry continue to spin the science and create doubt.

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., childrenshealthdefense.org, 7 July 2023

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims there’s not enough scientific evidence to link cellphone use to health problems — but according to Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, a toxicologist and epidemiologist, the FDA’s claim is untrue and misleading.

Davis spoke with The Defender about the important backstory leading up to the FDA’s position on cellphone radiation as it relates to human health.

To support its statement — that “the weight of scientific evidence has not linked exposure to radio frequency energy from cell phone use with any health problems” — the FDA references a 2008-2018 literature review it conducted on radiofrequency (RF) radiation and cancer.

After completing the review, the FDA stated: “To date, there is no consistent or credible scientific evidence of health problems caused by the exposure to radio frequency energy emitted by cell phones.”

However, Davis said the FDA’s review was never signed. In other words, the names of the individuals who authored the report were never publicly released.

Davis has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in books and journals, ranging from the Lancet to the Journal of the American Medical Association. She is the founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences and the founder and president of Environmental Health Trust.

Davis, who worked as a scientific adviser under multiple presidential administrations said, “Normally, when you have a review at that high level it’s quite consequential and it’s always signed.”

“The reason it was unsigned, I believe,” Davis told The Defender, “is because no one in the FDA was willing to put their name behind such a piece of junk. It was absolute nonsense,” she said. “It ignored many publications and only relied on an incredibly skewed interpretation of the literature — and I’m being generous when I say it like that.”

Davis pointed out that the FDA issued the review shortly after the National Toxicology Program (NTP) completed its multi-year $30 million study on cellphone radiation.

In that study, NTP researchers concluded there was “clear evidence” that male rats exposed to high levels of RF like that used in 2G and 3G cellphones developed cancerous heart tumors, and “some evidence” of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats.

The NTP for decades has been the premier governmental testing program for pharmaceuticals, chemicals and radiation, said Davis, who served on the board of scientific counselors for the NTP when it was first started in the 1980s.

‘Gold Standard’ NTP study findings suppressed

Continue reading:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fda-cellphone-radiation-human-health-risks/