Chairperson’s Report
2024-2025 Annual Meeting
By Ronald L Melnick, Ph.D.
In our first two years of existence, ICBE-EMF members established our organization as a critical player on health issues related to RF-EMF exposures; some of those activities included demonstrating that the FCC’s and ICNIRP’s exposure limits to RF-EMF are unreliable because they are based on invalid assumptions, and specifying engineering fixes to reduce levels of RF radiation exposures from use of cell phones. During the past year ICBE-EMF built on its previous accomplishments and has now more firmly established itself as the main organization that applies scientific principles to counter misinformation and misleading statements in the media and in journal publications that inappropriately dismiss scientific evidence on human and environmental health risks from RF-EMF exposures. We have frequently demonstrated that conclusions claiming exposure to RF radiation is safe for humans are based on inadequate data and flawed methodologies and analyses.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced plans to publish an Environmental Health Criteria monograph on potential adverse health outcomes in relation to exposure to radiofrequency radiation. This monograph would be based on the input from 12 systematic reviews (SR) commissioned by the WHO; all those SRs were published over the past 18 months. ICBE-EMF members have authored critiques on two of those SRs (Frank et al., 2024, A critical appraisal of the WHO 2024 systematic review of the effects of RF-EMF exposure on tinnitus, migraine/headache, and non-specific symptoms; and Frank et al., 2025, 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), while critiques of three additional SRs are in progress. Our rebuttal to the incorrect and misleading responses from Karipidis et al. to our critique of their systematic review on human cancers associated with exposure to RF-EMF was posted on ICBE-EMF’s website. In addition, an overarching critique of the 12 WHO-commissioned SRs is nearly complete. In order for that critique to have a meaningful impact on the WHO’s document on health effects of RF-EMF exposures, it must be published before the Environmental Health Criteria monograph has been written. A separate flawed cohort study on brain tumor risk associated with exposure to mobile phone radiofrequency radiation was recently published by Feychting et al. (2024). ICBE-EMF members authored a critique of the authors’ conclusions due to numerous methodological flaws in that study (Moskowitz et al., 2024: COSMOS: A methodologically-flawed cohort study of the health effects from exposure to radiofrequency radiation from mobile phone use).
This has been a very busy and intense year for ICBE-EMF in responding to the published WHO-commissioned documents because of their potential impact on how health and regulatory agencies will respond to reports of adverse health effects associated with exposure to RF-EMF from current or future wireless technology. We must continue to assess the soundness of future publications and authors’ conclusions on health risks from RF-EMF exposures.
There has also been tremendous expansion of ICBE-EMF’s website this past year. Some of the new material added this year address who we are and what we do, provide our position statement on electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and present several press releases on the health effects of RF-EMF. The press releases are very valuable because they increase the visibility of activities undertaken by ICBE-EMF. This information helps amplify our message of ensuring protection of humans and other species from harmful effects of non-ionizing radiation.
This year, ICBE-EMF is providing financial support (for the first time) for a project led by Claudio Fernández which is aimed at developing a new EMF safety metric based on wavelength-dependent peak spatial specific absorption rates. Hopefully, other ICBE-EMF members will develop small or pilot proposals for financial support for projects that are pertinent to our mission.
ICBE-EMF members are currently working on a draft health protective framework for non-ionizing radiation that is expected to be completed and published before the end of the current calendar year. The framework characterizes the problem with current exposure limits to radiofrequency radiation and then describes a new science- and health-based approach for protecting the general public, workers and the environment from adverse effects of RF-EMF exposures. The draft framework also specifies mitigation and precautionary measures that the wireless industry, public health and regulatory agencies, and consumers should take until truly protective exposure limits are established.