RFK Jr. Orders Study on Cellphone Radiation as FDA Drops Assurance That Phones Are Not Dangerous

The Food and Drug Administration has removed webpages saying wireless phones are not dangerous as the Department of Health and Human Services conducts new safety studies.One of the removed pages — titled: Do Cell Phones Post a Health Hazard? — can still be found on an internet site that archives websites. It states, “Based on the evaluation of the currently available information, the FDA believes that the weight of scientific evidence has not linked exposure to radio frequency energy from cell phone use with any health problems at or below the radio frequency exposure limits set by the FCC.”The Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has previously claimed that radiation emitted by wireless phones can cause neurological damage in children and even cancer.“The FDA removed webpages with old conclusions about cell phone radiation while HHS undertakes a study on electromagnetic radiation and health research to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies, to ensure safety and efficacy,” an agency spokesman, Andrew Nixon, said in an emailed statement to The New York Sun.“The study was directed by President Trump’s MAHA Commission in its strategy report,” Mr. Nixon added.Critics of the old language are celebrating the change.“Better late than never,” the president and general counsel of Environmental Health Trust, Joseph Sandri, tells the Sun. Mr. Sandri’s organization has fought for years for health safety initiatives involving the wireless phone industry.“Other countries have been studying this for decades with vigor,” Mr. Sandri says.The FDA works with the Federal Communications Commission to regulate wireless phone safety. Mr. Sandri says the current FCC standards are “pathetic.”“The FCC has an outmoded standard compared to other countries,” Mr. Sandri says. He notes that most advanced countries have much stricter standards and have just as strong and reliable phone networks as America.But the CTIA, which represents the American wireless communications industry, says the current standards are adequate.“Radiofrequency energy from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices, mobile phones and wireless infrastructure, has not been shown to cause health problems, according to the consensus of the international scientific community and independent expert organizations around the world,” the association says in an emailed statement.Many medical associations agree. Studies have shown no link between wireless phone use and cancer, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Elizabeth Platz, told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the changes to the FDA website. Ms. Platz added that wireless phones don’t emit the type of radiation that causes cancer.Mr. Sandri, however, says the federal government cut all funding for studies in America decades ago. He says there needs to be a transparent and open discussion within the government and wireless industry.“We want wide welcoming offramps for terrible and unsafe behaviors and we want wide welcoming onramps for competing on safety and encouraging the best of U.S. industry and the U.S. medical community and research community to compete on safety and make safer networks.”

RFK Jr. Orders Study on Cellphone Radiation as FDA Drops Assurance That Phones Are Not Dangerous

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