IEEE Magazine: Prof. James C. Lin supports the demand

Source: diagnose:funk
ICNIRP/BfS-Studien: Wissenschaftler fordern Rücknahme
IEEE-Magazin: Prof. James C. Lin unterstützt die Forderung
https://www.diagnose-funk.org/aktuelles/artikel-archiv/detail?newsid=2169
Published: January 24, 2025

The debate about whether mobile phone radiation is harmful to health is currently being heatedly conducted in the scientific community. The Federal Office for Radiation Protection and the ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) have jointly published almost a dozen overview studies (reviews) that give the all-clear. Scientists are up in arms against this and are demanding that the reviews be withdrawn. Their objections are documented in the EMF-Data database. This demand for withdrawal is supported in an article by Prof. James C. Lin in the IEEE magazine. We analyze this debate.

The speakers from the “Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz”(BfS), the Federal Office for Radiation Protection are currently trying to impress municipalities and decision-makers with new studies (reviews) that appear to definitively prove that mobile phone radiation is risk-free.[1] But this is a transparent bluff! The studies were prepared by the BfS itself in cooperation with the ICNIRP for the purpose of giving the all-clear, submitted to the WHO and then marketed with a false label: These are studies by the WHO and reflect their opinion, as in a BfS workshop for doctors. After an intervention by diagnose:funk, the BfS corrected this, but not publicly. There are strong contradictions from the scientific community, and several letters to the editor have called for the studies to be withdrawn.[2] The leading portal http://www.microwavenews.org also supports this criticism.[3]

With this self-referential system, according to the motto – “I write my own report and then refer to it, nobody will notice!” – the BfS / ICNIRP are following an old industrial tactic that the tobacco industry had developed. Big Tobacco founded its own, apparently independent research institutes that produced studies on an assembly line that confirmed the harmlessness of smoking. The chemical industry has practiced this in recent years for glyphosate, the car industry for diesel. The head of the US agency, David Michaels, has analyzed this industrial tactic in a specialist article. This is available for download on our website.[4] The EUA (European Environmental Agency) has also analyzed the industrial tactic of concealing health risks. Confusing reports are used to stage confusing debates in order to distract from the actual research situation.[5]

The mobile communications industry has learned from this and perfected the self-referential system by instrumentalizing the apparently independent radiation protection commission ICNIRP. This was uncovered by the Berliner Tagespiegel, among others. It also paid billions of euros in license fees to the state, which in return committed itself to clearing the way for the expansion of the mobile communications infrastructure, including declarations of safety. The clean bill of health is issued by the responsible authority, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, in cooperation with the ICNIRP. Among the authors of the new studies/reviews there is almost always an ICNIRP or BfS representative, and the Swiss Prof. Martin Röösli, whose proximity to industry is an open secret, appears noticeably often (>>>MicrowaveNews on Röösli).[6]

Misrepresentation of the WHO position on cancer

In 2011, the IARC (WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer) classified non-ionizing radiation as possibly carcinogenic (category 2B). This assessment is still “widely shared in science” (Report on the technology assessment of mobile communications by the German Bundestag (TAB) p. 117, p. 142 ff).[7]

With the reviews, the BfS now suggests that the WHO has changed its assessment to “no cancer risk”. This is intended to devalue the basis of the 2011 decision and to orientate itself towards a new meta-analysis commissioned by the WHO by Karipidis et al. (2024), which apparently speaks “against a causal connection between cancer and high-frequency electromagnetic fields from mobile communications”. This is wrong. What is true is that the WHO wants to reassess the overall study situation by around 2029 and has therefore asked scientists to submit studies on this, which will then serve as a basis for decision-making. The ICNIRP cartel was the fastest here and submitted mobile phone-friendly reviews with the aim of influencing the WHO in this sense. The WHO itself has not yet commented on the submitted reviews. Nevertheless, a press campaign was initiated on the Karipidis study in November 2024 with the participation of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection with the message that the WHO had concluded that there was no cancer risk from mobile phone radiation and that people did not need to worry. This was published in almost every newspaper worldwide. After intervention by diagnose:funk, the BfS corrected this false report, which it had co-initiated. There was no public correction.[8]

The Karipidis study does not give the all-clear, as BfS/ICNIRP suggest, but states: We do not know anything for sure because the studies do not yet provide the data for proof, but only for weak indications and probabilities.[9] The Karipidis study, which is limited to a selection and evaluation of epidemiological studies and derives an inadmissible overall assessment from them, is countered by almost 20 reviews that demonstrate a cancer potential.[10]

Prof. John William Frank (Univ. Edinburgh), comments on the study by Karipidis et al.

No experts and conflicts of interest!

Leading experts have sharply criticized the presentation of the study situation on cancer in the review by Karipidis et al. (2024). In his statement, the chairman of the Russian Radiation Protection Commission and member of the WHO expert group, Prof. Oleg Grigoriev, denies the authors any competence.[11] In a letter to the editor (Moskowitz et al. (2024)) and a press release, the ICBE-EMF (International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields) calls for the reviews to be withdrawn (see sources note 2).

Devastating criticism of Karapidis et al. from former ICNIRP member Prof. J. Lin

Prof. James C. Lin, former ICNIRP member and chairman of the Bioelectromagnetic Society, has also commented on the maneuver by BfS/ICNIRP in an article in the renowned IEEE magazine. He strongly condemns the approach. He comments on Karipidis as follows:

“The assessment of scientific evidence on this topic was certainly controversial and inconsistent. The question is: ‘Is this review really the last word in the long-standing debate about whether cell phone radiation poses a cancer risk?’ My answer is: far from it!”[12]

Lin criticizes the fact that the most important studies are not taken into account in Karipidis and that studies are used instead that have already been unanimously criticized by the scientific community. It is particularly noteworthy that the renowned IEEE magazine published this comprehensive critique of all ICNIRP/BfS reviews by Prof. James A. Lin, in which he takes the side of the critics and rejects the reviews as unscientific and biased. Lin writes in summary:

“The criticism and challenges facing the published, systematic WHO-EMF reviews are brutal, including calls for a retraction. Rigorous examination of these reviews reveals significant concerns. In addition to the scientific quality, there seems to be a strong belief that RF radiation is only about heat problems. The unequivocal message that cell phones do not pose a cancer risk is clear. The reviews show a lack of serious consideration of conflicts of interest and clearly support the recently adopted ICNIRP guidelines on RF exposure for human safety. From the beginning, the WHO-EMF has had close ties to ICNIRP, a private organization that is often referred to as the scientific secretariat of the WHO-EMF project. What may not be so obvious in the systematic WHO EMF reviews is the lack of diversity of opinion. A large number of ICNIRP commissioners and committee members are listed as authors of the WHO EMF reviews; some were also lead authors. These concerns raise questions about the independence of the reviewers and potential conflicts of interest.”

Considering the politeness with which scientists usually communicate with each other, this is an open and extremely sharp rejection of all ICNIRP/BfS reviews by a leading expert, and in a major international journal at that.

EESC calls for dissolution of ICNIRP

The German Bundestag’s consensus report on mobile communications (TAB) from 2023 criticises the one-sided orientation towards the ICNIRP’s interpretations:

• “The definition of the framework conditions for risk assessment, the risk assessment itself and the decision on which EMF exposures are still tolerable are in fact left exclusively to a scientific expert committee, the ICNIRP.” (TAB p. 83 and p. 156)

• “Critics, however, doubt whether the ICNIRP is sufficiently democratically legitimised for the role it is intended to play (BUND 2012, p. 15; Huss 2011, p. 9). In addition, concerns are raised about possible conflicts of interest by members of the ICNIRP (BioInitiative Working Group 2012, p. 8; Hardell 2017) as well as interrelationships between the ICNIRP and other advisory bodies.”[13] (TAB p. 83)

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) calls in its opinion on mobile communications in the Official Journal of the EU (04.03.2022) for the ICNIRP to be replaced by an independent body. Under the heading “Doubts about the ICNIRP standards”, the authorities are using a tranquilizer to clear up the issue, saying that compliance with the limit values ​​according to the ICNIRP guidelines would guarantee safety, and a new body is called for:

• “1.6. The EESC believes that the EU needs an independent European body with modern procedures in line with the current technical framework and a multidisciplinary approach to establish guidelines for protecting the population and workers from electromagnetic radiation.”[14]