Smartphones, Wi-Fi routers and phone masts – what effect do they have on your health? Interview with Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz
We republish an interesting interview with Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz by representatives of the Polish Institute for Civil Affairs in Lodz, Rafał Górski and Maksymilian Fojtuch. Here is the full text of the conversation:
We talked with Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, about the impact of electrosmog on our lives, the latest scientific research and the government’s electromagnetic radiation limits, which are not safe.
Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz
He has directed the UC Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health (Berkeley, California), since 1993. He has published disease prevention research for four decades. In 2009, he was the lead author of a groundbreaking review article on cell phone use and cancer risk, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He updated that meta-analysis in an article published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. He also co-authored an article on electrosensitivity published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. In 2017, he won an eight-year lawsuit against the California Public Health Agency concerning suppression of its own scientists’ recommendations on cell phone safety. As a result, the Department issued health warnings about the phones. He acts as an advisor in Physicians for Safe Technology organization and supports the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which was signed by more than 250 scientists who have published more than 2,000 articles and letters in scientific journals on electromagnetic fields and related health effects. Since 2013, he has been translating and disseminating research on the biological and health effects of wireless radiation through his website (https://saferemr.com).
Rafał Górski, Maksymilian Fojtuch: Let’s start with two photos. The first shows a building belonging to the District Heating Company in Gdynia. You can see two masts.
The second photo in a more rural district of Gdynia, in northern Poland: Wiczlino, Gdynia.
What health problems are certain to occur for residents and students exposed to this nearby source of electromagnetic radiation, commonly called electrosmog?
Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD: Since 2013, I have run the website Saferemr.com, which provides a curated list of links to scientific articles on the health risks of cell phones, cordless phones, cell tower base stations, Wi-Fi routers, smart meters, electric and hybrid cars, and various wireless devices.
Reviews of the scientific studies on the health effects of cell phone towers (e.g.„Biological effects from exposure to electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell tower base stations and other antenna arrays” ; „Evidence for a health risk by RF on humans living around mobile phone base stations: From radiofrequency sickness to cancer”) have shown headaches, skin rashes, sleep disturbances, depression, decreased libido, increased suicide rates, dizziness, memory changes, and increased risk of cancer.
How does electromagnetic radiation affect children and students aged 6,7–15 years in terms of their physical and mental health?
There is evidence that electromagnetic radiation can have a negative impact on cognitive development in children. Children with higher exposure to telecommunication towers had shorter sleep, worse motor skills, difficulty concentrating, deteriorated skills of hand-eye coordination [hand-eye coordination refers to the ability to synchronize the hands with what the eye sees – editor’s note] and other health issues. You can find a summary of these seven studies on my website.
Does distance from cell phone base stations play a significant role in radiation?
Yes, the signal density from a cell phone tower decreases rapidly with distance from the tower due to the inverse square law. However, cell phone users are likely to be exposed to more radiation from their cell phones if the signal strength from the nearest base station is weak.
Scientists recommend locating cell towers at least 500 meters away from places where people work, live or engage in outdoor physical activity.
What advice would you give to someone living 100 m, 200 m and 300 m from such structures?
Monitor the biological effects of radiation.
Consider changing your residence or shielding your home. Reduce your exposure to radiation from wireless devices, including Wi-Fi routers and mobile phones.
I asked artificial „intelligence” how many wireless devices are produced daily. I received a response that, according to various sources, in 2023, approximately 40-50 million smartphones were produced worldwide per month, which translates to around 1.3-1.6 million smartphones per day. In addition to that, there are tablets, laptops, wireless headphones, smartwatches, cell towers, and routers. In total, the production of wireless devices may reach several million units per day.
What impact does this have on our children’s health?
Wireless technology appears to have an enormous adverse impact on our children’s health. Numerous studies have found that the physical and mental health of children and adolescents is adversely affected by excessive screen time in addition to the electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure associated with use of this addictive technology. Since children are far more vulnerable due to their developing bodies and minds, their access to this technology should be very limited.
What are the three most important scientific studies indicating that electrosmog has a negative impact on health?
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) in the U.S. published a $30 million multi-year study which found “clear evidence” that cellphone radiation caused heart cancer and “some evidence” that it caused brain cancer in male rats and DNA damage in male and female mice and rats. The Ramazzini Institute in Italy replicated the cancer findings using much lower-level exposure to cellphone radiation.
It’s difficult to select the three most important scientific studies that electrosmog has a negative impact on our health because there are thousands of studies to choose from. See my list of the most important studies which focuses on tumor risk, reproductive health effects, and electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).
For an excellent overview of the biological and health risks from radiofrequency radiation (RFR) see the seminal publication of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF.org), “Scientific evidence invalidates health assumptions underlying the FCC and ICNIRP exposure limit determinations for radiofrequency radiation: implications for 5G:” It is worth quoting its summary here: „In the late 1990s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) adopted exposure limits for radiofrequency radiation (RFR) intended to protect the public and workers from the adverse effects of RFR. These limits were based on the results of behavioral studies conducted in the 1980s, which included exposures of 40 to 60 minutes in 5 monkeys and 8 rats, and then applying arbitrary safety factors to the observed Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of 4W/kg. The limits were also based on two main assumptions: that any biological effects would result from excessive heating of tissues and that no effects would occur below the SAR threshold, as well as twelve assumptions that were not specified by either the FCC or ICNIRP.
“In this paper, we show how the past 25 years of extensive research on RFR [radiofrequency radiation] demonstrates that the assumptions underlying the FCC’s [U.S. Federal Communications Commission] and ICNIRP’s exposure limits are invalid and continue to present a public health harm. Adverse effects observed at exposures below the assumed threshold SAR include non-thermal induction of reactive oxygen species, DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, carcinogenicity, sperm damage, and neurological effects, including electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Also, multiple human studies have found statistically significant associations between RFR [radiofrequency radiation] exposure and increased brain and thyroid cancer risk.”
Nevertheless, in 2020, in light of the evidence presented in this article, the FCC and ICNIRP reaffirmed the same limits that were established in the 1990s. Consequently, these exposure limits, based on false assumptions, do not adequately protect workers, children, hypersensitive individuals, and the general public from short-term or long-term exposure to RFR. Exposure limits that protect human health and the environment are therefore urgently needed. These limits must be based on scientific evidence and not on false assumptions, especially in the face of increasing human and environmental exposure to RFR, including new forms of radiation from 5G telecommunications for which adequate health effects studies are lacking.”
Who are you? What happened that made you interested in this topic? Why should Polish people trust you?
I got into this field by accident. During the past 40 years, the bulk of my research focused on tobacco-related disease prevention. I first became interested in cellphone radiation in 2008, when Dr. Seung-Kwon Myung, a physician scientist with the National Cancer Center of South Korea, came to spend a year at the Center for Family and Community Health, the research center I direct at the University of California, Berkeley. He was involved in our smoking cessation research, and we worked with him and his colleagues on two reviews of the literature, one of which addressed the tumor risk from cellphone use.
At that time, I was skeptical that cellphone radiation could be harmful. However, since I was dubious that cellphone radiation could cause cancer, I immersed myself in the literature regarding the biological effects of low-intensity microwave radiation, emitted by cellphones and other wireless devices.
Our 2009 review, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that heavy cellphone use was associated with increased brain cancer incidence, especially in studies that used higher quality methods and research with no telecommunications industry funding.
After reading many animal toxicology studies which found that this radiation could increase oxidative stress — free radicals, stress proteins and DNA damage — I became increasingly convinced that what we found in our review of human studies was indeed a real risk.
In 2020, we updated our review, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, based on a meta=analysis (i.e. quantitative) analysis of the results from 46 case-control studies — twice as many studies as in our 2009 review — and obtained similar findings. Our main takeaway from this review is that approximately 1,000 hours or more of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60% increase in brain tumor risk. Since 2016, six other meta-analyses came to similar conclusions since 2016, including a 2024 review.
What is ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection), and what do you think about this article?
ICNIRP is a non-governmental organization based in Germany that promotes industry-friendly exposure limits for non-ionizing radiation (NIR). ICNIRP’s self-selected members and advisors believe that their guidelines need to protect humans only from heating (or thermal) effects due to acute exposure to NIR. ICNIRP scientists argue that the thousands of peer-reviewed studies that have found harmful biologic or health effects from chronic exposure to non-thermal levels of NIR are insufficient to warrant stronger safety guidelines. NIR includes RFR used in wireless communication devices in addition to power line frequencies.
In 2019 investigative journalists from eight European countries published 22 articles in major newspapers and magazines that exposed ICNIRP’s conflicts of interest. More recently, Dr. James Lin, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering, bioengineering, and physiology and biophysics and former ICNIRP Commissioner, has accused ICNIRP of „groupthink,” a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a group prioritizes harmony over critical thinking that can lead to irrational or dangerous decisions.
The article you asked about by Nordhagen and Flydal pulls back the curtain revealing this modern-day “Wizard of Oz” to be a fraud—all smoke and mirrors. They conclude:
„… the ICNIRP 2020 Guidelines fail to meet fundamental scientific quality requirements and are therefore not suited as the basis on which to set RF EMF [radio frequency electromagnetic field] exposure limits for the protection of human health. With its thermal-only view, ICNIRP contrasts with the majority of research findings, and would therefore need a particularly solid scientific foundation. Our analysis demonstrates the contrary to be the case. Hence, the ICNIRP 2020 Guidelines cannot offer a basis for good governance.”
Nordhagen and Flydal exposed how ICNIRP biases its reviews of the literature to justify its weak RF-EMF exposure guidelines:
“Our analysis shows that ICNIRP 2020 itself, and in practice all its referenced supporting literature stem from a network of co-authors with just 17 researchers at its core, most of them affiliated with ICNIRP and/or the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers], and some of them being ICNIRP 2020 authors themselves. Moreover, literature reviews presented by ICNIRP 2020 as being from independent committees, are in fact products of this same informal network of collaborating authors, all committees having ICNIRP 2020 authors as members.”
In contrast to ICNIRP, more than 260 scientists from 45 nations who published peer-reviewed research on NIR and biology or health totalling over 2,000 scientific papers have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal. The Appeal calls on the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations and all member nations to adopt much stronger exposure guidelines for NIR that protect humans and other species from sub-thermal levels of NIR exposure and to issue health warnings about the risks of NIR exposure.
On January 1, 2021, the Polish government increased the population’s exposure limits to electromagnetic radiation 100 times. The permissible exposure level for EMF was 0.1 W/m² (watts per square meter) for frequencies used in mobile networks. After the change, the limit was increased to 10 W/m². At the same time, the government launched SI2PEM, or the Information System on Installations Generating Electromagnetic Radiation. This is a public database containing information on the electromagnetic field in the environment, run by the Ministry of Digital Affairs. As we read on the government website, „thanks to the system, every citizen will have access to information on where the base station is located, who it belongs to, when it passed all the necessary measurements and certifications, and what their results were.”
What do you think about this?
As I mentioned, more than 260 EMF scientists believe that this exposure limit is inadequate to protect the health of humans and other species. That year these scientists commissioned ICBE-EMF to represent their position which is based on an objective evaluation of the body of scientific research and calls for much stronger RF-EMF exposure limits.
Why do some people develop EHS (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity), while others do not?
Everyone is sensitive to EMF because our cells operate on bioelectricity. Some of us may be more sensitive to EMF depending on our biology (or genetic makeup) and our cumulative exposure to biologic toxins and to toxic chemical agents.
According to Physician’s Weekly (April 15, 2020):
„Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), known in the past as “Microwave syndrome”, is a clinical syndrome characterized by the presence of a wide spectrum of non-specific multiple organ symptoms, typically including central nervous system symptoms, that occur following the patient’s acute or chronic exposure to electromagnetic fields in the environment or in occupational settings….Repeated exposures result in sensitization and consequent enhancement of response. Many hypersensitive patients appear to have impaired detoxification systems that become overloaded by excessive oxidative stress….Patients can have neurologic, neuro-hormonal and neuro-psychiatric symptoms following exposure to EMF as a consequence of neural damage and over-sensitized neural responses.” [https://www.physiciansweekly.com/electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-ehs-microwave-syndrome-review-of-mechanisms/]
How can people suffering from EHS, who are a minority, improve their situation in a democratic society? What will their future look like?
Unfortunately, the prevalence of EHS in Poland is likely to increase with the government’s adoption of the much weaker ICNIRP RF exposure limit.
A democratic society should prioritize protecting the health of its most vulnerable members. People who have EHS experience functional impairments and some msy suffer from major disabilities. Many require suitable accommodations.
“Our goal is to see EHS formally recognized as an EMF-induced external cause of injury by public health agencies worldwide, and greater recognition of the needs of those who are EHS-disabled, so they have access to safer homes, healthcare, education, employment, opportunities, amenities, and equity of access in all public domains. Such recognition should lead to increased public awareness, research funding, and strengthened calls for lower EMF exposure limits. EHS persons must be provided with low EMF spaces for residence, work, school and general public domain access. Low EMF essential spaces need to be urgently established—not just to reduce severity for people with EHS, but to broadly reduce the incidence of EHS.”
Are there any similarities between the tobacco industry and the telecommunications industry?
Having studied the behavior of the tobacco industry for four decades and the telecom industry for the past 16 years, I have noted numerous similarities between these two global corporate entities. Both industries produce consumer products that are highly popular and very profitable. Their products are addictive when used as intended, and in the long-term harm non-users as well as those who use them. Both industries expend considerable funding to influence governmental bodies to keep regulation that protects public and environmental health to a minimum but protects industry financial liability. Finally, both industries “war-game” the science and manipulate mainstream media using industry-friendly “experts” to create confusion and distrust of the scientific evidence that substantiates the harmfulness of their products.
Is there any universal/ global legal tool which could be used to defend the right to live in a healthy environment? The precautionary principle. According to this, corporations implementing wireless communications should prove that electromagnetic radiation is not harmful to human health and the environment. Today, they do not possess such evidence.
You reminded me of the interview I conducted with Prof. Marek Zmyślony entitled „For me, human health is the most important thing”.
The expert from the Institute of Occupational Medicine also refers to the precautionary principle. Belgian doctors also refer to the precautionary principle in their Appeal warning against electrosmog.
In Poland, the Demagog Association discredits you in an article entitled „Do Bluetooth headphones harm? Is radiation safe”. I would like to ask for your comment.
In Poland, the website Demagog discredits you. What is your response to this?
Although I am not familiar with Demagog, the organization seems well-intended in its fact-checking mission. Nonetheless, fact-checkers can get it wrong when the science is complex, especially when the preponderance of evidence does not support industry and government interests.
The Demagog story you mention, “Bluetooth headphones are harmful? Radiation is safe,” cites an article I wrote in 2019 for the Scientific American website, “We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe.” In this brief article, I responded to a pro-industry opinion piece that claimed 5G is safe with a summary of the evidence why many EMF scientists believe that governmental exposure limits are inadequate. I did not discuss Bluetooth or wireless headphones in this article. Scientific American subsequently published a piece that was replete with specious arguments that I rebutted on my website since Scientific American refused to continue this debate. I encourage your readers to examine these articles and decide for themselves.
What about cordless headphones?
I have addressed the safety of Bluetooth wireless headphones in a series of posts on my website, “AirPods: Are Apple’s New Wireless Earbuds Safe? (Blood-Brain Barrier research).” Although the research is mixed, 16 studies have found that low intensity RFR can open the blood-brain barrier which would enable toxic chemicals in the circulatory system to penetrate the brain so there is reason for concern. Although this health risk requires further research, I recommend on a precautionary basis the use of wired headphones.
For safety recommendations from various reputable sources see my webpage, “Tips to Reduce Your Wireless Radiation Exposure.”
What important question has no one asked you yet on this topic? And what
is your answer to that question?
In the 16 years I have been studying this topic, I have been interviewed by hundreds of journalists who have asked virtually every question imaginable. Unfortunately, we don’t have conclusive answers to many important questions due to limited research funding and active interference from government agencies as well as from industry.
Since its inception, the WHO EMF Project which was initially funded by the telecommunications industry has promoted industry interests over public and environmental health. The ICBE-EMF recently published letters to the editor critical of two new WHO research reviews:
In a newly-published paper, one of the world’s most renowned EMF scientists, Dr. James C. Lin, criticized the WHO’s systematic reviews of the RF-EMF research because they dismiss the substantial evidence for adverse biological and health effects. He concluded:
„The criticisms and challenges encountered by the published WHO-EMF systematic reviews are brutal, including calls for retraction. Rigorous examinations of the reviews reveal major concerns. In addition to the scientific quality, they appear to have a strong conviction of nothing but heat to worry about with RF radiation. The unsubtle message that cellular mobile phones do not pose a cancer risk is clear. The reviews exhibit a lack of serious concerns for conflicts of interest and display unequivocal support for the recently promulgated ICNIRP RF exposure guidelines for human safety.
From its inception, WHO-EMF had close ties with ICNIRP, a private organization, frequently referred to as the WHO-EMF project’s scientific secretariat. What may not be as apparent for the WHO-EMF systematic reviews is the lack of diversity of views. A large number of ICNIRP commissioners and committee members are listed as authors for the WHO-EMF systematic reviews; some also served as lead authors. These concerns advance issues of reviewer independence and potential for conflicts of interest.”
Environmental International published an article in May 2025 on the effects of electrosmog on cancer in animals and humans („Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure on cancer in laboratory animal studies, a systematic review”). It is a broad review of the scientific research on the subject to date. It was commissioned by the WHO. What are the results of this review?
In contrast, to the review by Karipidis et al. (2024), a WHO review of 52 laboratory animal studies, “Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure on Cancer in Laboratory Animal Studies” by Mevissen et al. (2025), concluded there is “high certainty” of the evidence linking RF radiation exposure to two types of tumors: gliomas in the brain and malignant schwannomas in the heart. Notably, the same types of tumors have also been observed in human studies, adding significant confidence that the associations observed in human studies are real.
Thank you for interview.
Rafał Górski, Maksymilian Fojtuch
The original article can be found on the website of Institute for Civic Affairs, Łódź.
Photos and text courtesy of Institute for Civic Affairs, Łódź.