Photo by Tony Stoddard on Unsplash
Photo by Tony Stoddard on Unsplash

Cell towers aren’t making people sick - but the belief that they’re dangerous is

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Not peer-reviewed: This work has not been scrutinised by independent experts, or the story does not contain research data to review (for example an opinion piece). If you are reporting on research that has yet to go through peer-review (eg. conference abstracts and preprints) be aware that the findings can change during the peer review process.

Opinion piece/editorial: This work is based on the opinions of the author(s)/institution.

A raft of research shows cell tower radiation is not making people sick, according to a New Zealand researcher. But the author says high-quality studies show that people can experience real symptoms – such as fatigue, sleep problems, anxiety, headaches – if they believe they have been exposed to cell tower radiation, even if they haven’t. The author writes that long-term studies conducted over several years are also now giving results, and so far show no real effects.

 

Journal/conference: NZMJ

Organisation/s: University of Auckland

Funder: Partial support for this work was given by the Ministry of Health, New Zealand. The author has been involved in discussions of this topic with government and commercial organisations, including review groups, advisory groups on guidelines and standards, and reports on specific situations. The views given in this article are the author’s own, and do not represent any other organisation or group.

Media release

From: New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA)

Some people feel that many symptoms—such as fatigue, sleep problems, anxiety, headache and many
others—can be caused by radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields from cell phones or transmitters. This
article examines the scientific evidence assessing this. There is a lot. Many studies are very simple—just
asking if people have symptoms and if they are exposed to RF. Many of these show associations, but they
are very weak studies. The best studies are tests of immediate effects in ‘double blind’ experimental
conditions—these show that actual RF exposure does not cause symptoms, but the belief that there is RF
exposure (even if there isn’t) and that it’s harmful—can cause symptoms. For longer term effects, much
more extensive studies taking several years are being done: these are now giving results and so far show no
real effects. The symptoms are real, and people may be quite ill: but the cause seems not to be RF exposure.

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