Australia's radiation protection agency ARPANSA highlights a New Zealand Medical Journal commentary on the recent WHO-commissioned systematic reviews of radiofrequency EME exposure. ARPANSA's Ken Karipidis and Professor Mark Elwood conclude that most reviews found no association with adverse health effects, dismiss the WHO review linking animal experiments to cancer as methodologically "flawed", and say mobile phone use has not correlated with rising brain cancer rates.
The underlying NZMJ article also notes that evidence remains limited for many topics: too weak to demonstrate a risk, but also too weak to rule one out.
"In part that is due to the World Health Organization's commissioned systematic reviews on the potential adverse health effects from EME exposure, which were all recently published."
"Generally speaking, most of the systematic reviews found no association with adverse health effects and exposure to EME. But the evidence is limited in some areas."
"Most importantly the systematic review investigating human observational studies and cancer found no association between using a mobile phone and brain or other cancers."
"A systematic review investigating experimental animals and cancer did report associations with some cancers, but the methods in that systematic review were flawed and have been widely criticised in the field."
"Findings in New Zealand are consistent with what we have found in Australian studies, which is that despite the massive increase in mobile phone use in the last 40 years there has not been a correlating increase in brain cancers."
Health risks of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, and the World Health Organization's programme
Elwood M, Karipidis K (2026) New Zealand Medical Journal Journal Level 1ⓘ
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