Wireless Industry Likely Faces Only Limited Risk From Kennedy's RF Safety Push
The administration’s pro-5G, pro-business agenda may be about to clash with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda of some of President Donald Trump's loyalists. As the FCC wraps up an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules to make 5G deployments faster (see 2601160045), reports are emerging that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ramping up a study of the risks from cellphone radiation. The Food and Drug Administration has also taken down webpages saying that cellphones aren’t dangerous. The FCC didn't remove similar declarations on its website.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Industry observers disagree on whether the wireless industry faces any real threat from Kennedy's push. Industry officials confirmed details first reported by The Wall Street Journal, including that Kennedy plans a study of radiation risks. The FCC “often receives inquiries regarding RF emissions from consumer products” and its stance is “publicly available,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.
CTIA released a one-sentence statement Friday: RF 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.” A spokesperson flagged the group's webpage on wireless safety.
New Street’s Blair Levin summarized the dynamic Friday in a note to investors. “Kennedy will continue to argue that cellphones are dangerous, and he will not be moved by scientific studies demonstrating the opposite of his pre-existing beliefs.” The wireless industry is “unlikely to face material legal liability” as a result of the push or “enforceable government mandates to change their operations to limit potential health effects,” Levin said.
MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told us the Kennedy initiative “isn’t as crazy as it sounds.” A blanket assertion that cellphones aren’t dangerous “can’t be supported by an analysis of any one frequency of RF radiation,” he said. “Each frequency would or will need to be studied separately, and up to now, that hasn’t been done … consistently.” But that’s where the “not crazy” stops, Moffett added. “We’ve already seen that Secretary Kennedy is willing to ignore science when it doesn’t conform to his preexisting beliefs.”
Nothing will happen quickly, predicted wireless lawyer Laura Stefani of Trailfinding Regulatory Solutions. The FCC has historically made changes to its RF exposure rules “based on scientific studies done by the EPA and other agencies, which is a very lengthy process.” If there's any movement by the FCC “based on Kennedy’s actions, it would be more in the form of non-enforceable statements or activities,” she said.
'Welcomed Step'
Environmental Health Trust (EHT) President Joe Sandri said in an email Friday that “the science is clear that adequate proof links health problems to cellphones or other wireless devices and networks.” The FCC and FDA “were specifically named over four years ago in the federal court mandate ordered in EHT v FCC, that the science be finally addressed.” The agencies have yet to comply, “yet today’s news is a welcomed step,” he said.
In August, EHT petitioned the FCC asking it to act on a 2021 remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit of the agency’s 2019 RF safety rules (see 2108130073). The court found that the commission “failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its guidelines adequately protect against the harmful effects of exposure to radiofrequency radiation unrelated to cancer.” Kennedy founded Children's Health Defense, the lead plaintiff in the 2020 lawsuit against the FCC.
Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner noted that the rate of brain cancer hasn’t increased in the wireless era, “even as the population has aged significantly.” If there were a negative effect, “we would see it in actual health outcomes,” he said. Lab testing isn't necessary “because every human is already participating in the test.”
The issue of cellphone safety and the specific absorption rate has been "studied closely for decades," said Cooley’s Robert McDowell. Each time it comes up, it “is proven by study after study that cellphones are perfectly safe,” he argued. “Ripping open this scab will only unnecessarily scare people and lead to harmful conspiracy theories.”
McDowell also said that as an FCC commissioner he looked at the issue multiple times and consulted with the medical community and other scientists. “Every single time, it was demonstrably proven that the non-ionizing RF energy emanating from cellphones is perfectly safe.” Neurosurgeons and academics who have studied this found that while cellphone usage "has penetrated to near ubiquity in the population over the past 30 years, brain cancer rates have actually declined," McDowell added.
Levin said the biggest threat is to how cellphones are seen by the public. Kennedy’s arguments -- and numerous studies showing the danger to children of social media -- “could encourage parents to delay obtaining cellphones for their children,” he said. The arguments “could also cause the public to be less excited about upgrading their phones, such as to 6G.”