Do cell phones and 5G cause cancer? It’s a question that has plagued Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and if Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, it’s one he will have power to explore.
“The next-generation telecommunications network should be discontinued until it has been ‘sufficiently demonstrated that there are no real and serious health risks,’” Kennedy wrote on X in 2020. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
This story first appeared in NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
In a July 2024 episode of his podcast, Kennedy spoke at length about what he saw as the risks of cell phone radiation and how he believed research into the topic has been systematically suppressed by the telecommunications industry.
The amount of radiation produced by cell phones is regulated by two agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, which generates recommendations for reducing health risks, and the Federal Communications Commission, which turns those recommendations into regulations for manufacturers and cell phone service providers. Other agencies are also involved in cell phone radiation research, including the National Toxicology Program, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Both the FDA and the NIH are part of HHS.
Many experts say that research has not shown a correlation between the kind of radiation produced by cell phones and the health issues that Kennedy has said they can cause, including cancer.
“There is no evidence that these radiation wavelengths cause cancer. They don’t cause DNA damage, they don’t sink in beyond the skin,” said Tim Rebbeck, a professor who studies cancer prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Rebbeck added that the kinds of radiation that are known to cause cancer, like gamma rays and x-rays, are much shorter wavelengths than the radiation caused by cell phones — and longer wavelengths have never been shown to be associated with cancer risk.
“I think that if anybody’s cell phone got overheated to the point that it would cause DNA damage, you’d know that. This isn’t something that would be invisible to you,” Rebbeck said.
But some scientists say that more research is needed to know whether cell phones and wireless pose a risk to humans, citing studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program that found that high doses of the radiation emitted by 2G and 3G cell phone signals could cause tumors in rats and mice. These scientists say there has only been limited research on the newer forms of cell phone signals.
“We’re basically flying blind on 5G,” said Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and a scientific adviser for a group of scientists advocating for greater research into cell phone radiation.
Some scientists, including Moskowitz, say the amount of research into cell phone risks has been limited in the U.S., in part due to the power of the telecommunications industry.
Some scientists say that more research is needed to know whether cell phones and wireless pose a risk to humans, and that there has only been limited research on the newer forms of cell phone signals.
Other experts say research has been ongoing and thorough, pointing to recent epidemiological studies that have taken place outside the U.S. and have shown no correlation between cell phone use levels and cancer rates. These types of studies may be more indicative of actual risk levels to humans, said Jerrold Bushberg — a professor of nuclear sciences at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements — calling epidemiological studies the “gold standard” for establishing potential hazards from environmental sources.
“Animals aren’t humans, so there’s going to be differences that we can’t account for directly. And the animal experiments are done at higher exposure levels than people are exposed to,” Bushberg said. “Even if we see something [like cancer in animals], that doesn’t mean it will happen in humans.”
The FCC’s regulations on cell phone radiation levels have gone largely unchanged since the mid-1990s. Kennedy has been involved with efforts to compel the FCC to update its regulations on cell phone radiation in the past. In 2020, Kennedy’s nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, sued the FCC after the agency declined to update its health and safety guidelines for 5G and wireless technology. In 2021, the courts sided with the nonprofit, stating in their decision that the FCC had “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.”
“The wireless industry is rolling out thousands of new transmitters amid a growing body of research that calls cellphone safety into question. Federal regulators say there’s nothing to worry about — even as they rely on standards established in 1996,” Kennedy wrote on X in 2022.
David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany and a petitioner in that lawsuit, said Kennedy would push for tighter regulations on cell phone radiation in addition to more research into the possible health effects.
“In my judgment, there just needs to be much more research here, and it’s not been high on the government’s list of priorities,” Carpenter said. “If Bobby Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of HHS, you can be very sure that that issue is going to get a lot more attention.”
Moskowitz said that he would like to see Kennedy prioritize research into cell phone radiation with the intention of updating the FCC’s regulations.
“We would like to see more systematic research that focuses on setting safe guidelines in the long term,” Moskowitz said. “This is a hard message to sell, given the economics and the demand for 24/7 wireless, but clearly the issue has gotten totally out of hand in terms of our exposures.”
Recent epidemiological studies that have taken place outside the U.S. have shown no correlation between cell phone use levels and cancer rates.
But Rebbeck said there hasn’t been any research data that would suggest a reason to change the current policy, so “it would be unlikely that any proposed changes would be based on anything we’ve learned about the science of cell phones.”
“The best evidence is all pretty clear around cell phones right now, and I would make sure that the policy recommendations are not only based in science, but also don’t cause issues that are unnecessary,” Rebbeck said.
Moskowitz said that while he would like to think that Kennedy would be able to prioritize research into cell phone safety if confirmed as HHS secretary, he’s not optimistic about his chances.
“We’re talking about an industry that spends over 100 million dollars a year lobbying Congress,” Moskowitz said. “It’s hard to be terribly optimistic that one person can make a difference, even in positions of power in the administration, when up against one of the most powerful industries in the world.”
Margaret Manto is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.