This RF Safe commentary argues that U.S. RF exposure protections remain anchored to “thermal-only” assumptions from the 1990s despite what it describes as newer WHO-commissioned systematic reviews elevating certain animal cancer endpoints and a male fertility endpoint to “high certainty.” It contrasts these claims with a WHO-commissioned review of human observational studies that reportedly found mobile-phone RF exposure is likely not associated with increased risk of several head/brain tumors, arguing that this is often overgeneralized in public messaging. The piece calls for “prudent avoidance,” updates to FCC rules, and highlights legal and policy constraints such as federal preemption under the Telecommunications Act and a 2021 D.C. Circuit decision criticizing the FCC’s rationale for retaining its RF limits without adequate explanation.

This animal study trained adult zebrafish to perform a conditioned avoidance response to a visual cue. The visual cue was presented alone or together with an extremely low frequency sinusoidally changing magnetic field (0.3 Hz) at 0.015 mT or 0.06 mT. The abstract reports that the 0.06 mT magnetic field condition impaired learning performance and response behavior, suggesting a cross-modal distraction effect.