MAHA Report ‘Falls Short’ on Linking Wireless Radiation to Chronic Disease, Experts Say

Written by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. on June 7, 2025. Posted in Current News

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report briefly mentioned electromagnetic radiation (EMR), but failed to accurately convey the scientific literature revealing how it harms human health, according to EMR experts and safe technology advocates who spoke with The Defender.

“The MAHA Report,” released May 22, identified four “key drivers” behind the childhood chronic disease epidemic. EMR, which wasn’t included as a main driver, was mentioned only briefly in the report’s section on environmental chemicals.

Miriam Eckenfels, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program, said EMR should have been listed as a fifth main driver.

“The report’s discussion of EMR serves as a conversation-starter,” Eckenfels said. “But it misses the mark in terms of acknowledging the impact of wireless radiation on the childhood chronic disease epidemic.”

For instance, the report failed to mention that studies have linked wireless radiation exposure to impaired blood sugar regulation and neuropsychiatric effects, including depression, Eckenfels said.

Some autism researchers, including Martha Herbert, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric neurologist and neuroscientist, have theorized that EMR is linked to autism. Herbert’s publications on the topic weren’t cited in the report.

Still, the fact that the report mentioned EMR at all is significant, according to Odette Wilkens, a technology attorney.

“Although the MAHA report falls short of what we would like it to say, nonetheless, it has broken ground as the first formal acknowledgment by the executive branch that there is a problem,” Wilkens said.

Camilla Rees, a business consultant on technology risks and long-time health and environmental researcher, agreed. “That the MAHA Commission gave any mention of risks from EMR at all was nonetheless still progress, believe it or not.” But the report “disappointingly still undermined the extensive body of evidence showing risks that exist, and it continued to foster doubt.”

According to Rees, U.S. government officials for decades have ignored data showing risk. She said:

“There is no excuse that the biological and health effects of electromagnetic fields in our ever-increasing wireless world were not featured front and center in the MAHA report as a driver of children’s deteriorating health.”

EMR relegated to ‘one bullet statement’ that had ‘glaring’ error

In the months leading up to the report’s release, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about the risks EMR poses to children’s health.

At a MAHA Commission meeting in March with health freedom influencers and activists,

Kennedy said:

“We allow levels of electromagnetic radiation in our devices, in our homes, in our schools that are illegal in many countries. And a lot of countries now are limiting the amount of exposure that children could get — forbidding cell phones, for example, in schools.”

Yet the final version of “The MAHA Report” “unfortunately relegated the impact of electropollution from wireless devices and networks to one bullet statement on page 44,” said Dr. Robert Brown, a diagnostic radiologist with more than 30 years of experience and the vice president of Scientific Research and Clinical Affairs for the Environmental Health Trust (EHT).

“And in that one statement, there is a glaring misstatement that was likely added by someone without a background in the biomedical research field,” Brown said.

The report claimed that “some studies have linked EMR exposure to reduced sperm counts and motility but not quality” — but sperm quality includes factors like sperm motility, so that claim doesn’t make sense, according to Brown.

“By affecting sperm counts and motility, sperm quality is affected,” Brown said.

He noted that the authors of the very paper cited by the report defined sperm quality data as including sperm “density, motility, viability, morphology, and DFI” (DNA fragmentation index).

“I wonder who added this erroneous phrase and find it interesting that it was added in the same document in which a separate section discusses corporate capture and the revolving door.”

Report ignores thousands of other studies showing EMR risks

The report also noted that the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Toxicology Program found “clear evidence” of DNA damage and increased cancer risk in rats.

Yet the admission of harm was immediately tempered by citing a 2022 systematic review of about 50 studies that found “low to inadequate evidence on impact in children” and called for “more high-quality research.”

Rees said calling for more research is a “well-known delaying tactic by polluting industries.”

The report failed to mention a larger and more recent systematic review, commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in April, that concluded there is “high certainty” evidence that cellphone radiation exposure causes two types of cancer in animals.

Wilkens called out the report for citing the “stale” 2022 systematic review and omitting the 2025 WHO systematic review. “There are obviously forces that are trying to tone down the message,” she said.

Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, a toxicologist and epidemiologist who is founder and president emerita of EHT, agreed, saying the report “skewed the review of the data.”

The report also failed to acknowledge thousands of other studies that have shown harm, Rees said.

Rees added:

“There are at least 170 review studies that evaluated thousands of studies showing biological and health risks from low-intensity wireless radiation. These studies in these reviews may not have been solely focused on effects on children, but the findings are still relevant to children, who are more vulnerable.”

In a recent report, Rees and her colleague Richard Lear presented evidence showing that for 50 years, federal regulators of wireless radiation have ignored a 1971 U.S. Navy Medical Research Institute review of 2,311 scientific studies on the biological and health effects of EMR.

The Navy report predicted 23 of today’s fastest-growing chronic illnesses, Rees said. “If regulators had only listened, we wouldn’t be facing anywhere near the size of the chronic illness crisis we are today.”

MAHA Commission should listen to citizens, not industry

“I had hoped that the MAHA report on wireless radiation would help guide us forward towards making our technology safer,” said Kent Chamberlin, Ph.D., president of EHT and past chair and professor emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Hampshire.

Chamberlin, who served on the New Hampshire Commission to Study the Environmental and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology, a team of independent experts convened by the state to answer questions about the impacts and safety of cell towers and wireless radiation, said he was disappointed in the MAHA Commission and concerned that the telecommunications industry may have influenced its report.

“In my experience with wireless radiation, I have observed that the only people who deny harm from exposure are those with some affiliation with industry,” he said. “Looking at the membership of the MAHA Commission, it appears that most of them are politically connected to industry in one way or another.”

And “as long as industry can cast doubt on the harms their products can cause, the longer they can continue profiting from them,” he said. “Independent and unbiased commissions — such as the one I served on in New Hampshire as well as the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields — have come to the clear conclusion that wireless radiation is harmful.”

According to Eckenfels, the MAHA Commission should listen to the “thousands and perhaps millions” of U.S. citizens demanding change at the federal level regarding EMR exposure.

Rees agreed, noting that nearly 100 health and environmental advocacy groups have joined “704 No More,” a coalition to support a new CHD initiative to legally challenge the section of federal law that allows telecommunications companies to put cell towers and antennas where they want, despite residents’ concerns that the radiation emitted by the towers could harm them and their children’s health.

“As antenna infrastructure continues to proliferate, with increasingly dangerous pulsations from 5G and beyond, the risks of blanketing our society in this radiation is what is increasingly on Americans’ minds,” Rees said.

source: The Defender

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