What can be documented (cleanly) right now
1) What the FDA page said before (archived June 2025)
The archived FDA “Do Cell Phones Pose a Health Hazard?” page (content current as of 06/30/2025) included the categorical “weight of evidence” framing about FCC limits, e.g., “the FDA believes that the weight of scientific evidence has not linked…” exposure with health problems.
2) What the FDA page says now (January 2026)
Today, the old “Do Cell Phones Pose a Health Hazard?” URL resolves to the FDA’s “Cell Phones” landing page, which foregrounds FDA’s role “under the law” and then lists responsibilities including: “Collecting, analyzing, and making available scientific information on the nature and extent of the hazards…”
Important nuance for the blog: that same current FDA landing page still contains residual safety-assurance language in its short topic blurbs (e.g., “The weight of scientific evidence has not linked cell phone radio frequency radiation with any health problems,” and a similar statement for children/teens).
So, this is credibly framed as a major messaging/architecture shift (and a removal of the longer-form “dismissal page”), but not yet a full reversal of FDA’s bottom-line summary language.
3) What Reuters reported about the removals and the “new study”
Reuters reported that HHS removed certain pages with “old conclusions” about cellphone radiation and that this coincided with HHS announcing a new study directed by the MAHA Commission; Reuters also reported that some related pages still maintain no-credible-evidence language.
4) The strongest “government record” hook: the FCC court remand (2021)
In Environmental Health Trust, et al. v. FCC (D.C. Circuit, Aug. 13, 2021), the court remanded to the FCC and required a “reasoned explanation” on multiple fronts (testing procedures, children, long-term exposure, environmental impacts, etc.), while emphasizing it took no position on the scientific debate itself.
The opinion is also highly relevant to your narrative because it documents how the FCC sought and received FDA assurances in 2019 (and describes the FCC’s broader pattern of deference to health agencies).
5) The “research halted” anchor (NTP’s own language)
NTP’s official topic page states the program’s “Status: Completed,” summarizes the “clear evidence” heart tumor findings in male rats, and explicitly states that “no further work with this RFR exposure system will be conducted” and that NIEHS has “no further plans” to conduct additional RFR exposure studies “at this time.”
6) Where the “337 days” framing fits
RF Safe’s HHS page explicitly frames its position as a legal compliance claim tied to PL 90-602 and includes: (a) the assertion that HHS is “presently out of compliance” because NTP RF research remains inactive, and (b) a live counter currently showing “Elapsed: 0 d·00 h.”
For the blog, the safest phrasing is:
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Documented: RF Safe publicly tracked elapsed time and argues non-compliance as long as NTP RF research remains inactive.
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Avoid stating as settled law that HHS “was in violation,” unless the post is explicitly framed as RF Safe’s claim/argument (which is what their own page does).
“Where is the HHS study link?”
Based on the public record available in the sources above, what exists right now is:
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an HHS/Reuters-described action (pages removed + intent to launch a study under MAHA), and
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MAHA Commission documents/hub pages where the strategy is published and the initiative is described at a program level.
If you need a single authoritative URL to cite as the “study” itself, the most defensible approach (until HHS posts a protocol, RFP, grant docket, or study page) is to cite:
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the MAHA Strategy PDF link (as the directive vehicle), and
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the Reuters report (as the public announcement context).
FDA Scrubs Its “Cell Phone Radiation” Assurances as HHS Orders a Fresh Review — Why This Is Bigger Than a Website Update
On January 15, 2026, a quiet but consequential change appeared across federal health messaging on cellphone radiation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed or substantially restructured key webpages that had long conveyed a bottom-line conclusion that cellphone radiofrequency (RF) exposure posed no health hazard under existing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) limits. At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) signaled a new, MAHA-directed study initiative intended to revisit electromagnetic radiation and health effects.
For readers, the significance is not cosmetic. It touches the core problem that has haunted U.S. RF policy for years: agencies and regulators have repeatedly leaned on “assumptions of adequacy” without producing the kind of transparent, up-to-date, accountable record that courts and the public can test.
The “before vs after” is now visible in black-and-white
Before (archived June 2025):
The FDA’s former “Do Cell Phones Pose a Health Hazard?” page—archived with a “content current as of 06/30/2025” date—told the public that “the weight of scientific evidence has not linked” cellphone RF exposure with health problems at or below FCC limits.
After (current):
That same FDA URL now resolves to the FDA’s broader “Cell Phones” landing page, which leads with a legal framing—“Under the law, the FDA is responsible…”—and emphasizes duties such as “Collecting, analyzing, and making available scientific information on the nature and extent of the hazards…”
This “mandate-first” posture matters because it is a pivot away from long-form dismissal language and toward the government’s statutory role: evaluate, research, and inform.
At the same time, the new FDA landing page still contains short-form reassurance statements in its topic blurbs (including language stating “the weight of scientific evidence has not linked” cellphone RF radiation with health problems, and similar language for children and teens).
So the shift is best described as:
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a structural and rhetorical reset (old “dismissal pages” removed/redirected), but
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not yet a complete abandonment of the legacy bottom-line summary language.
Why HHS says it did it: clearing “old conclusions” to identify knowledge gaps
According to Reuters, HHS described the removals as targeting “webpages with old conclusions about cellphone radiation” to make room for fresh research and to identify knowledge gaps—especially in the context of emerging technologies.
That framing is important. It implicitly concedes what consumers have suspected for years: when technology changes faster than the public-health record, “settled” language becomes brittle.
The legal context most readers missed: the FCC was already sent back to the drawing board in 2021
This FDA/HHS update lands on top of a major unresolved legal reality: in August 2021, the D.C. Circuit remanded the FCC’s RF exposure posture and ordered the agency to provide a reasoned explanation addressing, among other things, the impacts on children, the implications of long-term exposure, the ubiquity of wireless devices, and environmental impacts.
The court also documented the FCC’s reliance on other health agencies—specifically including the FDA—and described the FDA’s 2019 response as asserting that available evidence did not support adverse effects under current limits.
In plain terms: the FCC’s “we’re fine” posture has depended on the credibility and completeness of the health-agency record. When that record is reorganized, stripped of conclusory pages, or reframed as “old conclusions,” it changes the optics—and potentially the accountability dynamics—around whether the FCC can continue to rely on the same rationale without updating its own reasoning.
The research vacuum problem: NTP’s own page says “no further plans” for additional RF exposure studies
No serious policy reset is possible without confronting the research pipeline.
NTP’s official “Cell Phone Radio Frequency Radiation” topic page summarizes its major findings (including “clear evidence” of malignant schwannomas in the hearts of male rats under high exposure conditions) and states that NIEHS has completed follow-up work with its small-scale system and that “no further work” with that system will be conducted—adding that NIEHS has “no further plans” to conduct additional RFR exposure studies “at this time.”
This is the tension at the center of the current moment:
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HHS is signaling “fresh research,”
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while the most prominent federal RF animal-research line has publicly stated it has no further exposure studies planned at present.
Where RF Safe’s “PL 90-602” framing fits — and why the tone of the FDA page now echoes mandate language
RF Safe has argued publicly that Public Law 90-602 (the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968) imposes affirmative duties on HHS: to run an electronic product radiation control program, conduct/coordinate research, and keep the public informed. RF Safe’s HHS page frames this as an ongoing compliance issue specifically because it views NTP RF bioeffects work as “halted.”
Separately—and crucially for this blog’s narrative—the FDA’s new landing page now places its cellphone coverage under a “Under the law…” frame and explicitly lists duties that track the “collect/analyze/make available” style of statutory language.
That alignment (mandate-first language; renewed study signals) is why many advocates view January 2026 as a hinge point: it reads like the beginning of a shift from “assure” to “account.”
A measured commendation — and a clear ask for transparency
If HHS is going to commission a new study, the next step must be documentation the public can audit:
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Who is leading it?
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What is the scope (endpoints, populations, technologies, exposure metrics)?
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What is the timeline (protocol, milestones, publication plan)?
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What safeguards exist for conflicts of interest and sponsorship bias?
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Will the work include modern device realities (5G, 4G/5G coexistence, Wi‑Fi 6/7 environments), not only legacy 2G/3G paradigms?
Reuters reported that the study initiative is MAHA-directed and tied to identifying knowledge gaps.
The White House MAHA hub provides the umbrella documentation for MAHA materials (including strategy).
Until HHS publishes a study protocol, award notice, or a dedicated project page, the public is left with an announcement—but not yet a record.
Bottom line
A federal health agency removing long-standing “dismissal pages,” reframing public messaging around statutory responsibilities, and pairing it with a promise of a fresh, MAHA-directed research initiative is not business-as-usual.
It is also not the end of the story: the current FDA page still contains residual reassurance language, and the FCC remains under a still-unresolved judicial remand requiring a reasoned explanation that squarely addresses children, long-term exposure realities, and more.
This is the moment for the public—and policymakers—to demand what should have existed all along: transparent, current, accountable science and regulation that can survive scrutiny.
FDA (current “Cell Phones” landing page — now receives the old “Do Cell Phones Pose a Health Hazard?” URL): https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/home-business-and-entertainment-products/cell-phones FDA (archived “Do Cell Phones Pose a Health Hazard?” page — content current as of 06/30/2025): https://web.archive.org/web/20251026083547/https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/cell-phones/do-cell-phones-pose-health-hazard White House “Make America Healthy Again” hub (links out to MAHA assessment + MAHA strategy): https://www.whitehouse.gov/make-america-healthy-again/ MAHA Strategy PDF (White House-hosted): https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-MAHA-Strategy-WH.pdf MAHA Commission executive order (Federal Register): https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/18/2025-02883/establishing-the-presidents-make-america-healthy-again-commission D.C. Circuit RF-radiation case — opinion PDF hosted by FCC (Environmental Health Trust, et al. v. FCC, No. 20-1025): https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-374936A1.pdf National Toxicology Program (NTP) “Cell Phone Radio Frequency Radiation” topic page (status + findings + “no further plans” language): https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/cellphone RF Safe “HHS is violating Public Law 90-602” page (live counter + statutory excerpts + RF Safe’s legal framing): https://www.rfsafe.com/hhs/ Public Law 90-602 (Radiation Control for Health & Safety Act of 1968) — Statutes at Large PDF: https://www.congress.gov/90/statute/STATUTE-82/STATUTE-82-Pg1173.pdf
