The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission’s 2025 assessment devotes a single 140-word bullet to “Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR)” and concludes that evidence of harm to children is “low to inadequate.” A close reading shows (i) selective citation of pre-2022 literature, (ii) no treatment of telecom corporate influence, and (iii) silence on the 2021 Environmental Health Trust v FCC remand. Meanwhile, two WHO-commissioned systematic reviews published in 2024–2025 now rate the evidence for RF-induced malignant gliomas, heart schwannomas, and male-factor infertility as “High Certainty”—a level that has historically triggered carcinogen re-classifications. This paper contrasts the MAHA narrative with the current state of science and documents three decades of industry tactics that have impeded protective policy.
Introduction
Childhood chronic disease is rising; MAHA was chartered to explain why. Yet its treatment of RF radiation—the one exposure that has grown >10 000-fold since the 1980s—amounts to a paragraph suggesting “more high-quality research is needed.”
Methods
-
We extracted every MAHA paragraph and reference related to RF/EMF (pages 44–45).
-
We cross-checked those citations against PubMed through April 2025, adding WHO reviews published in Environment International (2024–2025).
-
We mapped MAHA’s “Corporate Influence” section (pp. 47–48) to see whether telecom lobbying or the FCC legal challenge appeared (they do not).
Findings
MAHA’s RF evidence base is out-of-date
MAHA cites four papers—Frank 2021, Yu 2021, Melnick 2020, Bodewein 2022—none later than mid-2022. ScienceDirect
It omits the WHO “high-certainty” reviews released April 2024 (male fertility) and April 2025 (cancer). ScienceDirect
Key science MAHA missed
| Milestone | Finding | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NTP 2-year bioassay (2018) | “Clear evidence” of heart schwannomas & brain gliomas at ≤ 3 W kg⁻¹ | Already cited by MAHA but downgraded as “needs more research” |
| Ramazzini lifetime study (2018) | Same tumours at tower-level 0.1 W kg⁻¹ | Not cited |
| WHO cancer review (Mevissen 2025) | High certainty for glioma & schwannoma at ≤ 0.3 W kg⁻¹ SAR | Not cited |
| WHO fertility review (Cordelli 2024, corrigendum 2025) | 68 % ↑ failed pregnancy odds; sperm DNA damage ↑1.9 SD | Not cited |
Corporate-influence vacuum
MAHA devotes an entire chapter to chemical-industry lobbying (e.g., PFAS spent $77 M in 2024) but never mentions:
-
CTIA’s $25 M “Wireless Technology Research” program (1993-1999) whose own investigators found blood-brain-barrier leakage.
-
Motorola & CTIA’s campaign against Dr Henry Lai after his 1995 DNA-break study.
-
Industry “war-gaming” of IARC classification meetings (2011) documented in FOIAs.
Legal context omitted
-
Environmental Health Trust v FCC (D.C. Cir. 2021) ruled the FCC “arbitrary and capricious” for ignoring 11 000 pages of non-thermal evidence—MAHA never references the case.
-
Section 704 of the 1996 Telecom Act still blocks communities from citing health when opposing towers; its repeal is absent from MAHA recommendations.
Discussion
| MAHA Position | Current Evidence |
|---|---|
| “Low to inadequate evidence” for RF harm in children | WHO now grades two endpoints High Certainty; new bioassays meet classical criteria for carcinogenicity. |
| Calls for more research before action | Pre-marketing caution is standard for pesticides, yet RF exposure has been allowed to scale nationwide without non-thermal limits. |
| No mention of corporate capture | Telecom tactics mirror Big Tobacco: ghost-written reviews, funding-bias (>25 × higher odds of null results), and direct intimidation of university labs. |
The omission is not merely academic; it shapes policy. MAHA’s silence allows proposals such as the 600 MHz auction (the deepest-penetrating mobile band yet) to proceed under 1996 thermal-only rules—rules every recent review now deems obsolete.
Recommendations
Add an EMF Corporate-Influence subsection to MAHA Section 3, documenting lobbying spend, litigation history, and research suppression.
Update the evidence table with WHO 2024-25 reviews, NTP & Ramazzini dose-response data, and VGCC-ROS mechanistic consensus.
Legislate: repeal Telecom Act § 704; return health oversight to EPA under PL 90-602; require RF disclosure labels analogous to California Prop 65.
Deploy safer infrastructure: wired fiber backbones and Li-Fi indoors; relocate macro transmitters to high-altitude or orbital platforms.
Conclusion
By presenting two-year-old literature as the state of the science and ignoring telecom’s documented playbook of influence, the MAHA report underestimates RF health risks at a moment when the WHO itself has declared “high certainty” of carcinogenic and reproductive harm. Closing that gap is not optional; it is the prerequisite for any credible roadmap to a healthier generation.
