The FCC Hid Its Own Data. Europe Didn’t.

By John Coates, Founder of RF Safe
October 18, 2026

I lost my daughter to a birth defect that I attribute to microwave radiation exposure during pregnancy. I am not a neutral observer, and I will not pretend to be. What follows is what the record shows—sourced, dated, and quotable—because the American people deserve to see it plainly. I am submitting this as a comment in ET Docket No. 13-84 (and for the record in the related mandamus proceeding) because my daughter cannot.

What Europe Just Did

On September 4, 2026, the European Commission adopted Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/2003. It was published in the Official Journal on September 7. The decision recognizes the updated standard EN 50566:2017/A2:2025 under the Radio Equipment Directive. The central change is straightforward: body SAR testing distance drops from a permitted separation of up to 5 mm to 0 mm—true body contact. The head-and-trunk limit remains 2 W/kg averaged over 10 grams of tissue. The test condition now matches how people actually carry phones: in a pocket, against skin, tucked into clothing.

Manufacturers receive an 18-month transition running through March 7, 2028. That is a defined runway, not a loophole. Europe looked at decades of compliance testing that allowed a buffer no human body maintains and said: measure it the way it is used.

This did not appear from nowhere. In 2020, France’s ANFR filed a formal objection to the old standard. Behind that objection stood years of Phonegate Alert campaigning, led by Dr. Marc Arazi. Court-forced ANFR disclosures beginning in 2017 showed that nine out of ten phones retested at direct body contact exceeded their manufacturer-reported SAR values—some by triple. Om Gandhi’s 2019 peer-reviewed analysis of ANFR data found phones emitting up to eleven times the U.S. FCC limit when the numbers were converted to the 1-gram averaging used in the United States. As of 2019, Phonegate Alert reported that 76% of phones tested in direct contact exceeded the 2 W/kg limit. More recent 2025 ANFR testing of 77 phones at limb contact showed a median of 2.31 W/kg against a 4 W/kg limb limit, with a maximum of 6.25 W/kg and eight models exceeding. At the old 5 mm trunk position, the median was 1.49 W/kg with zero exceedances. The gap between “compliant” and real use was the entire story.

Head SAR is still not required at full contact under the updated body-mounted standard. Phonegate Alert itself notes the fix is incomplete. The body-contact change remains a significant advance.

What America Already Knew—and Hid

August 21, 2019. The Chicago Tribune, investigative reporter Sam Roe. A year-long investigation. RF Exposure Lab in San Marcos, California—an FCC-accredited laboratory that had tested phones for industry for fifteen years. Eleven models from Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and BLU.

At manufacturer-chosen distances of 5 to 15 mm, the iPhone 7s exceeded the 1.6 W/kg (1 g) limit, more than double what Apple reported to regulators. At 2 mm—the pocket distance—the numbers climbed further. Galaxy S8: 8.22 W/kg. Five times the legal limit. Moto e5 Play: roughly four times. iPhone 8: 2.64 W/kg. Only two phones stayed under the limit at 2 mm.

The FCC tested the same models. At 5 to 15 mm they were compliant. The FCC laboratory also tested at 2 mm and found SAR as high as 5.2 W/kg—over three times the limit. That data did not appear in the FCC’s December 2019 public report titled “Results of Tests on Cell Phone RF Exposure Compliance,” which concluded there was “no evidence of violations.” The 2 mm results remained undisclosed until September 29, 2023, when Theodora Scarato of Environmental Health Trust obtained them through FOIA (Control Numbers 2023-000281 and 2023-000325). Of eighteen documents located, eleven were released; seven were withheld in full under FOIA Exemption 5 (deliberative-process privilege).

The FCC’s own letter to Scarato states: “We observed that at a 2 millimeter separation distance, the FCC radiofrequency exposure limits were exceeded” and that the Tribune’s 2 mm results “were even higher than what we observed.” The agency then labeled the results “inconsistent with FCC practice and misleading” because they reflected “extreme conditions.” It added that, given the safety margin in the limit, none of the results suggested any RF safety issue.

A phone in a pants pocket is not an extreme laboratory artifact. It is the most common carrying position in America. The FCC’s own KDB guidance (Publication 447498) has long permitted body-worn testing at distances up to 25 mm when an on-body holder is used. Pocket use is ordinary. The agency measured what was convenient, published compliance, and sat on the numbers that matched real use until forced to release them.

The Standard-Setters

The FCC’s 1996 limits trace in substantial part to ICNIRP. ICNIRP’s charter prohibits industry employment of members and direct industry funding. That is true on paper. The structural picture is different.

A 2022 peer-reviewed analysis by Norwegian researchers Else Nordhagen and Einar Flydal, published in Reviews on Environmental Health, traced ICNIRP’s 2020 guidelines and essentially all of their cited supporting literature to a co-authorship network of roughly seventeen researchers. Most were affiliated with ICNIRP or IEEE; several were ICNIRP 2020 authors themselves. Literature reviews presented as coming from independent committees were products of that same network. They did not cite a single review rejecting the thermal-only paradigm.

The WHO’s International EMF Project overlaps in membership with ICNIRP. WHO-commissioned systematic reviews on RF health effects placed ICNIRP members on every working group—Röösli co-authored four, Karipidis three. A 2025 critique in Environmental Health flagged this as raising serious bias concerns. Anders Ahlbom, a former ICNIRP chair, was removed from the WHO’s IARC working group in 2011 over conflicts; he directed his brother’s telecom consulting firm.

The 2020 Buchner-Rivasi report for the European Parliament (“Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Capture and the Push for 5G”) documented that avoiding direct industry employment is insufficient when research funding flows through government bodies such as Australia’s ARPANSA. ICNIRP’s 2018 annual report disclosed approximately €132,000 in subsidies.

The accurate description is not that individual members are corrupt. It is that a small, self-referencing network writes the guidelines, reviews the evidence for those guidelines, and staffs the bodies that assess whether the guidelines are adequate. That is a structural conflict regardless of individual intent. An agency charged with protecting the public cannot treat it as an independent authority.

Note the numerical distinction: the FCC’s 1.6 W/kg over 1 gram is stricter on paper than ICNIRP’s 2 W/kg over 10 grams for the metric that matters for phones. The United States is not uniformly laxer. It is laxer on testing methodology (allowed separation) and on updating.

The FCC’s Own Record

In 2021, the D.C. Circuit in Environmental Health Trust v. FCC held that the Commission’s 2019 decision to retain its 1996 thermal-only limits was arbitrary and capricious for failing to provide a reasoned explanation addressing non-cancer effects, impacts on children, long-term exposure, and environmental effects. The mandate issued October 5, 2021. The Commission did not answer it.

On May 18, 2026, Environmental Health Trust, Children’s Health Defense, and individual petitioners filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the D.C. Circuit (In re: Children’s Health Defense et al., No. 26-1121). On August 26 the court ordered a response. On September 17 the FCC released Public Notice DA-26-997 (or the closely numbered DA-26-971 cited in contemporaneous reports) in ET Docket No. 13-84, refreshing the record on the remanded issues: portable device testing procedures, non-cancer effects including children and long-term exposure, and environmental impacts. Comments were due approximately October 22, 2026. On September 25 the FCC filed its Opposition, arguing the five-year delay was not unreasonable. On or about October 13, EHT filed its reply brief, asking the court to retain jurisdiction and require a Commission filing within six months.

The National Toxicology Program’s 2018 study found clear evidence of heart schwannomas in male rats from RF exposure. The Environmental Working Group’s 2021 analysis of NTP data recommended children’s whole-body exposure limits 200 to 400 times lower than the FCC’s, and adults’ 20 to 40 times lower. The FCC has never set a separate standard for children.

The Three Asks

Europe tested at zero millimeters because phones touch bodies. America tested at 5 to 15 millimeters because belt clips were the 1990s norm, then hid the 2 mm data that proved the norm was dead. The FCC’s own laboratory found exceedances. The FCC’s own letter admits it. The standard-setters it relies on review their own work through a closed network of roughly seventeen.

If the FCC adopts zero-millimeter body-contact testing equivalent to EN 50566:2017/A2:2025, the Chicago Tribune’s 2 mm results and the FCC’s own hidden 5.2 W/kg reading are the floor, not the ceiling. True contact will run higher.

1. Adopt zero-millimeter body SAR testing immediately, matching the substance of EN 50566 A2:2025, without waiting for the European transition to expire.
2. Require manufacturers to disclose the test separation distance used for every SAR value in their filings, so the 5-to-15 mm buffer can no longer hide inside a single number.
3. Answer the 2021 remand on non-cancer effects—including the NTP tumor findings, effects on children, long-term exposure, and the documented overlaps in the guideline-setting ecosystem—on the record, with reasoning the public can evaluate.

The Commission has a duty to protect the American people, not to protect a thirty-year-old number or a test condition that never matched real use. Adopt the zero-millimeter standard. Open the confidential file. Answer the 2021 remand.

I am submitting this because my daughter cannot.

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Exhibit A
The ICNIRP Network — A Structural Conflict at the Heart of Global RF Guidelines

Cover note: This exhibit documents why the FCC cannot continue to treat ICNIRP as an independent scientific authority when setting or defending RF exposure policy. The co-authorship network, the WHO overlap, the Ahlbom removal, and the Buchner-Rivasi funding findings together show that the guidelines the FCC relies on were produced by a closed circle that also reviews and defends them. Ask one—adopting zero-millimeter body SAR testing—directly confronts this, because it measures real-world exposure instead of accepting a test condition the ICNIRP-linked literature helped normalize. Ask three—answering the 2021 remand on non-cancer effects—cannot be satisfied by citing ICNIRP’s own reviews as evidence of their own adequacy. The Commission should state on the record whether it accepts this structural conflict as a basis for continued reliance, and if not, what independent process it will use instead.

1. ICNIRP’s own charter prohibits industry employment and direct industry funding. That is true on paper. It is not the whole picture.
2. A 2022 peer-reviewed analysis by Norwegian researchers Else Nordhagen and Einar Flydal, published in Reviews on Environmental Health (doi:10.1515/reveh-2022-0037), traced ICNIRP’s 2020 guidelines and essentially all of their cited supporting literature to a co-authorship network of roughly seventeen researchers. Most were affiliated with ICNIRP or IEEE. Several were ICNIRP 2020 authors themselves. The literature reviews ICNIRP presented as coming from independent committees were products of that same network. They cited not one review rejecting the thermal-only paradigm.
3. The WHO’s International EMF Project shares overlapping membership with ICNIRP. The WHO-commissioned systematic reviews on RF health effects placed ICNIRP members on every working group. Röösli co-authored four. Karipidis co-authored three. A 2025 critique in Environmental Health flagged this as raising serious bias concerns.
4. Anders Ahlbom, a former ICNIRP chair, was removed from the WHO’s IARC working group in 2011 over conflicts of interest. He directed his brother’s telecom consulting firm.
5. The 2020 Buchner-Rivasi report for the European Parliament, “Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Capture and the Push for 5G,” argued that avoiding direct industry employment is insufficient when research funding flows through government bodies like Australia’s ARPANSA. ICNIRP’s own 2018 annual report disclosed approximately €132,000 in subsidies.
6. The conclusion is not that ICNIRP members are corrupt. It is that a small, self-referencing network writes the guidelines, reviews the evidence for those guidelines, and staffs the bodies that assess whether the guidelines are adequate. That is a structural conflict regardless of individual intent. An agency charged with protecting the public cannot rely on it as an independent authority.

Sources: Nordhagen & Flydal, Reviews on Environmental Health, 2022. Buchner & Rivasi, European Parliament, 2020. WHO International EMF Project membership records. ICNIRP 2018 annual report. Environmental Health, 2025 critique.

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Exhibit B
The FCC’s Own Two-Millimeter Tests — Found, Hidden, Released

Cover note: This exhibit shows that the FCC’s own laboratory found RF exposure exceedances at two millimeters—a distance its own guidance treats as normal for body-worn use—and withheld that data from the public for nearly four years while publishing a report claiming no evidence of violations. The September 2023 FOIA release, the December 2023 appeal, and the 2025 BLU Grand Max finding confirm the pattern: compliance is measured at the manufacturer’s chosen distance, exceedances appear at real-world distances, and disclosure follows only when forced. Ask one—immediate zero-millimeter adoption—would eliminate the distance variable that made this concealment possible. Ask two—mandatory disclosure of test distance in every filing—would make the buffer visible to the public before a phone ever reaches a shelf. Ask three—answering the remand—is inseparable from this record, because the FCC’s thermal-only defense rests on test conditions that its own data show do not reflect how phones are carried. All three asks are responses to the same failure: the Commission measured what was convenient, not what was true.

1. August 21, 2019. The Chicago Tribune published Sam Roe’s investigation. RF Exposure Lab, an FCC-accredited facility in San Marcos, California, tested eleven phones. At two millimeters from simulated body tissue, the Galaxy S8 measured 8.22 W/kg. Five times the FCC’s 1.6 limit. The Moto e5 Play was roughly four times. The iPhone 8 was 2.64.
2. The FCC responded by testing the same models in its own laboratory. At the manufacturer-chosen distances of 5 to 15 millimeters, all phones complied. But the FCC lab also tested at two millimeters—the Tribune’s pocket distance. SAR reached 5.2 W/kg. Over three times the legal limit.
3. The FCC’s December 2019 public report, “Results of Tests on Cell Phone RF Exposure Compliance” (Report Number 19TR1005), reported only the 5-to-15-millimeter data. It concluded there was no evidence of violations. It did not mention the two-millimeter tests. It did not mention the exceedances.
4. The two-millimeter results remained undisclosed for nearly four years. They surfaced September 29, 2023, through FOIA requests filed by Theodora Scarato of Environmental Health Trust (FOIA Control Numbers 2023-000281 and 2023-000325). Of eighteen documents located, eleven were released. Seven were withheld in full under FOIA Exemption 5.
5. The FCC’s own letter to Scarato states: “We observed that at a 2 millimeter separation distance, the FCC radiofrequency exposure limits were exceeded,” and found that the Chicago Tribune results at the two-millimeter separation distance were even higher than what the FCC observed. The letter then releases the data with the caveat that the results are inconsistent with FCC practice and misleading because they reflect extreme conditions. It adds that, given the safety margin in the limit, none of the results suggest any RF safety issue.
6. That caveat deserves scrutiny. The FCC’s own KDB guidance, Publication 447498, has permitted body-worn testing at distances up to 25 millimeters when an on-body holder is used. A phone in a pants pocket is not an extreme laboratory artifact. It is the most common carrying position in America.
7. EHT appealed the seven withheld records on December 28, 2023. Scarato’s appeal notes the FCC and FDA did not reveal these tests during the court case Environmental Health Trust v. FCC, which centered on precisely this question. A 2025 FOIA from Scarato (Control Number 2025-000263) found the FCC’s own lab had documented non-compliance in purchased BLU Grand Max samples while the manufacturer-submitted sample tested compliant. The FCC speculated the certification sample operated at reduced output power.
8. The pattern is consistent. Test at the distance the manufacturer chooses, report compliance. Test at the distance people actually use, find exceedances. Disclose the first. Sit on the second. When forced to release it, label it misleading.

Sources: Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2019, Sam Roe (and accompanying methodology). FCC RF Exposure Compliance Test Report, December 2019. FCC FOIA response letter to Theodora Scarato, September 29, 2023. EHT appeal, December 28, 2023. FCC FOIA Control Number 2025-000263. FCC KDB Publication 447498 D01.