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Updated: May 1, 2026

Effective Analysis of Human Exposure Conditions with Body-worn Dosimeters in the 2.4 GHz Band
Published on: May 2, 2018
Do people understand IARC's 2B categorization of RF fields from cell phones?
Peter M Wiedemann1, Franziska U Boerner, Michael H Repacholi
1Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Science Forum EMF, Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
In May 2011, the International Agency on Cancer in Research (IARC) issued an official statement concluding that cell phone usage was "possibly carcinogenic to humans." There have been considerable doubts that non-experts and experts alike fully understood what IARC's categorization actually meant, as "possibly carcinogenic" can be interpreted in many ways. The present study is based on an online survey indicating that both the characterization of the probability of carcinogenicity, as well as the description of the risk increase given in the IARC press release, was mostly misunderstood by study participants. Respondents also greatly overestimated the magnitude of the potential risk. Our study results showed that IARC needs to improve their scientific communications.
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