Decades of animal research point to serious health risks from cellphone radiation exposure, but examining a possible link stops now. The National Toxicology Program (NTP), tasked with studying potential toxins, recently announced it would no longer investigate evidence that cellphone radiation can harm animals or people.

The NTP published results in 2018 from two-year toxicology studies showing “clear evidence” of associations between 2G/3G cellphone radiation and tumors in male rats. Follow-up research in 2019 revealed DNA damage in the brains, livers, and blood cells of exposed rats and mice.

In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) affirmed outdated 1996 radiation exposure standards for new 5G technologies, which did not even exist then. To justify this, the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) anonymously produced an unreviewed document in 2020. The Environmental Health Trust (EHT) sued the FCC.

In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the FCC. The court said the FCC acted improperly and illegally by keeping its 1996 wireless radiation exposure limits. The court found the FCC ignored evidence that radiation below its current limits can cause adverse health effects besides cancer, noting that the FCC also failed to respond to comments about the environmental harm caused by radiation.