The international scientific consensus is that there are no known health risks from RF energy at the low levels approved for everyday consumer use, including for children. Multiple significant, long-term studies both in the U.S. and abroad have not found a correlation between cancer rates and cellphone use by children and teenagers.
Here’s what the experts say about RF and fertility, pregnancy, and children’s health:
Studies
MOBI-Kids, (Published February 2022): MOBI-Kids is a multinational case-control study conducted in 14 countries over a period of rapidly increasing use of mobile communication devices in young people. The vast majority of study participants were regular users of wireless phones and the study included substantially higher numbers of those who used phones for 10 years or more than in previous studies. The study reported “no increased risk in the highest dose group and no RF dose-related increased risk in the longest term users,” “no evidence of a causal association between wireless phone use and brain tumours in young people,” and its findings “are consistent with the overall INTERPHONE study results which found no overall increase in risk in relation to the level of mobile phone use.”
MOBI-Kids Japan, (Published December 2025): A Japanese study, supported by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, was built on the international MOBI-Kids study and accounted for the difference in output power of various generations of wireless. MOBI-Kids Japan studied young people aged 10-29 and “found no increased risk of brain tumors associated with mobile phone use, even when factoring in the weighted power output. The findings align with other recent international studies that also report no causal association.”
World Health Organization Commissioned Report: The Effect of Exposure to Radiofrequency Fields on Cancer Risk in the General and Working Population: A Systematic Review of Human Observational Studies – Part I: Most Researched Outcomes, (Published September 2024): WHO commissioned a review where experts from nine countries analyzed 63 studies on cellphones and cancer dating from 1994 through 2022. The researchers found no connection between cellphone use and brain cancer. On children’s health, the review specifically found that “exposure from fixed-site transmitters (broadcasting antennas or base stations) was not associated with childhood leukaemia or paediatric brain tumour risks, independently of the level of the modelled RF exposure.”
Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program of the U.S. National Cancer Institute: The SEER Program collects data on cancer occurrence and survival rates. A 2010 study of that data funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Health and Human Services found no correlation between cancer rates and cellphone use by U.S. children and teenagers between 1992 and 2006, despite a rapid rise in their use of cellphones during that time period.
Experts
U.S. National Cancer Institute: “Numerous epidemiologic studies and comprehensive reviews of the scientific literature have evaluated possible associations between exposure to non-ionizing EMFs and risk of cancer in children… Most of the research has focused on leukemia and brain tumors, the two most common cancers in children. Studies have examined associations of these cancers with living near power lines, with magnetic fields in the home, and with exposure of parents to high levels of magnetic fields in the workplace. No consistent evidence for an association between any source of non-ionizing EMF and cancer has been found.”
Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz (Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection) on MOBI-Kids: “The results of the MOBI-Kids study support the results of existing studies on adults, most of which found no increased risk for the occurrence of brain tumours depending on mobile phone use. The large, carefully conducted multi-centre study thus makes an important contribution to reducing existing uncertainties about the health risks of mobile phone use in children and adolescents.”
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency: “Based on the current scientific evidence, and consistent with the findings of this review, it is the assessment of ARPANSA that there is no substantiated evidence that RF-EMF exposures from mobile and cordless phones result in any long-term health or physiological effects in human populations, including children and adolescents.”
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: “From the scientific point of view, there is no evidence to support the need for a special precautionary approach for children or adults . . . [the scientific literature] does not provide support for the hypothesis that the developing or young person is more sensitive than adults to RF exposure” and that “the application of the precautionary approach to the use of mobile phones by children lacks scientific basis.”
American Cancer Society: “At ground level near typical cellular base stations, the amount of RF energy is thousands of times less than the limits for safe exposure set by the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and other regulatory authorities … Some people have expressed concern that living, working, or going to school near a cell phone tower might increase the risk of cancer or other health problems. At this time, there is very little evidence to support this idea.”
World Health Organization: “The overall weight of evidence shows that exposure to fields at typical environmental levels does not increase the risk of any adverse outcome such as spontaneous abortions, malformations, low birth weight, and congenital diseases.”
European Commission: “The previous SCENIHR Opinion concluded that there were no adverse effects on reproduction and development from RF fields at non-thermal exposure levels. The inclusion of more recent human and animal data does not change that assessment.”
UK Health Protection Agency Independent Advisory Group on Non-Ionizing Radiation: “In summary, although a substantial amount of research has been conducted in this area, there is no convincing evidence that RF field exposure below guideline levels causes health effects in adults or children.”