Article publication date
October 2025
ARPANSA review date
January 2026
Summary
The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) has updated its appraisal of the carcinogenicity of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). This was a large undertaking that involved collating and synthesising information from a wide variety of evidence streams into a cohesive assessment for each organ or physiological system. The evidence assessed in the report was published between 2013 and 2024, building on previous ANSES expert appraisals published in 2013 and 2016. ANSES used a hierarchical assessment where both the type and strength of evidence were used to determine the overall level of evidence. Their structure follows the generalised hierarchy of evidence where epidemiological studies on humans are valued above studies on animals which are, in turn, valued more than studies on cell lines or mechanisms.
For the brain, central nervous system, blood, plasma, immune system, cardiovascular system, liver and the reproductive system ANSES assessed that it was not possible to conclude from the available evidence whether RF-EMF was carcinogenic. This is the lowest possible classification of risk in ANSES’ classification structure. For all other biological systems there was insufficient information to form substantial lines of evidence.
Commentary by ARPANSA
The formulation of ANSES’ conclusory statements arising from the lowest classification of risk in their classification structure can give the impression that there are large uncertainties remaining in the scientific evidence, regardless of the size and quality of the evidence used to arrive at that classification. While some uncertainties remain for less studied cancers, for well-studied cancers their statements do not provide an accurate accounting of the state of the scientific evidence. This can be problematic for readers without further understanding of the underlying scientific evidence, as it is challenging to interpret the meaning of their conclusions accurately without this knowledge. Better formulated conclusory statements that include consideration for both the certainty and direction of effect, such as those employed in GRADE assessments, could provide clarity to an uninitiated reader.
This assessment was requested by the French Director General of Health in response to preliminary reports from the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) study into the effect of RF-EMF on cancer incidence in laboratory animals (NTP, 2018a, 2018b). These preliminary reports and subsequent full publications indicated a potential effect of RF-EMF on specific cancers at very high exposure levels. However, numerous issues with the NTP studies have been documented by a variety of public health agencies (ARPANSA, ICNIRP, FDA) and so the approach of ANSES to consider those results in the context of the entire scientific body of evidence, including using a hierarchical approach, is justified. ARPANSA similarly uses a hierarchical approach to evaluating evidence which is detailed on the corresponding ARPANSA webpage. ANSES collated all the appropriate research that existed during their assessment however, there have also been notable recent publications that partially replicate the NTP study (Kim, H. et al., 2026; Imaida, K. et al., 2026). These studies do not confirm the findings of the original study and conclude that there is no carcinogenic effect of RF-EMF.
With regard to the epidemiological evidence, the organ that has been researched the most is the brain due to the assumption of comparatively high near field exposures from mobile phone use. The most comprehensive assessment of this line of evidence to date (Karipidis, K. et al., 2024) did not show an association between RF-EMF exposure and brain cancers and that has been shown further since in high quality prospective cohort studies (Feychting, M. et al., 2024). Other organs have been studied much less in epidemiological studies but still show no association between RF-EMF exposure and cancer (Karipidis, K. et al., 2025). As this type of evidence is the highest in the hierarchy of evidence for long-term health effects such as cancer, it is appropriate that ANSES’ assessment of corresponding organs arrived at their lowest classification of risk.
A similar effort has been undertaken by the World Health Organization in a project to assess the relationship between RF-EMF exposure and a variety of health endpoints, including cancer. This project involved commissioning a series of systematic reviews and will ultimately result in the publication of an environmental health criterion monograph for RF-EMF. Each of the systematic reviews have been published and the evidence is broadly in agreement with ANSES’ conclusions.
