Is science ever really “settled”? (Well, besides the definition of man and woman.) We are always learning and discovering new things about the world around us and the things we’ve created ourselves. Often, we discover that something once thought safe can have negative side effects. If COVID taught us anything, it’s that “experts” are frequently wrong and that studies and science are far from “settled.”

The Food and Drug Administration has removed webpages on its site that state cellphones aren’t a health risk following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s push for new research on cellphone radiation. The FDA’s pages had previously purported that “the weight of scientific evidence has not linked exposure to radio frequency energy from cellphone use with any health problems.”

The Federal Communications Commission and the FDA are both responsible for regulating cellphone safety, but the FDA provides the scientific data that the FCC uses to determine appropriate levels of radio-frequency emissions. The FDA, along with other mainstream scientific institutions, had also advised that there wasn’t sufficient evidence that cellphone use correlates with health problems.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear mainstream scientific institutions attempting to assuage fears by saying something is completely safe, I have PTSD flashbacks from the pandemic era.

Remember those scientists and doctors who were canceled, suppressed, and ridiculed over their stances on masks, shutdowns, and vaccines but who actually turned out to be right? Well, another group of scientists has warned that there is cause for concern about wireless radiation and that people should take precautions. Kennedy has long believed that cellphone radiation can cause tumors or certain types of cancer, as he has represented several plaintiffs in the past who have sued telecom companies over their brain tumors. “The Wi-Fi radiation is a lot worse than people think it is,” he said on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2023.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Elizabeth Platz, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who refutes that assertion: “Large epidemiological studies have shown no link between cellphone use and cancer, and cellphones don’t emit the type of radiation that causes cancer.”

However, even before Kennedy took over the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s stance on the topic, as its webpage states, was that “more research is needed before we know if using cellphones causes health effects.”

Kennedy is striving to follow through on his promise to Make America Healthy Again by enabling “more research.” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon announced, “The FDA removed webpages with old conclusions about cellphone radiation while HHS undertakes a study on electromagnetic radiation and health research to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies, to ensure safety and efficacy.”

Joel Moskowitz, a University of California, Berkeley, public health professor who has harped on the risks from cellphones, was initially approached by a Kennedy aide to head the project and serve on an expert roundtable, but he turned down a reported $1.5 million in research funding because he disagrees with Kennedy’s stance on vaccines.

While “existing evidence” may not reveal a link between cellphones and cancer, as the FCC says, that doesn’t mean there won’t be new evidence uncovered by future research. It remains to be seen whether we’re all living in a “toxic soup” of wireless radiation, as Kennedy claims, or if it’s all harmless. The truth is most likely somewhere in the middle.

In any case, humanity would be best served, and possibly healthier, to find out.