# IARC Group 2B

> 'Possibly carcinogenic to humans' — a statement about how strong the evidence is, not about how large any risk is.

- Canonical URL: https://emfbase.com/glossary/group-2b
- Collection: Glossary
- Record id: `glossary:group-2b`
- Status: verified
- Last verified: 2026-08-12
- JSON: https://emfbase.com/api/glossary/group-2b

## Key values

- **Category:** health

## Definition

IARC hazard categories describe the strength of evidence that an agent can cause cancer, not the potency or the magnitude of exposure-related risk. Group 2B means limited evidence in humans and less than sufficient evidence in animals. Both RF fields (2011) and ELF magnetic fields (2002) are in Group 2B. Citing the classification as evidence of a quantified risk misstates what IARC published.

## Sources

- `iarc-2b-rf` International Agency for Research on Cancer (2011). *IARC classifies radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), Press Release N° 208*. https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf — government, link checked 2026-08-12
- `iarc-monograph-80` International Agency for Research on Cancer (2002). *IARC Monographs Volume 80: Non-Ionizing Radiation, Part 1: Static and Extremely Low-Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields*. https://publications.iarc.who.int/98 — peer-reviewed, link checked 2026-08-12

Data licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Dataset version 2026.08.1. Retrieved from EMFBase, https://emfbase.com.

This record is reference data, not medical or legal advice. Regulatory limits, scientific guidelines and precautionary values are labelled separately and answer different questions.