[1] He is the author of Microwaving Our Planet: The Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution (Cellular Phone Task Force 1997) and The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life (Chelsea Green 2020).
Born May 28, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York, Firstenberg was a Westinghouse scholar who received a BA in mathematics from Cornell University in 1971 and continued into medical school from 1978 to 1982.
Firstenberg did not complete medical school due to illness, which he attributes to electromagnetic hypersensitivity brought on by receiving over 40 diagnostic dental x-rays.
In 1997, the Cellular Phone Taskforce was the lead petitioner in a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's RF radiation exposure limits, which was joined by dozens of other parties including the Ad Hoc Association of Parties Concerned About the Federal Communications Commission Radio Frequency Health and Safety Rules ("AHA").
Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits states and local governments from regulating cell towers on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency radiation.