In the past several years, lawsuits have been brought against cell phone manufacturers and service providers in the form of personal injury actions and consumer class actions.  The lawsuits allege that the manufacturers' cell phones emit radio frequency radiation which causes personal injury on a cellular level, usually in the form of brain cancer. 

Certain lawsuits have been defeated successfully by cell phone manufacturers either by challenging the plaintiffs' experts on Daubert grounds (see Newman v. Motorola¸ 218 F. Supp.2d 769 (D.MD. 2002)) or by arguing plaintiffs' claims are preempted as the FCC occupies the field (see Farina v. Nokia, 578 F.Supp.2d 740 (E.D.Penn. 2008)).

However, in 2005, the Fourth Circuit revived several cases sending them back to state court finding that the FCC does not occupy the field and federal courts have no federal question jurisdiction (see Pinney v. Nokia, 402 F.3d 430 (4th Cir. 2005)).  As a result, cases are pending in state court.  And, there is no final answer as to whether the FCC occupies the field on this issue.

Nonetheless, these cases currently do not seem to have taken hold, likely due to the lack of medical evidence supporting cancer claims. 

A report in the European Respiratory Journal claims to have documented the first nanotechnology-related deaths in humans.  As reported by Reuters, researchers studied and concluded seven young Chinese women suffered permanent lung damage and two of them died after working in a paint factory using nanoparticles.  The study is significant as the first study of the actual health effects of nanotechnology on humans and of the effects of nanotechnology in a real world environment, as opposed to laboratory conditions.