This is correct. A full wave bridge rectifier with a (non specific) filter capacitor between the DC outputs. This is one of those circuits that would do something if we had ideal diodes. Real diodes have an approx 0.7v forward bias voltage for silicon based diodes or 0.3v for germanium based ones. This makes this circuit useless for 'energy harvesting' unless you are directly beside a broadcast station. In that case you /may/ be able to get something but it wont be much as the energy radiated to an area drops off with the cube of the distance and the antenna is not tuned or impedance matched so energy recovered will be detectable but insignificant. This is much less scary than say dihydrogen monoxide.
Sauce?
WHOs page on microwave radiation says no such thing.
http:// www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/facts/info_microwaves/en/
Not that I trust them but apples to apples and what not.
I've been in close proximity to relatively powerful (~1KW) radio transmitters most of my life. Grew up around the amateur radio hobby and now do rf engineering both as a hobby and professionally myself.
RF Burns are no joke. They are very real and as with any burn probably increase cancer risk in that area but because of strictly thermal damage. They do require you to either be very close to the source or in the direct path of a highly directional source (like in the path of a high power transmitting satellite dish, on the business end of a maser or magnetron).
Keep in mind we are exposed to approx 1KW per square meter of extremely wide spectrum EMF from the sun. It's nuclear fusion after all. The issues we see from that are the result of the uv component of the solar radiation because it is ionizing which means that it has enough energy to rip electrons off of atoms causing damage. This damage shows up in other objects as sun bleaching and deterioration of the materials, brittle bleached plastic being a recognizable example. If part of that plastic is always shaded it will not experience those effects even though it is still exposed to radio frequency EMF. Almost all (99.9+%) rf used for comms/tech is well under the visible part of the spectrum and far away from ionizing.
There is a lot of BS being spread. It's one of those things you have to learn how it works to know if you're on to something or being fed a load.