Cancer can be initiated in a cell or a fibroblast by short-circuiting of the cellular electromagnetic field by various fibers, parasitic energy consumption, virus infections, and mitochondrial defects, leading to a damped cellular electromagnetic field. Except short-circuiting (e.g., by asbestos fibers), the central process is mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer cells (the Warburg effect) or in fibroblasts associated with a cancer cell (the reverse Warburg effect), critically lowered respiration, reversed polarity of the ordered water layers around mitochondria, and damped electromagnetic activity of the affected cells. Frequency and power changes of the generated electromagnetic field result in broken communication between cells and possibly in reduced control over chemical reactions, with an increased probability of random genome mutations. An interdisciplinary framework of phenomena related to cancer development is presented, with special attention to the causes and consequences of disturbed cellular electromagnetic activity. Our framework extends the current knowledge of carcinogenesis, to clarify yet unexplained phenomena leading to genome mutation and cancer initiation.