Confirmed: Mobile Phones Break DNA & Scramble Genomes

[Guest guest]

17 Jan 2005 17:18:34 -0000

 

Confirmed: Mobile Phones Break DNA & Scramble Genomes

press-release

 

 

The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

General Enquiries sam Website/Mailing List

press-release ISIS Director m.w.ho

========================================================

 

 

 

ISIS Press Release 17/01/05

 

Confirmed: Mobile Phones Break DNA & Scramble Genomes

************************************************

 

But No Health Risks?

 

New Report on EU-wide study confirms hazards of exposure to

electromagnetic radiation but does not prove health risks.

So what use is this research, ask Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof.

Peter Saunders

 

Sources for this article are posted on ISIS members website.

Details here

 

Children under eight should not use mobile phones and those

between eight and 14 should use them only when absolutely

necessary, warns Prof. William Stewart, Chair of UK's

National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). Sir William

issued the same warning 5 years ago, when he chaired an

enquiry that resulted in the Stewart Report on Mobile Phones

and Health. But his advice has been ignored. One in four 7-

10 year olds now has a mobile phone, double the level in

2001.

 

In a new report published 12 January 2005, Stewart not only

repeated his warning that children will be most at risk but

also called for a review of the planning process for base

stations. He was reported to have said new evidence

suggested there might be possible health implications.

 

This evidence came from a large Europe-wide study lasting

four years that once again failed to prove electromagnetic

fields from mobile phones and other sources are health

risks. Nevertheless, it made Stewart " more concerned " than

five years ago, though not sufficiently to recommend more

decisive action.

 

What science to fund?

 

Why do debates persist over the safety of new technologies

such as genetic modification and mobile phones? Why do the

issues never seem to be settled – as far as anything in

science can be settled – before products are on the market?

It is at least partly because we lack both explicit criteria

for funding the scientific research in the first place -

such as whether it is safe, ethical, and makes genuine

contribution to society – and an audit system to assess the

effectiveness of our research & development spending.

 

Consequently, research into the safety of new technologies

is done long after they have reached the market, if it is

done at all. By that stage, of course, industry has invested

a great deal of money and there is great pressure on

scientists and regulators not to put all that investment at

risk. Instead of applying the precautionary principle,

according to which developments should not go ahead until we

are convinced beyond reasonable scientific doubt that they

are safe, regulators apply the anti-precautionary principle,

which demands conclusive evidence of harm before any action

can be justified. It is not in the public interest to switch

the burden of proof in this way, but it is all too likely to

happen when there is so much money at stake.

 

We should be commissioning research into safety long before

large amounts have been spent on product development. And

the scientists we fund should be asking probing questions

and conducting experiments that provide clear answers both

on health risks as well as on the basic mechanisms, which

are all too often not well understood.

 

The Europe-wide study on the biological effects of

electromagnetic fields, unfortunately, satisfies neither

criterion.

 

A major study of no consequence

 

The recent extensive European study, known as Reflex, found

that radiation from mobile phones breaks DNA in human cells.

But according to its 259 page final report, that does not

mean that mobile phones are health risks.

 

The study involved 12 research groups in 7 European

countries working from 2000 to 2004. It cost more than 3

million euros (2.059.450 from the EU, 506.774 from the Swiss

government, 191.265 from the Finnish government, and 522629

from the Verum Foundation in Germany). The teams

investigated electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in the extremely

low frequency (ELF) region coming from the ordinary

electricity supply and appliances, and in the radio

frequency (RF) range emitted by mobile phones. Much

attention was devoted to standardizing exposure equipment

and standards and other quality control.

 

One might have expected that such a major, concerted effort

would yield more definitive answers on safety. It didn't.

 

A fault in design and emphasis

 

The labs concentrated on studying cells and looking for

acute effects on molecules after exposures to EMF for short

periods of time, from 6 h up to 24 h; at most a few days.

The effects of long-term exposures were not addressed.

Moreover, the research focused on field intensities around

current exposure limits – about 1mT for ELF region, and

specific absorption rate (SAR) of 2 Watts/kg for the RF

range. Many scientists consider these far too high because

they are aimed at preventing excessive heating of the

tissues rather than non-thermal effects such as DNA

breakages.

 

Nevertheless, several of the teams detected significant DNA

breaks in human and other animal cells at exposure levels

far below the official limits. DNA breakages were observed

after 15h exposure to ELF-EMFs as low as 35 microT, and

after 18h exposure at 20 microT. Similarly, for the RF

region, DNA breakages as well as chromosomal abnormalities

were observed at the lowest SAR level investigated, 0.3W/kg.

 

Yet in the final report we read: " Taken together, the

results of the REFLEX project were exclusively obtained in

in vitro studies and are, therefore, not suitable for the

conclusion that RF-EMF exposure below the presently valid

safety limits causes a risk to the health of people. "

Exactly the same statement is made on the results of ELF-EMF

exposure.

 

This single statement reveals the futility of the whole

exercise. The experiments were carried out in vitro. We are

now told that in the opinion of the experimenters no in

vitro result, i.e. no conceivable outcome of their

experiments, could have led them to infer that there is a

risk to health. Why then did they bother carrying out the

experiments? Why did they feel justified in asking the

European taxpayers to fund their work as a contribution to

public health?

 

Who benefits from such research?

 

While denying that the research results tell us anything

about health risks, the leader of the study, Franz Adlkofer

of Verum Foundation nevertheless advised against using

mobile phones when fixed line phones are available, and also

recommended using a headset with a mobile phone whenever

possible. " We don't want to create a panic, but it is good

to take precautions, " he is reported to have said,

commenting that additional necessary research could take

another four or five years.

 

That's very convenient for the $100 billion a year mobile

phone industry that has been insisting there is no

conclusive evidence of harmful effects from electromagnetic

radiation. About 1.5 billion people around the world now use

mobile phones, and it was expected that about 650 million

phones would be sold last year. The leader of the study is

clearly concerned about possible risks, but not to the

extent of suggesting the industry should do anything about

it. Not even a campaign to alert the public so that they can

make up their own minds.

 

In saying they have so far not been able to reach a

conclusion, the scientists can hope for another four or five

years research support. But if their research so far has

told us nothing new; and was designed to tell us nothing

new, why should we pay for more of it? Besides, the results

are already bad enough even if all they do is confirm what

we already know.

 

Our fears confirmed

 

Despite its limitations, the Reflex study has confirmed

important findings already in the scientific literature.

Henry Lai and Narenda Singh at the University of Washington

in Seattle, USA, among others, had detected DNA breakages in

brain cells of rats exposed to far weaker fields at least

since the 1990s. Their results were soon confirmed in

several other laboratories.

 

The Reflex study also finds that EMF exposure in both the

ELF and RF range led to significant increases in chromosomal

abnormalities in human fibroblasts (skin cells), such as

gaps, breaks, rings, dicentric (two centromeres) chromosomes

and fragments. Gaps increased 4-fold, breaks 2-fold, and

dicentric chromosomes and acentric fragments 10-fold. RF-EMF

exposure induced an even higher incidence of chromosome gaps

and breaks; and dicentrics and acentric fragments increased

100-fold. These chromosomal abnormalities, too, had been

observed previously (see " Non-thermal effects " , SiS 17

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis17.php) and now

considered by a substantial number of scientists to be signs

of genome instability linked to cancer.

 

Indeed, the Reflex study finds that ELF-EMFs promoted the

growth of human neuroblastoma cells, by 12% after 42h

exposure at 10 microT, and 17% at 100microT; although longer

exposures for 90h were without effect, possibly because the

cells have reached confluence, at which point they stop

growing, and are no longer sensitive to EMFs.

 

The growth promoting effect of EMF exposure is of especial

relevance on account of epidemiological evidence linking it

to childhood leukemia and other cancers (see

" Electromagnetic fields double leukaemia risks " and " Non-

thermal effects " ,

SiS17 http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis17.php;

" Electromagnetic fields, leukaemia and DNA damage " , SiS23

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis23.php).

Exposing leukemia cells to RF-EMFs for 48h caused them to

multiply aggressively, overriding the signals that trigger

cell death (see " Mobile phones & cancer " , SiS17

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis17.php).

 

Mechanism still not understood

 

By its own admission the Reflex study has contributed little

towards defining the health risks of EMFs. Has it

contributed towards understanding the basic mechanism of

non-thermal biological effects of EMFs? Not really. The

genome-wide scans and the protein profiling found many genes

and proteins " up-regulated " or " down-regulated " , the

significance of which will remain unknown until and unless

the normal range of variation could be established.

 

The report highlights (p.194) that, " The mechanism of action

induced by ELF-EMF exposure of living cells is not yet

known. " For RF-EMF, it suggests that " increased formation

and activity of free radicals " is responsible for damaging

DNA. That suggestion, too, is nothing new, and has been made

previously by many other researchers. Furthermore, it does

not really address the question of how EMFs could increase

the formation and activity of free radicals, which requires

the research input of physics and physical methods not

included in the Reflex study (see " Mobile phones turn enzyme

solution into gel " , this series).

 

A failure of education and market-driven research

 

Interestingly, the Reflex report is prefaced by a

contribution from Prof. William Ross Adey who died on 20 May

2004, having " made fundamental contributions to the emerging

science of the biological effects of electromagnetic field " .

 

Adey aptly summed up why there has been so little progress

in research into the biological effects of electromagnetic

fields: " The history of bioelectromagnetics epitomises a

range of problems that arise whenever a community of

sciences is confronted with a frontier that delves deeply

into the established orthodoxies of biology, the physical

sciences and engineering. These conflicts have become even

more sharply defined when emerging new knowledge in

bioelectromagnetics research has challenged the conventional

wisdom in each part of this trinity.

 

" At no point in the last 20 years has public school

education ensured that a majority of citizens has even a

basic understanding of sophisticated communication devices

and systems, such as telephones, radio and television.

Similarly, automotive engineering remains a sea of vast

ignorance for most users. Nor is such knowledge considered

appropriate or necessary. In summary, we have become

superstitious users of an ever-growing range of

technologies, but we are now unable to escape the web that

they have woven around us. "

 

The remedy he recommended is that there should be formal

instruction in physics, theoretical and applied, for those

entering a career in medical research. He could have added

that physicists should be taught something about biology. It

took far too long before most physicists realised that EMFs

can do more to cells than just heat them up a bit.

 

 

========================================================

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/CMPBDASG.php

 

If you like this original article from the Institute of

Science in Society, and would like to continue receiving

articles of this calibre, please consider making a donation

or purchase on our website

 

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/donations.

 

ISIS is an independent, not-for-profit organisation

dedicated to providing critical public information on

cutting edge science, and to promoting social accountability

and ecological sustainability in science.

 

 

========================================================

CONTACT DETAILS

 

The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 32097, London

NW1 OXR

 

telephone: [44 1994 231623] [44 20 8452 2729] [44 20

7272 5636]

 

General Enquiries sam Website/Mailing List

press-release ISIS Director m.w.ho

 

MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY BE REPRODUCED FOR ANY PROFIT FREE

PURPOSES WITHOUT PERMISSION, ON CONDITION THAT IT IS

ACCREDITED ACCORDINGLY AND CONTAINS A LINK TO http://www.i-

sis.org.uk/.

ANY COMMERCIAL USE MUST BE AGREED WITH ISIS