Wireless-Protection.org

The deliberate confusion poured upon the mobiles and health debate by the phone industry !

Possible biological effects of mobile phone radiation not only on scientific forums but also with the media and the general public. Since I considered my opinions as fact-based and moderate, I got surprised that this activity landed me “between a rock and a hard place”. I began to be criticized by those who interpret any piece of scientific evidence showing biological effect, as an indicator of health risk, and by those who interpret the same evidence as an indication of no risk at all. My opinions were considered as either not reaching far enough or reaching too far. In spite of it, I have continued the moderate line and I will do so also in my blog. In my opinion, the published science does not permit to make the final judgment on the possibility of health risk associated with the use of mobile phones. Furthermore, in my opinion, the available scientific evidence is insufficient to reliably support and justify the present no-health-risk-claims and the safety standards.
On March 30, 2007 I was appointed for the 3-year-period as Guangbiao Professor at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Chinese universities, in their quest for rapid improvement of the level of science in China, have begun to recruit international experts to make this transition as easy and as fast as possible. In this capacity I spend at least one month a year in Hangzhou (180 km south-west of Shanghai), where Zheijang University is located, and assist my Chinese colleagues with bioelectromagnetics research projects and with the education and training of graduate and post-graduate students.
One of the Zheijang University campuses (photo DL)
Being Guangbiao Professor I recently co-organized and co-chaired, with my Chinese host Prof. Zhengping Xu (see photo), the 5th International Seminar in China “Electromagnetic Fields and Biological Effects”, which took place in Hangzhou on April 17-19, 2009. One of the main topics of the conference was the health safety of mobile phones.
In respect to mobile phone safety issues China is very much player on its own. Like Russia it has its own safety standards that differ from standards used by numerous Western countries. At the meeting in Hangzhou, one of several invited key-presentations got my special attention. It was presented by Prof. Zhaojin Cao (co-authored by Qian Wang) from the National Institute of Environmental Health & Related Product Safety of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing. The topic of this presentation was “EMF standards and administration in China”, and the presentation was in its content very critical of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Electromagnetic Field Project (EMF Project). One of the major criticisms concerned disregarding of the scientific evidence for the weak effects of EMF radiation by ICNIRP and WHO. ICNIRP has well-established formal procedure to evaluate scientific publications. However, the outcome of evaluation, though smoothly guided by the procedure, depends on what the experts will say about the scientific quality of individual studies. This evaluation of individual studies seems to cause problems that lead to the claims of “disregard for weak effects of EMF” mentioned by Prof. Cao. It is not only my personal observation that the negative studies seem to get accepted as such, without too much scrutiny, whereas the positive studies are examined in every detail to determine why the result is positive. Hence, the positive studies are not treated equally with the negative ones, even though also the negative studies might include erroneous results or interpretations. Moreover, only the positive studies are demanded to be replicated before they can be accepted as valid evidence. This replication requirement is of course the correct approach, but it should be applied, at least to some degree, also to negative studies. At least the negative studies that are considered as providing the crucial evidence of no-effect should be replicated. An error in study design, execution, data analysis or interpretation might lead not only to positive but also to negative result. Furthermore, many of the positive studies are not even being attempted to be replicated and of course negative studies are not replicated at all. However, if the replication of the positive study is attempted then, commonly, the protocol of the replication study has so many modifications, introduced to improve the quality, that the outcome of such study is difficult, if not impossible, to compare with the original one. As often happens, the outcome of the so-called replication study differs from that of the original study. However, the failed replication might be either because of incorrect (unreliable) result of the original study or because of the modifications introduced in replication study. Usually, this question remains unanswered but the final result is claimed to be - in summary, the original study has not been replicated (= is not valid evidence). This practice, in my opinion, introduces bias into the otherwise clear-cut evaluation process of ICNIRP.Another issue, mentioned at the conference was the “weight of evidence”. To me this term is abused by those who wish to disregard scientific studies showing that mobile phone radiation can induce biological effects. We continuously hear that there were done thousands of studies on mobile phone radiation. However, this number is grossly exaggerated because it refers to research at all microwave-frequencies. For example the applicability of the results obtained using radiation frequency of microwave ovens might not necessarily be directly applicable to the mobile phone-emitted microwaves. There is still ongoing discussion whether it is possible to transpose results of experiments done with one frequency of microwaves to other frequencies. To me, in order to be relevant, the studies should be performed using actually mobile-phone-emitted microwaves. The number of such studies, which were done using mobile phone-emitted microwaves, is available from the EMF-Portal database (http://www.emf-portal.de/) that is maintained by the Research Center for Bioelectromagnetic Interaction at the University Hospital of the Aachen University in Germany. This specialized database lists as of May 15th, 2009, total of 499 studies that explicitly investigated the biological and health effects of mobile phone-related microwave frequencies. Therefore, in my opinion, the number of the executed studies is not sufficiently large to create reliable basis for any conclusive statements about the existence or the absence of the health risk associated with the use of mobile phone. These 499 studies include studies that do not show any biological effects of mobile phone radiation but also studies that show induction of such effects. However, because the majority of the published studies (these thousands of articles with all microwave frequencies) show no effect, it is commonly suggested that this “weight of evidence” supports the notion that there are no biological effects and no health risk. This issue was also mentioned in a presentation in Hangzhou. One renowned scientist, C. K. Chou of Motorola, had stated that the newly designed, and about to start in the USA, large animal study is unlikely to have impact on science concerning mobile phone effects because of the “weight of evidence” provided by the earlier published studies. In short it means that, in his opinion, even well designed, well executed state-of-the-art study with best available radiation exposure dosimetry, is not sufficient to cause any change in thinking about mobile phone radiation effects. Why? Because the earlier published studies, of which many were poorly designed or executed or had poor dosimetry design, provide “weight of evidence” against any effects. In the discussion period, my question to Dr. Chou was whether, in order to make any impact, we need to produce another large number of new studies to overcome the already existing “weight of evidence”. I did not get any straight answer but just a defensive statement that the “weight of evidence” is a commonly used approach. Yes, it is commonly used and commonly abused. Single well done study is not enough but also a bunch of poor studies should not be enough too.
So, what do we need to do, to account for the weak effects of EMF, that in my opinion exist, and to outbalance the “weight of evidence” in our evaluation of possible health effects of mobile phone radiation? We need a few well designed studies, executed by consortia of scientists, not by single research groups. These studies should be aimed at proving or disproving whether human body responds to mobile phone radiation and whether the response is of sufficient magnitude to alter normal human physiology. Surprise, surprise, in spite of years of research into human health risk of mobile phone radiation, we still do not have unbiased answer to the fundamental question: whether human bodies (tissues, organs) react to mobile phone-emitted microwaves. If they do not, then there will never be any health problem. But, at present, we are still missing science to prove it. This question will not be answered by epidemiological, animal or in vitro laboratory studies. We need studies where human volunteers will be exposed to mobile phone radiation and, thereafter, examined for changes on molecular level (gene and protein expression and activity using transcriptomics and proteomics) and for changes in organ physiology by e.g. sampling various body fluids. Such studies should be well funded so that scientists will not need to make short-cuts in science because of the lack of funds to perform all of needed experiments and in a sufficient number of replicates. This is often the case now and that is why so many poor quality and non-informative studies have been published... and provide the distortion to the “weight of evidence”. However, getting funds might be a problem. Continuous assurances from WHO and ICNIRP that thousands of studies have been done and that mobile phone radiation does not cause any known health risk and the safety standards protect us all, have caused that the funding agencies are not interested to sponsor new projects. If there is no problem, as WHO and ICNIRP are saying, then why to spend more money. At the same time one may ask why WHO and ICNIRP are so sure that there is and will be no health problems when we still do not know if living human tissues and organs react to mobile phone radiation or not. Surprisingly, such studies have not been done yet.