I-SIS miniseries "Fields of Influence"

Electromagnetic radiations are increasingly flooding our environment, as evidence of health

risks is mounting, suggesting that organisms are sensitive to very weak electromagnetic fields.
This requires a new biology that understands organisms that has been systematically ignored
and excluded from mainstream discourse, to our peril. This miniseries is in four parts:
1. Electromagnetic Fields Double Leukemia
Risks
2. Mobile Phones & Cancer
3. Non-Thermal Effects
4. The Excluded Biology
Also see our next fields of influence series

Electromagnetic Fields Double Leukemia

Risks
After years of controversy, a new study confirms that exposure to electromagnetic fields
doubles leukaemia risks. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reports.
The radiation emitted by power cables, pylons and electrical appliances in the home may be
causing cancer in two children in Britain every year, according to new epidemiological
evidence.
The study, commissioned by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) concluded
that one in 200 British children are exposed to high levels of electromagnetic radiation in the
home and that this could be doubling their risk of leukaemia.
Dispute over the possible links between electromagnetic fields and cancer goes back to the
1970s in the United States and before. A series of laboratory and epidemiological
investigations worldwide came up with contradictory and inconclusive findings.
But the argument has dramatically shifted in favour of there being a causal link with the
publication in March 2002 of the long-awaited report by a team of scientists headed by
Richard Doll of the Cancer Studies Unit at Oxford. Doll is renowned for his role in proving
that smoking is the principal cause of lung cancer.
The danger occurs with exposures to electromagnetic fields of 0.4 microTeslas (or 4
milliGauss) and greater, levels that the NRPB says one in 200 children in Britain - and many
abroad - receive in their houses.

For comparison, the earth's magnetic field is about 50 microTeslas. The earth's field, which
includes other natural frequencies, has been with us since life began. And many organisms are
adapted to it. Birds, for example, use the earth's magnetic field to navigate long distances in
their annual migration.
Since the discovery of electricity and the invention of radar in the 1930s, human beings have
been saturating our everyday environment with a spectrum of artificial electromagnetic
radiations (see Box 1), the harmful effects of which have become increasingly apparent.
Electromagnetic waves and the electromagnetic spectrum
Electromagnetic waves propagate through empty space at the speed of light, ie, 300 000
kilometres per second, and include the light that enables us to see, which vibrate at
frequencies of about 1014 cycles per second. They have both an electrical component and a
magnetic component vibrating at right angles to each another.
The entire electromagnetic spectrum is extremely wide, ranging from waves that vibrate at
less than one cycle per second, or one Hz (Hertz) - named after Heinrich Hertz, the German
physicist who discovered electromagnetic waves in 1888 - to 1024 Hz. The corresponding
range of wavelengths - speed/frequency - is from 3 x 108 metres to 3 x 10-15 metre.
Above the visible spectrum are the ultraviolet rays, X-rays and -rays, the 'ionising' radiations
that break molecules up into electrically charged entities, and can damage DNA, causing
harmful mutations.
Below the visible spectrum, are the 'non-ionising electromagnetic radiation' (NIEMR),
emitted by electrical power stations, transmission lines, radio and TV towers, mobile phone
base-stations, microwave ovens, radar, electric blankets, radios, TVs, computers, mobile
phones, and other electrical appliances.
The report reveals for the first time that less than half of the exposures are due to nearby highvoltage power lines and electricity sub-stations. The remainder are probably from a
combination of wiring, computers, televisions and other electrical equipment, but needs
further research.
The effect is too small to have been detected in the UK Childhood Cancer Study conducted in
1999.
However it was spotted in a pooled analysis of 3,247 cases of childhood leukemia in Europe,
North America and New Zealand published last year.
The report stops short of drawing any firm conclusions because of the absence of any proven
biological mechanisms by which such low levels of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation
can trigger cancer.
Source: "Electrical connection" by Rob Edwards and Duncan Graham-Rowe. New Scientist 6
March 2002.
Article first published 10/12/02

Mobile Phones & Cancer

A spate of reports during 2002 is confirming links between electromagnetic radiation from
mobile phones and cancer. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reports.
In October, 2002, cell biologist Fiorenzo Marinelli and his team at the National Research
Council in Bologna, Italy, reported that radio waves from mobile phones could promote the
growth of cancer cells [1].
The team exposed leukaemia cells to 900-megahertz radio waves at a power density level of 1
milliwatt per squared centimetre (mW/cm2).
After 24 hours of continuous exposure to the radio waves, the researchers found that certain
'suicide genes' were turned on in far more leukaemia cells than in a control cell population
that had not been exposed, and 20 per cent more exposed cells had died than in the controls.
But after 48 hours exposure to the radio waves, the apparently lethal effect of the radiation
went into reverse. Instead of more cells dying, the exposed cells were replicating furiously
compared to the controls. Three genes that trigger cells to multiply were turned on in a high
proportion of the cells. The cancer, although briefly beaten back, had become more
aggressive.
Marinelli presented the results at the International Workshop on Biological Effects of
Electromagnetic Fields on the Greek island of Rhodes.
He suspects that the radiation may initially damage DNA, and that this interferes with the
biochemical signals in a way that ultimately triggers the cells to multiply more rapidly.
Meanwhile, a research team in the University of Florence reported [2] that normal human skin
fibroblasts, placed over an active cell phone for 1 h, also showed significant changes. The
fibroblasts shrivelled up, and several genes indicative of stress response became expressed,
that are involved in cell proliferation, growth inhibition and cell death. There was a significant
increase in DNA synthesis and in key molecules that signal cell division. These findings are
similar to those reported earlier from yet another laboratory.
Dariusz Leszczynski at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Helsinki found that
one-hour exposure to mobile phone radiation caused cultured human cells to shrink [3].
Leszczynski believes this happens when a cell is damaged. In a person, such changes could
destroy the 'blood-brain barrier' that normally prevents harmful substances in the bloodstream
from entering the brain and damaging it.
Radiation-induced changes in the cells could also interfere with normal cell death when the
cell is damaged. If cells that are 'marked' to die do not, tumours can form.
This research is particularly important, Leszczynski said, because it demonstrates that mobile
phone radiation too weak to heat up the cells can still affect them.

David de Pomerai, molecular toxicologist at the University of Nottingham, provided the first
clear evidence on such non-thermal effects of mobile phone radiation. He found that
nematode worms exposed to radio waves had an increase in fertility - the opposite effect from
what would be expected from heating.
De Pomerai also insisted that a consensus is emerging that electromagnetic waves such as
those used in mobile phones can indirectly damage DNA by affecting its repair system
without heating the cell. "Cells with unrepaired DNA damage are likely to be far more
aggressively cancerous," he said.
Non-thermal effects due to weak electromagnetic radiation are at the heart of the debate on
the health hazards of mobile phones and other electrical installations in the environment.
These recent results should be seen in the light of the report released in March 2002 by the
National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which concluded that children exposed to
high levels of electromagnetic radiation in the home could be doubling their risk of leukaemia
(see "Electromagnetic fields double leukaemia risk". This series).
One doesn't have to be a cell-phone user to become exposed to the radiation. You could be
living near a base-station that's beaming the radio waves at you (see Box 1). Or you could be
exposed as a passenger on a crowded train full of mobile phone users [4].
Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, currently working at
the Curie Institute in Paris, calculated that in a typical Japanese railway carriage with mobile
phone users surfing the net, the radio waves rebounding from the metal wall of the carriage
would give an electromagnetic field that could exceed the maximum exposure level
recommended by the International Committee for Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP) [5], even
when the train is not crowded.
Hondou's calculations show that it is possible to exceed ICNIRP exposure limit if 30 people,
each with a mobile phone that emits radio waves at a power of 0.4 watts, all use their phones
at the same time.
The ICNIRP limits have already been severely criticised for being set far too high, and are
aimed at protecting people from acute heating effects only, and take no account of nonthermal effects.
An inquiry in April 2000 by the British government found no evidence of any health risks
from mobile phones. But the report nevertheless recommended a precautionary approach until
further evidence emerged. In particular, it suggested children should not use mobile phones
excessively.
Box 1
How do mobile phones work [6]?
Mobile telephony is based on radio communication between a portable handset and the
nearest base-station. Every base-station serves a 'cell', varying in radius from hundreds of
metres in densely populated areas to kilometres in rural areas, and is connected both to the
conventional landline telephone network, and by tightly focused microwave links to

neighbouring stations. As the mobile-phone user moves from cell to cell, the call is
transferred from one base-station to the next without interruption.
The radio communication depends on microwaves at 900 or 1800 megahertz (MHz) (a million
cycles per second) to carry voice information via small modulations of the wave's frequency.
A base-station antenna typically radiates 60W and a handset between 1 and 2 W (peak). The
antenna of a handset radiates equally in all directions, but a base-station produces a beam that
is much more directional. In addition, the stations have subsidiary beams called side-lobes,
into which a small fraction of the emitted power is channelled. Unlike the main beam, the
side-lobes are located in the immediate vicinity of the mast, and, despite their low power, the
power density can be comparable with that of the main beam much further away from the
mast. At 150 to 200m, the power density in the main beam near the ground level is typically
tenths of microWatt/cm2.
A handset in operation also has a low-frequency magnetic field associated, not with the
emitted microwaves, but with surges of electric current from the battery that's necessary to
implement 'time division multiple access', the system used to increase the number of people
who can simultaneously communicate with the base-station. Every communication channel
has 8 time slots (thus the average power of a handset is 1/8 of the peak values, ie, beween
0.125 and 0.25W), which are transmitted as 576 microsecond bursts. Together, the 8 slots
define a frame, the repetition of which is 217 Hz. The frames transmitted by both handsets
and base-stations are groups into 'multi-frames' of 25 by the absence of every 26th frame. This
results in an additional low frequency pulsing of the signal at 8.34Hz, which, unlike that at
217 Hz, is unaffected by call density, and is thus a permanent feature of the emission. With
handsets that have an energy-saving discontinuous transmission mode (DTX), there is an even
lower frequency pulsing at 2 Hz, which occurs when the user is listening but not speaking.
Thus, the fields to which users are exposed can be quite complex.
A review published in the same year by Gerard Hyland, physicist at Warwick University,
listed numerous studies over the past 30 years that showed microwaves do have a range of
non-thermal effects (see Box 1 and Box 2).
Some of the findings, such as increases in chromosome aberrations, DNA single- and doublestrand breaks, promotion of cancer in cells, and in transgenic mice, are all consistent with the
recent reports. Hyland is extremely critical of the current exposure limits set by the ICNIRP.
Box 2
In vitro nonthermal effects of microwaves

Elicits epileptic activity in rat brain slices in

conjunction with certain drugs.
Affects cell division of yeast and on the
genome conformation of E. coli.
Synchronises cell division in yeast, S.
carisbergenis.
Switches on -phage and colicin synthesis in
bacteria.

Alters ornithine decarboxylase activity in

cultured cell line.
Reduces T lymphocyte cytotoxicity.
Increases permeability of red blood cell
membrane.
Affects calcium efflux in brain cells.
Increases chromosome aberrations and
micronuclei in human blood lymphocytes.
Promotes cancer synergistically with cancerpromoting drugs such as phorbol esters.

Box 3
In vivo non-thermal effects of microwaves

Causes epileptic activity in rats, in

conjunction with certain drugs.
Depresses chicken immune systems
(melatonin, corticosterone and IgG levels).
Increases mortality of chick embryos.
Affects brain electrochemistry (dopamine,
opiates).
Increases DNA single- and double-strand
breaks in rat brain.
Promotes lymphomas in transgenic mice.
Synergeistic effects with certain psychoactive
drugs.

A delayed increase in spectral power density (particularly in the alpha band) corroborated in
the awake EEG of adults exposed to mobile phone radiation. Influences on the asleep EEG
include a shortening of rem sleep during which the power density in the alpha band increases,
and effects on non-REM sleep.
Exposure to mobile phone radiation also decreases the preparatory slow potentials in certain
regions of the brain and affects memory tasks.
Resting blood pressure was found to increase during exposure to radiofrequencies.
Dr Zenon Sienkiewicz, a radiation biologist at the National Radiological Protection Board
(NRPB), told BBC News Online [7] that there was still no hard evidence that showed mobile
phones causing harm in real humans, rather than human cells in a test tube.
He said: "The bottom line is there are no known mechanisms by which mobile phone
radiation can increase the risk of cancer."
Hyland disagrees. In another paper [8], he cited a number of relevant findings. Mobile phone
radiation has been found to affect a wide variety of brain functions - such as electrical activity

(EEG) electrochemistry and the permeability of the blood/brain barrier - and to undermine the
immune system.
Although the precise mechanisms are unclear, Hyland pointed to an "undeniable consistency
between some of these non-thermal influences and the nature of many of the health problems
reported", such as headache, sleep disruption, impairment of short term memory, increases in
the frequency of seizures in some epileptic children when exposed to Base-station radiation,
and of brain tumours amongst users of mobile phones.
Thus, reports of headache are consistent with the effect observed on the dopamine-opiate
system of the brain, and the increase in permeability of the blood-brain barrier, both of which
have been medically connected with headache. The reports of sleep disruption are consistent
with the observed effect of the radiation on rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and on
melatonin levels; whilst memory impairment is consistent with the finding that microwave
radiation targets the hippocampus. Epileptic seizures are known to be induced by visible light
flashing at a certain low frequency, and there is no reason to suppose that microwave
radiation, which can access the brain directly through the skull, flashing at a similar
frequency, cannot cause the effect. Indeed, exposure to such microwave radiation is known to
induce epileptic activity in certain animals; and there have been reports of increased seizures
in some children suffering from epilepsy that were exposed to base-station radiation.
Finally, mobile phone users show statistically significant increase (by a factor of between 2
and 3) in the incidence of a rather rare kind of tumour (epithelial neuroma) on the side of the
brain nearest the mobile phone.
What then is the appropriate exposure limit? Hyland points out that some experiments are
indicating non-thermal thresholds for biological effects of the order of microwatt/cm2.
Adverse effects have been reported, however, at power densities a few tenths of that value at
distances of 150-200m from a typical 15m high Base-station mast and within the range of the
more localised side-lobes in the immediate vicinity of a mast. Incorporating a further safety
factor of 10 to allow for the possibility of long-term exposure, the power densities should not
exceed 10 nanoW (billionth of a Watt)/cm2.
Article first published 11/12/02

References
1. "Cancer study revives cellphone safety fears"
by Duncan Graham-Rowe, New Scientist 24
October 2002.
2. Pacino S, Ruggiero M, Sardi I, Aterini S,
Gulisano F and Gulisano M. Exposure to
Global System for Mobile Communication
(GSM) cellular phone radiofrequency alters
gene expression, proliferation and
morphology of human skin fibroblasts.
Oncology Research 2002, 13, 19-24.
3. "New mobile phone cancer link" by Duncan
Graham-Rowe, New Scientist 2 June 2002.
Radiation from mobile phones might cause

4.

5.

6.
7.

8.

tumours by preventing cells from dying,

according to new research in Finland.
"Cellphone radiation "trapped" in train
carriages" by Ian Sample, New Scientist 2
May 2002.
Guidelines for limiting exposure to timevarying electric, magnetic and
electromagnetic fields up to 300GHz.
ICNIRP. Health Physics 1998, 74, 494-522.
Hyland GJ. Physics and biology of mobile
telephony. The Lancet 2000, 356, 1833-6.
"Mobile radiation 'boosts cancer cells'", 23
October, 2002,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2354225.st
m
Hyland GJ. On the inadequacy of existing
safety guidelines. EMFacts Consultancy,
2001.

Non-Thermal Effects
Electromagnetic fields too weak to heat up the body had been linked to cancer and other
illnesses since the 1960s. The current 'safety' limits are still inadequate to protect workers
and the public from these effects. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho exposes the bad science at the centre of
the controversy.
The current debate over the health hazards of mobile phones is a continuation of the debate
over the health hazards of weak electromagnetic fields in the entire frequency spectrum that
began in the 1950s.
The first experiment on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields dates from the end of
the nineteenth century when Russian scientist Danilevsky observed effects of radio-frequency
fields on a muscle preparation that included the nerve supplying the muscle. Investigations
peaked simultaneously with the development of radar between 1930 and 1940, but ended
abruptly with World War II [1].
Interest in the subject was rekindled by the discovery that animals and plants failed to thrive
and even died in areas exposed to radio waves beyond a certain minimum power density; and
also by complaints of workers at radar stations. Research resumed in the 1950s in the former
Soviet Union and the United States, as well as in Poland, Italy, and later, Britain.
Public debate over the health hazards of electromagnetic fields began in the United States. In
1973, biologist Robert Becker was approached by the US Navy Commander Paul Tyler to
serve on a panel of experts to evaluate some experiments that the Navy had funded. These
were in connection with an antenna system the Navy was planning to build in northern
Wisconsin that involved grids of buried wires that would extend over thousands of square
miles of land. It was to be used for communication with submerged submarines.

Because of the large size of the antenna system, and fears that the non-ionising
electromagnetic radiation (NIEMR) it would emit might have impacts on health and the
environment, Congress had ordered the Navy to carry out the studies.
The New York Academy of Sciences had sponsored a conference on "Electrically Mediated
Growth Mechanisms in Living Systems", and Becker had delivered a brilliant keynote paper
that summarised his work up to then, which revealed how electrical fields and currents
produced by the body are controlling growth and regeneration. By the 1960s, Becker had
already proposed a theory that an electrical communication system exists within all living
things, and also showed that externally applied fields could influence the processes of growth
and regeneration.
But Becker was also worried about the undesirable, harmful effects that could come from
exposures to external electromagnetic fields that were often orders of magnitude stronger than
the fields within the living body. He had taken on a graduate student, Andrew Marino to
conduct some studies on mice and rats.
Marino had indeed found that animals exposed to NIEMR suffered adverse effects, when
Becker was asked to review the studies that the Navy had funded.
There were seven scientists on the panel reviewing more than 30 studies. Nearly two-thirds of
the studies had found biological effects from exposure to NIEMR; and these were in a variety
of species, including slime-mould, rats, birds and humans. The upshot was that all the panel
members thought the proposed antenna was a potential hazard to human health, and they drew
up a long list of recommendations and further studies.
In the middle of deliberations, someone pointed out that the Navy's proposed antenna
produced NIEMR similar to that produced by high-voltage powerlines, and that in the largest
lines carrying 765 000 volts, the strength of the NIEMR might be as much as a million times
stronger. That threw the panel into disarray. The discussions became heated, but eventually,
the scientists agreed they had to recommend some action: that the Navy should inform a
special committee advisory to the President that many Americans might be "at risk" from
NIEMR from power lines.
Marino, who told his story in a book published years later [2] had no idea that he and his
supervisor were about to be drawn into one of the most acrimonious and lonely battle against
the industrial-military complex, and prominent figures in the scientific establishment were to
play the key role in victimising him and his supervisor. When it was all over, Becker would
lose all grant support, and would have to close his laboratory in Syracuse, New York, after 20
years of pioneering research on the electromagnetic basis of living organisms.
Marino had found that animals exposed to NIEMR of 60Hz from the wall outlet gained less
weight and drank less water. The exposed animals also had altered levels of blood proteins
and enzymes. That was precisely the same NIEMR that would come from power lines. He had
repeated the experiment twice, with the same results.
By then, at least two 765 000 volt lines were being planned, and Marino and Becker were
called to give evidence at a powerline hearing which arose from Becker's warnings. Their
experiments had confirmed what the Navy's own studies had found. Becker had no doubt that
the power line was a potential health risk.

Unfortunately, they were up against Herman Schwan and other scientists who would be
defending the industry and their own prestige in the scientific establishment.
Schwan had come to United States from Germany in 1947 under Project Paperclip, a
controversial government programme to import German scientists after WWII. He worked for
the US Navy until 1950 when he became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Schwan had done some research on NIEMR in Germany during the war. After arriving in the
US, he began to publish papers saying that 'the laws of physics' showed that the only effects
of NIEMR on living things would be through heating or electric shock.
Schwan's writings were bound up with the federal government's concern, which surfaced in
the 1950s, over military employees who were reporting various injuries from working around
radar - eye injuries, temporary and permanent sterility, internal bleeding and other problems.
In response to these complaints, an Air Force surgeon, Colonel George Knauf was asked to
determine how much NIEMR was safe. Knauf and Schwan began to work together, with
Schwan being the expert on biological effects.
Schwan regarded the stories of non-thermal injuries anecdotal and unreliable. Accordingly, he
regarded NIEMR safe if it did not cause heating. What was the maximum level? Schwan 's
answer was that the body could handle a certain amount of heat, for example, by sweating, but
if the heat reached the point at which the body's regulatory mechanisms broke down,
temperature would rise and injury would result. According to his calculations, the 'safe' level
would be 10 milliwatts per square centimetre (mW/cm2).
This level was adopted provisionally by the Department of Defence in 1955, and Knauf got
the go-ahead to fund a series of animal experiments to verify Schwan's calculations.
One of the researchers funded was Solomon Michaelson at the University of Rochester, who
used beagle dogs as a test animal, and, "in a revolting series of experiments, he literally
cooked dogs alive with NIEMR at levels of 50 to 100mW/cm2" [3]. He recorded burns, fluid
oozing from the brain and eyes and body temperatures rising to 106-108F.
Other investigators confirmed Michaelson's work. Gross acute effects had been observed at
NIEMR levels only slightly above the safety limit set by Schwan. There was not one instance
of an experiment funded by the programme that was conducted at power densities below the
limit. In other words, non-thermal effects were never investigated.
Schwan was subsequently appointed chair of a committee of the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI), whose goal was to set a NIEMR limit or industry. It came as no surprise that
ANSI accepted Schwan's position and 10mW/cm2 became the "safe" level for such industries
as radar and radio and others whose employees would be exposed to electrical equipment.
Over the next twenty years, Schwan published dozens of papers and gave hundreds of
lectures, which culminated in his election to the National Academy of Engineering.
What Schwan said in most of his papers was that there were no known biological effects of
NIEMR below 10mW/cm2. There were in fact such reports, particularly from the former
Soviet Union, that were never acknowledged by Schwan. Schwan's limit came solely from
calculations based on non-biological models, or dead tissues; and all subsequent experiments
were simply rationalisations of it, as Marino pointed out.

10

Michaelson, too, declared that so long as NIEMR levels were below Schwan's limit, they
were completely safe. He was especially critical of Soviet scientists who found non-thermal
effects below that threshold, and had set safety limits far more stringent that that in the US.
He said that the harm done to industry and the military from such stringent limits would
outweigh any proposed public-health benefit.
In 1965, the safe exposure limit set for the general public in Czechoslovakia was in the range
of microwatts/cm2, ie, a thousand times smaller than that in the United States [1].
Michaelson's public declarations brought him many important appointments to committees of
the National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, President's Office of Telecommunication Policy, Electric Power Research
Institute, etc.
Both Schwan and Michaelson were to be major witnesses on behalf of industry against
Marino and Becker.
It turns out that in the mid-1960s, the power industry in the US had already obtained copies of
Soviet studies on the biological effects of NIEMR from powerlines. The American Electric
Power Company (AEP), one of the largest in the US, commissioned a study by scientists in
Johns Hopkins University, the results of which were released in 1967. In a survey involving
11 linemen, two were found with reduced sperm count. In a second study, mice exposed to
NIEMR were not harmed, but their offspring, which were not exposed, were stunted. No more
follow-up studies were carried out, and request by the John Hopkins team for further funding
was turned down.
At an international conference on high-voltage powerlines in Paris in 1972, Soviet engineers
announced for the first time to the West that they had performed investigations on the effects
of NIEMR on workers and concluded they needed protective clothing. They reported reduced
sexual potency and adverse effects on the central nervous system, the heart and circulatory
system.
The power industry released translations of the Soviet reports, which were prefaced by
Howard Barnes, an engineer for AEP involved in the John Hopkins studies. The Soviet
scientists had studied hundreds of linemen, compared to the 11 in the American study. And
while the American study involved only physical examinations, the Soviets had performed
psychological and neurological tests as well.
But Barnes, in his introduction, invoked an argument that's all too familiar in the current GM
debate. He pointed out that there were then 500 000 miles of high-voltage lines in the US, and
there wasn't a single report, not one confirmed case, of anyone being killed or made ill by the
NIEMR from such lines, so they must be safe.
As in the case of GM food, that statement was based on there having been no studies on the
effects of living near the power lines.
The story that unfolded makes riveting reading. Research findings were suppressed and
falsified. Important scientific witnesses failed to turn up or were not contactable. Committees
were stacked with industry-friendly scientists.

11

Marino, Becker and citizens won in the end, at tremendous personal costs to themselves. They
prevented one of the two big power lines from being built, and the company that built the first
announced it would not build another 765 000 volt line.
Most revealing in the entire episode was the way Schwan defended the indefensible
orthodoxy. He denied all scientific evidence that went against his a priori calculation based
on the 'known laws of physics' and the utterly false assumption that the living organism was to
be regarded as no different from dead or inanimate matter.
As Marino wrote, "..Schwan seemed to view the studies [reporting non-thermal NIEMR
effects] as weeds in the garden of known physical laws. Because the know laws did not
predict the results of the studies, Schwan's reaction was to denigrate them, rather than assume
that there existed unknown laws, or unknown interpretation of known laws.."
Schwan was not alone, the scientific establishment had thrown its weight behind his position
until it became untenable. But there has been little change in scientific outlook since.
To this day, the 'safe' exposure limits recommended by the international authority,
International Committee for Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP) take no account of nonthermal effects, despite the mounting evidence of health hazards from such effects.
By the 1980s, Marino could already point to the studies reporting NIEMR links to depression
and suicides in England, to cancers in both children and adults in Colorado in the United
States. Housewives in Oregon who lived in houses with radiant electric heating were subject
to increased cancer risk. In Sweden, a correlation was reported between cancer in juveniles
and proximity to high-voltage power lines in the Stockholm area. A cluster of rare and lethal
ovarian tumours was found in five young girls living near a 69 000 volt line in Florida.
Similar association between NIEMR and cancer was reported in Wichita, Kansas. Men and
women living in counties containing cities near Air Force bases were more likely to get
cancer than people in similar counties not located near Air Force bases.
Finally, a correlation between electric blankets and miscarriages was also reported.
Successive reports since then, including the latest from the UK National Radiological
Protection Board that accepts the links to childhood leukaemia, stops short of drawing any
firm conclusions because of the absence of "any proven biological mechanisms".
Article first published 12/12/02

References
1. Marha D, Musil J and Tuha H.
Electromagnetic Field and the Life
Environment, San Francisco Press, San
Francisco, 1971.

12

2. Marino A and Ray J. The Electric Wilderness,

San Francisco Press, San Francisco, 1986.
3. Marino and Ray, 1986, p. 15.

The Excluded Biology

Successive reports have confirmed that electromagnetic fields too weak to cause burns and
heating are linked to cancers and other illnesses. But these are still dismissed because of the
presumed absence of "possible biological mechanisms" that could account for the effects. Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho reveals a biology that can explain the effects, but has been ignored and
excluded from mainstream discourse.
There has been very little funding on research into the biological effects of weak
electromagnetic fields. Investigations that are carried out encounter both methodological and
conceptual hurdles. The laboratory findings have been conflicting. It is difficult to reproduce
the same conditions, as ambient fields can vary from place to place and even in the same
location at different times. It is difficult to control for the physiological conditions of the
organisms, even if the same cell lines, the same strain of mice are used. But above all, the
effects are difficult to explain in terms of known biological mechanisms.
It is true that there is nothing in mainstream mechanistic biology that would enable us to
understand how electromagnetic fields below the "thermal threshold" could have any effects.
That, despite the fact that consistent changes in gene expression and DNA breakages considered to the 'most solid' evidence - have now been obtained (see "Mobile phones &
cancer", this series).
The "thermal threshold" is usually taken to mean the level at which burning or heating occurs.
But there is a more important meaning that comes from classical thermodynamics, a subject
area that deals with energy transformation. Here, the "thermal threshold" refers to the small
fluctuation in energy that occurs at random in a population of molecules at thermodynamic
equilibrium.
Some biological effects are indeed associated with electromagnetic fields so weak that the
energies in those fields are below the energy of random thermal fluctuations, and thus,
according to classical physics, cannot possibly have any effect [1].
The big fallacy is to assume that living systems are at thermodynamic equilibrium, which they
are not. Systems at thermodynamic equilibrium are devoid of organised activities or
structures, such as the mixture of gases in a closed airtight container that one finds only in
textbooks.
Organisms, in contrast, are open systems maintained far away from thermodynamic
equilibrium by virtue of their ability to capture and store energy [2-4].

13

Systems full of non-equilibrium energy are excitable, ie, they need only the slightest
provocation to give, at times, disproportionately large effects. Unlike typical mechanical
processes where effects are proportional to, and determined by the magnitude of the force,
living processes are highly non-linear and unpredictable.
The weather is an example of non-equilibrium, non-linear process. It is predictable locally in
the very short-term, but not in the medium and long-term, as typical of systems exhibiting
deterministic chaos [5]. Edward Lorenz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
discovered deterministic chaos in the 1960s while trying to write down mathematical
equations that could predict the weather; only to discover that his equations said predictions
are impossible.
The weather is 'deterministic' because one can write down equations that describe the process;
but the equations give unpredictable, chaotic behaviour. The equations cannot be solved
mathematically, but they can be simulated on a computer. Computer simulations clearly show
that a slight perturbation, or the tiniest difference in starting conditions, and there is no telling
where the system will go. This is the 'butterfly' effect: a proverbial butterfly flapping its wings
in the Amazon rainforest could affect the weather in London.
Living processes are the same. The healthy heartbeat [6], the electrical activities of the brain,
the behaviour of ant colonies, ecosystems, and a host of other living functions, all exhibit
chaotic dynamical behaviour [7]. They tend to be quasi (almost but not quite)-periodic, the
periodicities are a complex of many periods, and they can swing between different quasiperiodic states. But they are not at all random.
One can plot a 'phase-space' diagram of the dynamical behaviour and get weird and wonderful
shapes called appropriately, 'strange attractors' which show there is method in the madness.
The Lorenz attractor is like a pair of goggles.
We already have examples of living organisms being sensitive to very weak signals in the
environment. Pesticides and other industrial poisons are associated with cancers at
concentrations of parts per billion (see "Atrazine poisoning worse than suspected", I-SIS
Report, October 2002).
The upshot is that many of the standard statistical tools are inadequate to cope with biological
behaviour. And special statistical techniques have already been borrowed from non-linear
physics in order to describe and analyse biological activities. An emerging discipline of
'dynamic diseases' is based on detecting deviations from the chaotic dynamics of healthy
biological rhythms. Heartbeat and other biological rhythms can be read in rather the way that
traditional Chinese practitioners read an individual's status of health from the person's pulse.
Andrew Marino, a pioneer investigator of the non-thermal effects of electromagnetic fields
(see "Non-thermal effects of electromagnetic field", this series), also initiated the use of
statistical methods to analyse his experiments on the basis that the biological phenomena
under investigation are non-linear [8].
The reliability of the procedure was tested using pairs of untreated controls, and by sampling
a known non-linear system, such as data obtained by computer simulation of the Lorenz
equations for a weather system at two different temperatures.

14

Marino's team found that the untreated pairs of controls gave little or no statistical differences
when analysed according to either the linear or the non-linear model. The data from the
Lorenz equations, on the other hand, gave no statistically significant difference when analysed
with conventional linear statistics, but gave a highly significant difference on the non-linear
model.
In replicate experiments, male and female mice were exposed continuously to very weak, 60
Hz electromagnetic field for certain periods of time, and the effect on 20 immune parameters
measured. They found that in all the experiment, exposure to the electromagnetic field
resulted in statistically significant changes - in four to ten of the parameters - when and only
when the response of the animals to the fields was analysed as if it were governed by nonlinear dynamics.
Non-linear chaotic dynamics is not the only reason why weak electromagnetic fields should
affect living systems.
Robert Becker, Marino's supervisor, had done a series of experiments beginning in the 1950s
showing that the body of all organisms has a Direct Current (DC) field, and that electric
currents produced all over the body are involved in controlling growth and regeneration. By
the 1960s, Becker had already proposed that an electrical communication system exists within
all living things, and demonstrated that externally applied fields could influence the processes
of growth and regeneration [9].
The fields and currents identified by Becker were actually found much earlier by another US
biologist Harold Saxton Burr [10]. He had proposed in the 1930s that all living things, from
men to mice, from trees to seeds, are moulded and controlled by electro-dynamical fields,
which he had measured and mapped extensively.
These fields are in addition to the now well-known and accepted electrical activities of the
brain that can be measured as electroencephalograms (EEG) and in the pace-maker of the
heart as electrocardiograms (ECG).
Electrical activities and ionic currents have also been measured in cultured cells and tissues.
And the weak magnetic fields generated by current flows all over the body can now be
measured non-invasively with the extremely sensitive Super Quantum Interference Device
(SQUID) magnetometer. The evidence is overwhelming that electro-dynamical fields and
currents are involved in intercommunication within the body [11]. These fields and currents
are connected to and correlated with the EEG and ECG that are a routine part of conventional
biomedicine.
The body uses electromagnetic signals of different frequencies and extents to
intercommunicate. Hence it would be surprising if external electromagnetic fields did not
have an effect. As Gerard Hyland points out [12], electromagnetic radiation from mobile
phones and computers are well known to interfere with electronic medical devices such as
pace-makers and telecommunication systems of airplanes. To deny that these radiation could
influence the body's own electro-dynamical intercommunication system is irrational to say the
least. He is particularly worried about the similarity of mobile phone frequencies to the major
EEG frequencies such as alpha and delta waves, and frequencies that could trigger epileptic
fits in people suffering from epilepsy.

15

Ten years ago in my laboratory, we found we could dramatically transform the global body
pattern of the fruitfly larva simply by exposing the embryos within the first three hours of
development for 30 min to very weak static magnetic fields [13]. The transformation is unique
and striking: the normal segmental pattern became twisted towards a helical pattern. In one
instance, a completely helical larva was obtained.
These experiments were significant for the following reasons. First, they involved static
magnetic fields, so only moving charges or liquid crystals in a high degree of dynamic order
could have been affected. Second, the energy in the fields were well below the threshold of
random thermal fluctuations, and the only way they could have an effect is if the embryos
were in an excitable, non-equilibrium state. Third, the global transformations indicate that the
embryos must be coherent to a high degree. It means that all the molecules in the body of the
embryo must be moving together in a correlated way, which incidentally also increased its
sensitivity to weak fields.
We have repeated and extended these experiments, which suggested that the effects of weak
electromagnetic fields on body pattern formation is non-classical. In other words, it suggested
that the embryo is quantum coherent [14].
We have since obtained further evidence of the global coherence that exists in living
organisms. The molecules are moving together so perfectly that the entire body appears liquid
crystalline (see "What Barrier?" I-SIS Report November 2002).
This new biology that I have sketched out, that enables us to understand, not only the
sensitivity of organisms to weak electromagnetic fields, but also the holistic health practices
of many cultural traditions [15], is being systematically ignored and excluded from
mainstream discourse, while we continue to be poisoned with a range of environmental
pollutants and by the 'side-effects' of drugs from conventional reductionist mechanistic
medicine.
Article first published 14/12/02

References
1. Repacholi MH. Health risks from the use of
mobile phones. Toxicology Letters 2001, 120,
323-31.
2. Ho MW. The Rainbow and The Worm, The
Physics of Organisms, World Scientific,
Singapore, 1993, 1998 (2nd ed.)
3. Ho MW. The biology of free will. J.
Consciousness Studies 1996, 3, 231-44.
4. Ho MW. Bioenergetics, S327 Living
Processes Book 2, Science: a third level
course, Open University, Milton Keynes,
1995.

16

5. Stewart I. Does God Play Dice? The

Mathematics of Chaos, Basil Blackwell,
Oxford, 1989.
6. Ivanov P Ch, Rosenblum MG, Peng CK,
Mietus J, Javlin S, Stanley HE and
Goldberger AL. Scaling behaviour of
hearbeat intervals obtained by wavelet-based
time-series analysis. Nature 1996, 38, 323-7.
7. Sol R and Goodwin B. Signs of Life. How
Complexity Pervades Biology, Basic Books,
New York, 2000.
8. Marino AA, Wolcott RM, Chervenak R,
Jourd'heuil F, Nilsen E and Frilot II C.
Nonlinear dynamical law governs magnetic
field induced changes in lymphoid phenotype.
Bioelectromagnetics 2001, 22, 529-46.
9. Becker RO. Cross Currents: The Promise of
Electromedicine, the Perils of
Electropollution. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los
Angeles, 1990.
10. Burr HS. Blueprint for Immortality. The
Electric Patterns of Life, The C.W. Daniel
Company Ltd, Saffron Walden, 1972.
11. Ho MW, Popp F-A and Warnke U. eds.
Bioelectrodynamics and Biocommunication,
World Scientific, Singapore, 1994.
12. Hyland GJ. On the inadequacy of existing
safety guidelines. EMFacts Consultancy,
2001.
13. Ho MW, Stone TA, Jermin I, Bolton J,
Bolton H. Goodwin GC, Saunders PT and
Robertson F. Brief exposure to weak static
magnetic fields during early embryogenesis
cause cuticular pattern abnormalities in
Drosophila larvae. Physics in Medicne and
Biology 1992, 37, 1171-9.
14. Ho MW, French A, Haffegee J and Saunders
PT. Can weak magnetic fields (or potentials)
affect pattern formation? In
Bioelectrodynamics and Biocommunication,
(Ho MW, Popp F-A and Warnke U. eds.) pp.
195-212, World Scientific, Singapore, 1994.
15. Ho MW and Knight DM. Liquid crystalline
meridians. The American Journal of Chinese
Medicine 26, 251-263, 1998.

17

Fields of Influence 2
Also see our previous fields of influence series
Debate over the health impacts of weak electromagnetic fields continues unabated as more
and more biological effects are documented. This mini-series began in Science in Society 17,
where we described how a new physics of the organism that can account for those effects has
been systematically ignored and excluded from mainstream discourse. The situation has
hardly changed since and requires radical steps to be taken in scientific research funding and
in science education.

Mobile Phones & Brain Damage

Electromagnetic Fields, Leukaemia and DNA
Damage

Mobile Phones & Brain Damage

Rats exposed to mobile phones for two hours showed brain damages that persisted 50 days
later. But current exposure standards are still highly inadequate to protect the public. Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho reports

Mobile phones "the largest human biologic experiment"

Researchers found "highly significant" evidence for damages to brain cells in rats exposed for
2 hrs to microwaves from mobile phones; and these damages were still seen 50 days after the
exposure.
One quarter of the worlds population is now exposing themselves to microwaves from handheld mobile phones. The research team in Lundt University, Sweden, led by Leif Salford,
referred to this as "the largest human biologic experiment ever". They pointed out that soon,
microwaves will be emitted by an abundance of other appliances in the cordless office and
in the home.
Most researchers have concentrated on the question of whether radiofrequency
electromagnetic fields can induce or promote cancer, but the evidence appears conflicting.
Box
Sir William Stewart hit out at mobile phones lobby but exposure limits still highly
inadequate
In his keynote address to a Children with Leukemia conference in September 2004,

18

Sir William Stewart, who chaired an enquiry that resulted in the Stewart Report on Mobile
Phones and Health in 2000, hit out at the mobile phones lobby for reporting that, "Stewart
report says there are no adverse health effect for mobile phones". He said there are biological
effects below the current exposure guidelines, and people can vary in their susceptibility. He
had warned that children may be more susceptible, and should limit their use of mobile
phones.
In his speech, he also said, "Dont ignore non-peer reviewed findings." These have to be
carefully independently confirmed, and have to be put to the public "simply and clearly". Not
only the results reporting impacts of mobile phones on health need to be independently
confirmed, but also negative findings of no impacts. At the moment, there is a bias towards
accepting negative findings without question.
A recent health survey carried out in La ora, Mucia, Spain, nearly two 900/1800Mhz mobile
phone base stations showed statistically association between the measured electric field and a
number of symptoms, especially depressive tendency, fatigue, sleeping disorder, difficulty in
concentration and cardiovascular problems, and also loss of memory, visual disorder and
dizziness. It confirms the findings of several earlier published studies. On the basis of this
work, D. Oberfeld Gerd of the Public Health Department of Salzburg, Austria, is advising a
reduction of exposure levels to no more than 1 microWatt/m2. The current exposure limit set
by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) Guidelines
is 10 W/m2, or 10 million times that recommended.
Sir William now chairs the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which is being
merged into the Health Agency. The NRPB is due to publish advice to the government that
the ICNIRP standards - already shown to be highly inadequate - should be adopted for the
UK. As the NRPBs own report admits, the standards are "intended to prevent adverse effects
due to excessive whole- and partial-body heating", totally ignoring non-thermal effects, which
are increasingly documented in many laboratories all over the world.

Mobile phones undermine the blood-brain barrier

Lundt and colleagues have been studying the effects of 915MHz radio frequency (RF)
electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in rats since 1988. "In a series of more than 1,600 animals, we
have proven that subthermal power densities from both pulse-modulated and continuous RF
EMFs including those from ...mobile phones have the potency to significantly open the
blood-brain barrier such that the animals own albumin passes out of the bloodstream into the
brain tissue and accumulates in the neurons and glial cells surrounding the capillaries."
These results have been duplicated in at least two other laboratories. One group showed that
the animals own albumin injected into the brain of rats led to damage of the neurons at the
site of injection when the concentration of albumin in the injected solution is at least 25% of
that in the blood.

Brain damage persists 50 days after exposure

In a study published in June 2003, Salford and colleagues exposed rats to RF EMF in special
transverse electromagnetic transmission line chambers (TEM-cells) designed by scaling down
previously constructed cells at the National Bureau of Standards. These cells generate uniform
EMF s for standard measurements. A mobile phone with a programmable power output was

19

connected via a coaxial cable to the TEM-cell; and no voice modulation was applied. The
TEM-cell is enclosed in a wooden box (15x15x15 cm) that supports the outer conduction and
central plate. The outer conductor is made of brass net and is attached to the inner walls of the
box. The centre plate, or septum, is made of aluminium. The TEM cells were placed in a
temperature-controlled room, where room air is circulated through holes in the wooden box.
The rats were placed in plastic trays (12x12x7cm) to avoid contact with the central plate and
outer conductor. Thirty-two male and female Fisher 344 rats 12-26 weeks old and weighing
282 + 91 gm were divided into four groups of eight rats each. Three experimental groups of
rats were exposed to peak power densities of 0.24, 2.4 and 24 W/m2, resulting in average
whole-body SARs (specific absorption rates) of 2mW/kg, 20 mW/kg and 200 mW/kg
respectively. The fourth (control) group of rats was simultaneously kept for 2 hr in nonactivated TEM-cells. The animals in each exposure group were allowed to survive for about
50 days after exposure and carefully observed daily for neurologic and behavioural
abnormalities.
At the end of the period, the brains were removed and sectioned and stained.
The exposed rat brain showed multiple spots of albumin leaking out from the blood vessels.
On high power, dark, dead neurons can be seen interspersed with the living ones. There is an
apparent dose-response relationship between the level of exposure and the number of dead
neurons found.
Previous studies by the same group showed that albumin leakage into the brain occurs within
hours after exposure in about 40% of the animals. But in the present study, there is still
albumin leakage after 50 days. This suggests that there might have been a "vicious circle"
started by the initial leakage, leading to long lasting effects.

Teenagers most affected

The researchers pointed out that 12-26 week old rats are comparable in age to human
teenagers, the most frequent users of mobile phones. This level of damage to the nerve cells is
worrying, as "it may result in reduced brain reserve capacity". In other words, the teenagers
brains may age prematurely. A study by retail analysts Mintel found that up to 80% of 11 to
14 year-olds have a mobile phone in the United Kingdom.
There is now evidence that a wide range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum can
have biological effects from DNA damage in brain cells to childhood leukemia (see "EMFs &
childhood leukaemia & DNA damage", this series).
Article first published 28/09/04

Sources
1. Salford LG, Brun AE, Eberhardt JL,
Malmgren L and Persson BRR. Nerve cell
damage in mammalian brain after exposure to

20

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

microwaves from GSM mobile phones.

Environmental Health Perspectives 2003,
111, 881-3.
Stewart W. Impacts on health the changing
world of the 21st century. Keynote Address,
Children with Leukemia Scientific
Conference, Westminster, 6-10 September,
2004.
"Hidden radiation. Mobile phone firms
remain silent on the possible hazards" Sean
Poulter, Daily Mail, 8 September 2004.
Oberfeld G, Navarro AE, Portoles M, Mastu
C and Gomez-Pereta C. The microwave
syndrome further aspects of a Spanish
study. Preprint circulated at Children with
Leukemia conference September 6-10, 2004
gerd.oberfeld@salzburg.gv.at;
www.salzburg.gv.at/umweltmedizin
Navarro AE, Segura J, Portoles M, GomezPeretta de Mateo C. The microwave
syndrome: a preliminary study in Spain.
Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine 2003,
22, S161-9.
Advice on Limiting Exposure to
Electromagnetic Fields (0-300 Ghz),
Documents of the NRPB, Volume 15 No.2,
2004. www.nrpb.org
Ho MW. Mobile phones & cancer. Science in
Society 2003, 17, 10-15.

Electromagnetic Fields, Leukaemia and

DNA Damage
Leukaemia, DNA damage in brain cells and other electromagnetic field effects cannot be
explained unless scientists communicate and collaborate across the disciplines. Dr. Mae-Wan
Ho reports

EMF cancer links

21

People nowadays are constantly exposed to low-intensity electromagnetic fields (EMFs) at the
extremely low frequencies of 50 or 60 Hz whenever they use electricity. Debate over the
safety of electromagnetic fields began in the 1950s in the former Soviet Union and in the
1970s in the United States over the construction of high-tension power lines (see "Nonthermal effects", SiS 17).
In March 2002, a study commissioned by the National Radiation Protection Board (NRPB) in
the United Kingdom found that exposure to EMFs of 0.4 Tesla (4 mG) or greater doubles
the risk of childhood leukaemia (see "Electromagnetic fields double leukaemia risks", SiS 17).
But the study failed to draw any firm conclusions because of the absence of any proven
biological mechanisms by which such low levels of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation
can trigger cancer. The results were downplayed on grounds that very few children would live
in homes with EMFs in excess of 0.4T, though this is debatable (see later).

EMF and childhood leukaemia more strongly linked than appears

But the link between childhood leukaemia and EMF may be far stronger than appears from
the epidemiological studies.
Court Brown and Richard Doll first noted in a paper published in 1961 [1] that a new agent
causing leukaemia had been introduced first into Britain about 1920 and later into the United
States and other countries. A new peak in childhood leukaemia deaths between the ages two
and four had emerged in the UK in the 1920s, and in the 50 years starting in 1911, leukaemia
mortality at ages under 10 had increased an average of 4.5% per year.
At a conference organised by the charity Children with Leukemia in London, UK, in
September 2004, an entire day was devoted to the evidence that EMF is linked to childhood
leukaemia. Among the speakers was Dr. Sam Millham of Washington State Department of
Health in the United States, who described the remarkable correlation between the emergence
of childhood leukaemia and the electrification of homes, which began in the 1920s in the UK
and slightly later in the US. In the US, electrification of farms and rural areas lagged behind
urban areas until 1958, so there was plenty of opportunity to compare mortality rates due to
childhood leukaemia in the death registers [2].
In the period 1920 to 1960, death from childhood leukaemia between 2-4 years rose from a
base line of less than 2 per 100 000 to about 8 per 100 000 among white children only. No
such peak is evident for black children in the same period, or for Japanese children as reported
in other studies. During 1928-1932, in states with over 75% of homes electrified, leukaemia
mortality increased with age for single years for the ages 0 to 4 years, while states with
electrification of residences below 75% showed a decreasing trend.
During 1949-1951, all states showed a peak in leukaemia mortality at ages 2-4. At age 0-1,
leukaemia mortality was not related to electrification levels. But at ages 2-4, there was a 24%
increase in leukaemia mortality for each 10% increase in homes electrified. The peak of
leukaemia at ages 2-4 is made up of a single leukaemia subtype, common acute lymphoblastic
leukaemia. By this time, the same peak of childhood leukaemia deaths had emerged in black
and Japanese children.
Millham and Osslander commented that worldwide, the emergence of this peak tracked
electrification. So, even today, places without electricity do not show this peak. They

22

criticised the EMF/cancer epidemiologic studies done long after electrification, which shows
a deceptively low (2 to 3 fold) risk with increased exposure to EMFs, simply because there
are no truly unexposed control groups on which to make the comparison. Consequently, they
estimate that for childhood leukemias between ages 2 to 4, about 75% could be linked to EMF
exposure possibly in the mother's womb.

DNA damage in brain cells blocked by anti-oxidants

But other biological effects have emerged. In January 2004, Henry Lai and Narendra Singh of
the Bioelectromagnetics Research Laboratory in the University of Washington in Seattle,
USA, reported that exposing rats to weak 60 Hz magnetic fields caused DNA breaks in their
brain cells and brain-cell death [3], and furthermore, the DNA damage can be blocked by
antioxidants. This suggests that magnetic fields somehow caused the accumulation of
oxidative free radicals, which damaged the DNA, leading to cell death.
Lai and Singh had earlier found that rats exposed to a 60 Hz sinusoidal magnetic field for 2
hours at flux density of 0.1 mT (1G) showed an increase in DNA single-strand breaks in their
brain cells, whereas an increase in double-strand breaks was found at 0.25mT or greater.
Several subsequent investigations have confirmed DNA breakages in a number of different
cell lines as the result of exposure to 50 or 60Hz magnetic fields, although other studies failed
to confirm the findings.
In one study, an increase in DNA double-strand breaks were found in the brain cells of mice
exposed to 7.5T magnetic fields for 32 days [4], and after 14 days at 0.5mT [5]. Thus, the
effects appear to be cumulative. In human fibroblasts, continuous exposure at 1 mT produced
no significant effect, while intermittent exposure (5 min on and 10 min off) produced an
increase in DNA single- and double-strand breaks [6].
Lai and Singh had found in their 1997 study that if they gave the rats melatonin and a 'spintrap' compound (N-tert-butyl-a-phenylnitrone), both of which scavenge oxidative free
radicals, these appear to protect their brain cells against the DNA damage caused by the
magnetic fields.
In the new series of experiments, they included a lower field exposure of 0.01m T (0.1G) for
24h or 48h. Increases in single and double strand breaks were already observed at 24h, with
larger increases at 48h, again indicating the cumulative nature of the effects.
In brains of rats exposed to magnetic field at 0.5mT for 2 h, significant increases were found,
by about 2-fold in both apoptosis ('programmed' cell death initiated by the cell itself) and
necrosis (cells killed otherwise).
The antioxidant Trolox (vitamin E analogue) and 7-nitroindazole (an inhibitor of the enzyme
that makes nitric oxide, another free radical) and the iron chelator, deferiprone, all blocked the
effects of the magnetic field on DNA breaks.

Mechanism emerging for EMF effects?

Lai and Singh proposed that the magnetic field initiates an iron-mediated process that
increases free radical formation in the brain cells, leading to DNA damage and cell death. In

23

addition to DNA damage, free radicals can cause damage to other biological molecules such
as lipids and proteins and other cell functions.
How does iron get involved? It is involved in the 'Fenton' reaction, which converts hydrogen
peroxide to the more potent and toxic hydroxy radical, and iron-induced oxidant formation is
known to cause DNA strand breaks, DNA-protein cross-links and many other effects. They
suggest that cells with high rates of iron intake such as proliferating cells, cells infected by
viruses, and cells with high metabolic rates such as brain cells, would be more susceptible to
the effects of magnetic fields on DNA.
The human brain contains relatively high amounts of non-heme iron, probably required in the
production and maintenance of myelin, and increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases due
to magnetic field exposure could be a result of the death of neurons and glial cells or
demyelination. Lai and Singh further pointed out that occupational exposure to extremely
low-frequency electromagnetic fields have been associated with increased risks of
neurodegenerative diseases including amyotropic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and
Parkinson's disease.

Recommended exposure limits inadequate

But how relevant are the results to real life? Household and office levels of extremely lowfrequency magnetic fields vary between 0.01 to 1 T, with intermittent levels of more than 10
T. Levels near a power transmission line are between 10-30T, where as it could vary
between 0.1 to 1mT near some electrical appliances such as electric blankets and hair dryers.
Much higher levels are expected in occupational exposures.
The UK NRPB [7] has lowered its previous recommended exposure limits to those of the
ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radation Protection, an organization of
15 000 scientists from 40 nations). These limits vary with frequency, from 0.04T at up to 1Hz
to 0.2 T or 10W/m2 at 300GHz for the general public, while the occupational limits are
respectively 0.2T and 0.45 microT or 50W/m2. For 60Hz EMF, the limit is 0.833G for the
general public and 4.2G occupational. As can be seen, these limits are inadequate to prevent
DNA damage in brain cells and other associated effects. They are aimed at preventing
'thermal effects' of body tissues over-heating, and not on non-thermal effects. One major
(mistaken) argument against weak fields having any effects at all is that they are energetically
below the level of random thermal motions [8, 9], which applies strictly to dead tissues or
otherwise lifeless systems.
In his talk given to the Children with Leukemia conference, Lai [10] presented findings
showing that cancer cells may be even more susceptible to the EMFs than normal cells, thus
offering the prospect that EMFs may be used for cancer therapy, if only one knew how to
prevent 'collateral' damage to non-cancer cells.

Non-thermal biological effects no longer in doubt but still in need of

explanation
There is little doubt that EMFs over a whole range of frequencies can have biological effects
(see also "Mobile phones & brain damage", this series). But the precise mechanism remains
elusive. Geneticists latch onto 'susceptibility' genes, biochemists to specific ions, such as iron
or calcium, or molecules such as free radicals or heat shock proteins [11].
24

Molecular changes associated with exposure to EMFs tell us little about the basic physics of
how EMFs can bring about such changes, however. And so the effects of EMFs remain within
the realm of phenomenology with contradictory findings, like the related efficacy of
homeopathy and other 'subtle' energy medicine.

Lack of cross-disciplinary discourse, research and education

A major difficulty is the lack of truly cross-disciplinary discourse, let alone research aimed at
understanding living organisms and cells. I spent nearly 25 years in the biology department of
a university struggling to get even a smattering of thermodynamics and other physics and
chemistry into the biochemistry course profile; and almost none of my colleagues in the
department understood or cared what our research was about.
In my talk to the Children with Leukemia conference, I suggested that EMF sensitivity (nonthermal effects) was due, in the first instance, to the quantum coherence of the organism and
its liquid crystalline matrix - consisting of globally oriented macromolecular dipoles and
biological water - that provides rapid electrodynamic intercommunications throughout the
body [12, 13].
I also showed how that is consistent with the thesis of Gilbert Ling [14] - the result of 50
years of brilliant research almost totally ignored by the scientific establishment - that the cell
is an exquisite "electronic machine" interconnected by long-range induction of electron
density changes that affect the state of the cell through the extended protein matrix with its
polarised layers of ordered cell water (see "Strong medicine for cell biology", to appear).
Existing physical methods can be used to detect phase changes in biological/cell water, which
may in turn enable us to understand the plethora of molecular changes occurring downstream
of EMF exposure.
To get at the explanation of EMF effects, we need scientists to talk to each other and
collaborate across the disciplines. For that, we need a public funding structure that encourages
novel interdisciplinary research instead of reinforcing existing unproductive programmes that
discriminate against 'maverick' researchers.
At the moment, research grants and graduate students tend, more and more, to be exclusively
awarded to big groups in prestigious universities, which overwhelmingly engage in big, safe
projects that have no incentive to be innovative, and indeed, positively discriminate against
'dissenters' and 'mavericks'.
Radical changes are needed in the education of our scientists. Few biologists understand the
physical sciences and mathematics well enough to appreciate the contribution they can make
to the life sciences; few physical scientists know enough biology to apply their expertise
effectively to it. Not enough progress is being made in areas that lie between the traditional
disciplines, and even when it is, the results are too often ignored because too many scientists
can't understand what their colleagues are talking about.
Article first published 29/09/04

25

References
1. Court Brown WM and Doll R. Leukaemia in
childhood and young adult life: Trends in
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Got something to say about this page? Comment
There are 4 comments on this article so far. Add your comment above.
Liz Chafer Comment left 5th October 2009 21:09:16
All the wind turbines installed in Germany have had little impact on Co2 emissions in that
country due to the intermittency of wind . The same is the case for Denmark cf. the CEPOS
report sept 2009 In many countries including USA Canada France and the UK there is
immense pressure to install industrial wind turbines often within a mile of houses affecting
the health of those living in the vicinity. Even where I live the load factor will only be 15%
but lack of wind doesn't seem to present a problem to the wind industry promoters.
Intermittency is a serious problem until there is a means of stocking the energy
produced.There are other forms of renewable energy that should be developed in preference
to that of wind - wave power for example.
Mark Russell Comment left 23rd October 2009 17:05:38
Those are big, sweeping statements about nuclear ... "the nuclear black hole in terms of cost,
safety and sustainability." All (except maybe sustainability in the grand scheme) are nothing
more than populist fears, and not based on fact or reality. Wind power is positively medival
by comparison no matter how you dress it up. Once the planet is out of all other forms of
energy wind power may make sense (and by implication it is last on my list of desirable
technologies). By that time the place will look like "planet of the apes" anyway so wind
power will fit right in.
Mae-Wan Ho Comment left 22nd October 2009 21:09:49
All you people against wind and pro-nuclear really want to come down to earth and look at
the nuclear black hole in terms of cost, safety and unsustainability. We are not for big wind
farms. Cheap affordable small wind turbines are here! Read our complete report and get a full
picture. Join the dots and join the future.
Mark Russell Comment left 22nd October 2009 21:09:18
Once the "storage solution" is worked out, why would you fill that storage with energy
produced by industrial wind turbines when you could fill it with energy produced by nuclear
power at a fraction of the cost, and without the massive eyesore that are wind farms? A
storage solution notwithstanding, the cost of wind power in general will cause countries that
have committed to wind power losing almost all of their manufacturing base to countries that
can supply cheap, reliable energy, whether clean or dirty (manufacturers don't really care).

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