The RF–cancer story took a remarkable turn a few days ago. A new animal study challenged many of the assumptions which lie at the heart of claims that RF radiation —whether from cell phones, cell towers or Wi-Fi— are safe.
The new study, from Germany, a replication of an earlier experiment, also from Germany, found that weak cell phone signals can promote the growth of tumors in mice. It used radiation levels that do not cause heating and are well below current safety standards. Complicating matters even further, lower doses were often found to be more effective tumor promoters than higher levels; in effect, turning the conventional concept of a linear dose-response on its head.
And for those with the stamina to have stayed tuned to the slow-moving RF–health soap opera, the new paper offers an unexpected surprise. The lead author of the new animal study is Alex Lerchl, who for years has charged that the only science showing low-level RF effects is bad science. Now the one whom activists had accused of being an industry lackey is being hailed as a hero.
Lerchl has shown that mice exposed in the womb with a known cancer agent, ENU, and then exposed to aUMTS cell phone signal had significantly higher rates of tumors of the liver and the lung, as well as of lymphoma than with ENU alone. (UMTS is a third generation, 3G, system based on GSM.) His study was designed to repeat, with a larger number of animals, an experiment published in 2010 by Thomas Tillmann of the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine in Hannover. When Tillmann first presented his results a couple of years earlier, he called them “remarkable” (see “3G Can Promote Tumors”). Since then, the study has been largely ignored —until now.
Lerchl found higher rates of cancer among mice exposed to SARs of 0.04 W/Kg, 0.4 W/Kg and 2 W/Kg —and in some cases, the lower the dose, the more cancer. For instance, he saw a higher incidence of lymphoma at the two lower doses than at 2 W/Kg, as shown in the histogram taken from his paper, which has been accepted for publication in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications: