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| The Fragility of the SAR levels presently chosen as a basis for exposure to RF/MW radiation. | ||
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Elsewhere I have argued that Specific Absorption Rate ("SAR") is not useful as a general exposure metric in setting limits, guidelines or standards for radiofrequency or microwave exposure. Here I argue that the historic experimental basis whence the levels of SAR have actually been chosen by regulators are equally fragile. The evidence is derived mainly from a talk given in London in 2001 by Professor Henry Lai, a physics professor from the dept of bioengineering of the University of Washington in Seattle, and organised by City and Financial Conferences, to whom I am indebted. It may be helpful to remember at the outset that the present recommended SAR basic restrictions for members of the public suggested by the NRPB are 10W/kg in the head, neck, trunk and fetus, or 0.4 W/kg SAR if averaged over the whole body. The question is whether acute or chronic RF/MW radiation at very low levels (i.e. at levels well below the NRPB basic restrictions) may disturb the brain and nervous system, by producing morphological and neurochemical changes, and changes in cellular function. Effects of that kind may lead to one’s regarding RF/MW radiation as a stressor, or that they disturb endogenous processes or body fluids including those (e.g.) of opioid proteins such as endorphin, thereby leading to behavioural changes. After reports of immunological disturbances among US Embassy staff in Eastern bloc countries during the so-called 1950s "Cold War" following deliberate chronic exposure to MW radiations at less than 20microW/cm2, a series of experiments emerged from JJ Noval at the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, who found that ELF electric fields of as little as 0.005V/cm increased levels of neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brainstem. James R Hamer at Ross Adey's laboratory Loma Linda, California reported that monkeys exposed very weak electric fields exhibited slowed reaction times. In Russia Zinaida V Gordon and her colleague M.S. Tolgskaya reported in 1973 that low doses of MW at 60-320 microWatts/cm2 changed hypothalamic nuclei in rats, which atrophied after five months. By 1975 Allen Frey reported adverse effects on the blood brain barrier from exposures as low as 30microW/cm2. The emergence of these studies is detailed in Robert Becker's 1985 book "The Body Electric" (pp271-329). The first serious attempts to answer the questions raised by these concerns were undertaken in the 1970s and embraced both spontaneous and learned behaviour. a) Spontaneous Behaviour Hunt, King et al., (1975) reported an increase in locomotor activity in animals exposed to 2450 MHz for thirty minutes at an estimated SAR of 6.3W/kg. Roberti, Heebels et al., (1975) however using different frequencies, a much longer time frame (185 to 408 hours), and a much broader SAR (0.15 to 83 W/kg) found no significant effect on locomotor activity. Lovely, Myers et al., in 1977 repeated the effort with rats as the model, this time with 918MHz radiation for 10 hours each night over 13 weeks at an SAR of 0.9 to 1.0 W/kg., and found no significant effect on locomotor behaviour. In an effort to clear up the disparity, D’Andrea , Gandhi et al., conducted two studies, in 1979 and 1980, also at 2450MHz, (the frequency of microwave ovens) but importantly also at 915MHz (the emerging major frequency of mobile phones). The exposure was overnight, and the SAR levels were only 1.2W/kg for the 2450MHz exposures and 2.5W/kg for the 915MHz exposures. They reported finding changes in motor activity among the exposed animals. In 1978 in the former USSR Rudnev, Bokina, et al., used 2375 MHz radiation for 7 hours a day over a one month period, but at only 0.1W/kg and reported decreased food intake and decreased motor activity. By 1980 then the issue was far from resolved. A later study (Ray and Behari, 1990) used much higher frequencies (7500MHz) for 3 hours a day over 60 days and also reported decreased food and water intake. Out of these six experiments with animals therefore, already three of them found spontaneous changes in the behaviour of small mammals at SAR levels below those suggested as basic restrictions for human beings today. b) Learned behaviour Changes in learned behaviour might arguably reflect more accurately the response to radiation as a stressor. D’Andrea during the 1970s also conducted a series of experiments at frequencies between 360 and 500 MHz and found that around 10W/kg there was a disruption of operant behaviour, but only at 500 MHz (D’Andrea, Gandhi et al., 1976). He found also in the following year that, using a variety of frequencies and intensities, disruption of operant behaviour appeared to correlate with a rise in body temperature, thus bringing into question whether the effects were simply thermal or not. These studies were in response to earlier work (Thomas, Finch et al., 1975) exposing animals to pulsed 2450, 2860, and 9600 MHz . The results of this were that DRL response was disrupted above 2W/kg at 2450MHz, and at 2.7W/kg at 2860MHz, but at only 1.5W/kg when the frequency was 9600MHz. A later study (Schrot, Thomas et al., (1980) used bar pressing for reward as a measure and found that exposure to pulsed 2800MHz radiation disrupted it at SARs of only 0.7 and 1.7 W/kg. These taken together seemed to indicate that pulsation was an important co-factor in the disturbance of learned behaviour. In all, there was sufficient cause for concern from these studies to reconsider existing guidelines based solely on thermal considerations and power densities. The way in which SAR guidelines then became established is ludicrous. In 1980 de Lorge and Ezell trained rats on an "Auditory observing response" task. Rats were then irradiated with 1280 or 5620 MHz during performance and disruption of the behaviour was seen at 3.75W/kg. for 1280 and 4.9 W/kg for 5620 MHz. This occurred within 30-60 minutes of the exposure, so the studies did not take into account any possible long term effects. Recognising that there might be substantial differences between rats and humans, de Lorge (1984) trained monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on the auditory observing response task and exposed these animals to 225, 1300, and 5800 MHz with increasing power densities. Disruption of performance was observed at 8.1mW/cm2 (SAR of 3.2W/kg) for 225 MHz, 57mW/cm2 (7.4W/kg) for 1300MHz, and 140 mW/cm2 (SAR of 4.3W/kg) for 5800MHz, when the body temperature increased by 1 degree Centigrade. By averaging the three experiments (3.2 plus 7.4 plus 4.3) it was decided that behavioural disruption occurred at a SAR of around 4W/kg (whole body average) and dividing this figure by ten derived the whole body average for humans! The ludicrous pseudoscience of this approach hardly needs description, but in short, where is the strength of an argument that what holds for macaque monkeys might also be true for human beings? Where is the evidence that there are no long term effects at weaker exposures? And is it not more prudent to accept the lowest level of discerned effects than this crude average? Finally where is the basis for arguing that adverse biological effects only occur above the threshold of perceived behavioural disruption? During the 1980s this poor basis for recommendation must have become apparent because a further series of long term exposure studies were conducted. There had already been some grounds for suggesting this: Baranski as early as 1972 had reported in a quality peer-reviewed Western journal histological and histochemical effects in the central nervous system of rabbits and guinea pigs after long term exposure, not noticed with short term exposure, and so had Takashima, Onaral et al., in 1979 when using modulated radiation. By the 1980s these long term effects had been explored further and though seen they seemed to be subject to habituation and disappeared after prolonged exposure, but not after short term exposure (Johnson, Spackman et al., .1983: Lai, Horita et al., 1987). Moreover the complexity of the results was increased by findings that different exposure periods produced differing effects (Dumanski and Shandala, 1974; Lai, Carino et al., 1989). In a further effort to get to the bottom of the problem D’Andrea in the early part of 1986 exposed animals for 14 weeks to 2450MHz for 7 hours each day, and found that a mere 0.7W/kg was sufficient to disrupt the rats’ operant behaviour. In the same year he conducted a similar 90 day exposure study and found a small behavioural disruption at the even lower SAR level of 0.14W/kg. It was becoming imperative through scientific concerns that these new findings should be incorporated into regulatory advice. This in the US took the form of a set of guidelines to replace the previous precepts based on Dr Hermann Schwan’s estimate (by means of bags filled with saline) of the amount of radiation needed to lift a human body temperature by 2 degrees, and then reduced for margin’s sake to one tenth of that value. This came to be around 10mW/cm2. Schwan himself felt that these values were only good for one hour’s exposure, but the ensuing guidelines assumed indefinite exposure. The effect of adopting this so-called 10,000microWatts/cm2 rule in 1965 was that no major readjustments were necessary at military sites where radar was operating (see Becker, 1985, page 305 ). So from the very outset the "exposure guidelines" were designed with political expediency in mind, and unrelated to science, rather than from any fundamental biological effects. Sadly, in formulating the new recommendations the US regulatory committee decided to use a cut off date of 1985 for any evidence, thereby neatly excluding the later and more disturbing D’Andrea findings, as well as others yet to be mentioned. Thus the scientific discovery by 1990 that long term adverse effects were being found from RF/MW irradiation at less than the regulatory recommended levels were totally ignored. The Chinese and former USSR regulatory decisions, based on biological studies and leading to much lower recommended limits, were brushed under the table with equal distain. Thus the scene was early being set for yet another asbestos, tobacco, BSE-like capitalistic cover-up. This deliberate obfuscation and suppression has more or less continued until today. The Stewart Committee, fed by the NRPB’s compilation of references, and not a complete presentation of the known peer reviewed literature, either accepted them without question or accepted them knowingly that they were incomplete. If the latter is the case the entire Stewart Committee, now including Professor Lawrie Challis, risks imprisonment for deliberate deception of the public. They may be protected by the UK Government, but not it would appear by the European Parliament, to whom the UK is subsidiary in these matters. To support these views let us examine the Stewart Report to see how if any the above quoted studies are reviewed. Though most of the motor activity studies are included in a table (Table 5.4) with one line descriptions, and a further (unreferenced) lifetime study merits one extra sentence, no conclusions are drawn from the table. As for the learning studies, at least it is conceded that the primate studies were used as the basis for standards limiting exposure, though the analysis stops there and is correspondingly shallow. The Stewart Committee, having reviewed later work mainly by Lai and colleagues, conceded (para 5.9 page 58) that "Overall these and other studies provide weak evidence for a specific effect of RF fields on spatial memory" and go on to provide another one-liner table (Table 5.5)of the learning studies. In that table only two of the 11 studies cited failed to report adverse effects, a consensus which goes unremarked by Stewart. Astonishingly in their conclusion (para 5.92, page 60) Stewart and his colleagues use one single study by NRPB’s Zenon Sienkiewicz et al. (2000) to combat the strength of all the opposing evidence, even though that study was using mice and a mere 0.5W/kg as the exposure metric - in other words as far as possible away from a primate study and far below the guideline levels. Sienkiewicz inevitably had before him from the abounding previous literature sufficient examples to design his study so that it was least likely to find anything, arguably a deliberate act of obfuscatory science. Given the modernity of the Sienkiewicz study it might have even been designed to counter the otherwise strong evidence of previous studies. That isn’t the only evidence of Stewart’s selective bias. In his 2001 talk Henry Lai listed eleven studies where behavioural effects were seen below 4W/kg after short term exposure. No less than seven of these were omitted from the Stewart report, namely: De Witt, D’Andrea et al., (1987): 0.14 W/kg Gage MI, (1979): 3W/kg King, Justesen et al., (1971): 2.4 W/kg Mitchell, Switzer et al., (1977): 2.3 W/kg Navakatikian and Tomasevskaya (1994): 0.027 W/kg Thomas, Finch et al., (1975): 1.5 to 2.7 W/kg Wang and Lai (2000) 1.2 W/kg Arguably the last one of these was published too late for review, but there had been good advance notice of it around the conferences. Needless to say, since the NRPB were the chief source of scientific evidence offered to Stewart, none of these studies are mentioned in the NRPB Con, even though by that time the Wang and Lai paper had appeared in the prestigious BEMS Journal. Let us for fun do the same stupid thing and derive a recommended guideline exposure level based on Lai’s eleven studies, rather than D’ Andrea’s three. The remaining four studies, mentioned both by Lai and Stewart, were: D’Andrea (1986a,b): 0.14 to 0.7 W/kg. Schrot, Thomas et al., (1980): 0.7W/kg Lai, Carino et al., (1989): 0.6W/kg. The average from all eleven is 1.33W/kg, and allowing a similar tenfold safety margin suggests a guideline, limit or standard maximum PEL (call it what you will) of 0.13W/kg compared with the 0.4W/kg advocated by NRPB, in other words about a third of the present level. The problem with this level, of course, is that cellphone handsets could not comply with it, indeed their producers have trouble achieving compliance with the present guidelines. I think that perhaps readers by now are growing weary with the mass of evidence for effects at exposure levels well below those taken for guidelines, and have a sharper insight into the machinations used by regulatory authorities such as the NRPB to omit the inconvenient evidence of many reputable studies. Before finishing however, and for the sake of completeness, let me list seven more studies, all showing that RF/MW radiation does induce biological effects at even much lower intensities than those discussed above. I do this since Lawrie Challis argued that he had seen no evidence that radiations from cellphone masts could adversely affect human life processes. Nor had Nelson seen any inconvenient signals at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, - by putting the telescope to his blind eye. De Pomerai, Daniells et al., (2000): 0.001W/kg Dutta, Ghosh et al., (1989): 0.005 W/kg Fesenko, Makar et al., (1999): 0.001 W/kg Magras and Xenos (1999): 0.0002 mW/cm2 Persson, Salford et al., (1997): 0.0004-0.008 W/kg Phillips, Ivanschuk et al., (1998): 0.0024-0.024 W/kg. Velizarov, Raskmark et al., (1999): 0.000021-0.0021 W/kg. Readers interested in finding more will see a more comprehensive list of non thermal effects studies on our website. Since only three of the seven last mentioned studies are cited in the NRPB Con.,. I will meanwhile send to Lawrie Challis an eyepatch. Conclusions The experimental basis of Specific Absorption Rate is pseudoscience, and only by omitting a large number of reputable studies can even the present levels be derived. A more complete attempt based on the same fallacious approach but incorporating more published studies would lower the existing guidelines to at least a third of their present level. Research quality far better than that of Stewart or the NRPB is needed, and properly independent experts are required if this issue is to be resolved. REFERENCES will be added |
