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09/21/99 Sir William Stewart Chairman, Mobile Phones and Health Expert Group Tayside University Hospital NHS Trust Trust Headquarters, Nine Wells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee DD1 9SY |
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Dear Sir William, I understand that submission regarding the possibly adverse health effects of mobile telephony have to be submitted for consideration by 15 October 1999. Since I shall be at two conferences abroad (ICNIRP in Ismaning, Germany, and the BION conference on weak energies at Ljubljana) during the next few weeks I am sending in my submission early, as discussed by phone today. My laboratory has been wrongly billed by the media as warning that cellphone handsets are hazardous to health, and I would start by refuting that view. What we have been saying is that normal use of a cellphone handset does not appear to have any adverse health effects. Where the exposure duration exceeds say twenty minutes however there is evidence of risk. This was based on cellular studies showing that MW can polarise the glycoproteins on cell plasma membrane surfaces, so that negatively charged proteins diffuse laterally to one end and positively charged to the other end of the cell. In normal cellphone use such glycoproteins diffuse laterally back again on cessation of the field or radiation. With prolonged exposure however the glycoproteins adhere to each other, since the like and repellent charges on their sialic acid residues are less than in the main charged groups, and when Ca2+ is present to neutralise the sialic acid residues the effect becomes irreversible. This has the consequence of preventing normal signal transduction into the cell, which is thereby freed from regulatory growth control. Under those conditions it can become aberrant, and if, dividing in the absence of lymphocyte competence, could form the basis of a solid tumour. It is with the lymphocyte however that our principal research has been concerned in the microbiology division of this laboratory. As you will know from a perusal of the literature there have been many studies reporting adverse effects on lymphocyte competence from exposure both the ELF and RF fields and radiation. (e.g. Lyle et al., 1983, 1988) at levels below those regarded as thermal. However, a robust and accepted mechanism of interaction remains unconfirmed, and the results are somewhat variable (see Cridland, 1993). It would appear that the electric component is the dominant parameter (Liburdy, 1992). In exploring the effects of endogenous fields (i.e. those electric fields seen in all multicellular organisms arising from the heart, brain, muscles etc) my colleague Tamara Galonja-Coghill and I came across an extremely robust effect on lymphocyte viability. I attach a paper describing this effect, and would argue that the disturbance of organic endogenous fields by other artificially arising radiations at power flux densities far below those required for heating must perturb these weak natural fields (E = E1 + E2). That this is so has also been confirmed by our own experiments: lymphocyte viability falls significantly after exposure to ELF fields and to RF radiation at levels well below the ICNIRP recommended maxima. Against this background it becomes plausible to suggest that with prolonged exposure and incipient heat shock protein or glycoprotein damage (as now reported by Dr. Pomerai at Nottingham with nematode worms and Prof. O. Johanssen with epithelial tissue) unless these cells are scavenged by lymphocytes and cellular immune system phagocytic or related responses, the formation of solid tumours of the brain is a likely outcome. The importance of the donor’s endogenous field in maintaining cell viability is a finding not previously reported in the literature, and we may well have stumbled on an important basic mechanism in the biology of multicellular organisms. Though our experiment is being replicated in other laboratories, and the paper itself has been accepted for publication in a reputable peer-reviewed journal, we would welcome the opportunity of demonstrating this effect for you in your own facility and under your own watchful eye. This might be a preliminary to funding us for the continuation of this work, so that we can develop fluorescence microscopy studies to explore the phenomenon further, and to characterise the subtypes of lymphocyte affected, as well as the physical nature of the endogenous field itself. I look forward to hearing from you, Yours Sincerely, Roger Coghill MA (Cantab.) C. Biol. MI Biol. MA (Environ. Mgt.) |
