January 7, 2005... The 4^th International Seminar on EMFs and Biological Effects will be held in Kunming, China, September 12-16. The official language of the meeting is English. The meeting announcement can be downloaded here. The third seminar was held in Guilin in October 2003.

Karolinksa Group Finds No Brain Tumor Risk from Mobile Phones

December 2004... Epidemiologists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have found no association between the use of cell phones and the risk of brain tumors.

“No increased risk was found for glioma or meningioma related to mobile phone use,” reports Stefan Lönn and coworkers at the Institute of Environmental Medicine. Lönn completed the study as part of his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Maria Feychting. This work is part of the Interphone study being coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.

Lönn defended his dissertation on December 17 and a summary of his results are posted on the Karolinska Web site. They have not yet been published in a journal.

In October, Lönn, Feychting and Anders Ahlbom announced that they had found an increased risk of acoustic neuroma among those who had used cell phones for more than ten years.

“The number of long-term exposed cases of meningioma is about the same as for acoustic neuroma,” Feychting told Microwave News. “And the number of glioma cases is much higher.”

“As for acoustic neuroma,” Feychting added, “We have to await the results from the other Interphone studies before we can draw any firmer conclusions.”

REFLEX Report Highlights
RF-Induced DNA Breaks

December 2004... The final report of the REFLEX project is now available on the Web site of the Verum Foundation. The report summarizes the work of 12 research groups in seven European countries. The total cost of the project, which investigated the effects low-levels of RF radiation on cellular systems, was approximately $3 million.

Experimental data generated in a number of the labs showed that RF radiation could increase the number of DNA breaks in exposed cells, as well as activate a stress response —the production of heat shock proteins. Many of these effects have been reported at scientific conferences over the last few years (see, for example, MWN, J/A01, N/D01 and M/A03).

Franz Adlkofer of the Verum Foundation, who managed the project, has long maintained that genotoxic effects of RF radiation can no longer be denied and warrant more intense investigation. “The now available scientific evidence of such critical events demonstrates the need for intensifying research,” he said on releasing the final report.

Adlkofer stressed that, “Precautionary measures seem to be warranted.”

Studies on power-frequency EMFs were also carried out under the REFLEX project. They supported previous work showing that 50/60 Hz fields could, like RF radiation, increase the frequency of DNA breaks (see MWN, S/O02).

The report has generated quite a bit of press attention in Europe, with reports on the Reuters news wire, BBC News and Nature.com.

The Verum Foundation Web site offers a summary of the report, as well as the complete report which may be downloaded in four parts ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4).





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