Korean NTP Lite: Progress Report
Briefing at WHO RF Meeting in Geneva
A Korean RF genotoxicology study —part of a joint project with Japan— has been delayed due to the unexpected death of four RF–exposed rats early in the accompanying two-year cancer experiment, according to Young Hwan Ahn of Korea’s Ajou University medical school.
Ahn presented a progress report on the Korean arm of the project in Geneva last week at a by-invitation-only meeting of the WHO EMF Project’s International Advisory Committee.
Microwave News has obtained a copy of Ahn’s PowerPoint presentation.
There were 70 RF-exposed rats in the two-year cancer study and an additional five for the genotox experiment. Three rats died in the RF–exposure chamber on the 87th day of the experiment, and another died the next day. The team decided to combine the two sets of rats to maintain the statistical power of the cancer bioassay. The cause of the four deaths, if known, was not disclosed.
Exposures in the cancer studies in both countries ended last December. The animals have been sacrificed and the analyses are now under way. Exposures in the delayed genotox experiment are scheduled to be completed in September.
The cancer results are expected in 2024. The director of IARC, Elisabete Weiderpass, has said that she is waiting for them before assembling a new panel to evaluate RF–cancer risks.
The Japanese/Korean animal study is a scaled-down repeat of the $30 million study by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) which found clear evidence that RF radiation can cause cancer. The Asian study has been called “NTP Lite.”
Katsumi Imaida will present a progress report on the Japanese arm of the joint project at the annual BioEM meeting in Oxford next week (his abstract).
The three slides below compare the Japanese/Korean studies to the original NTP project:
The next few slides give details on the study protocol, with some preliminary results on animal weights and food consumption.
Ahn closed his talk with this summary:
A pdf of Ahn’s complete ppt is available here.
Members of the project’s international advisory committee are: Alexander Lerchl, Michael Repacholi, Emilie van Deventer, Eric van Rongen, Vijayalaxmi, Joe Wiart and Michael Wyde.
Last year, Ahn’s and Imaida’s teams described the joint animal project in a paper published in Bioelectromagnetics. It’s open access.
