Who is actually being paid by industry?

(April 30th 2008) Are mobiles a danger for your health? A recent study by Schwarz et al presents evidence that electromagnetic fields from mobiles leads to DNA breakage in human fibroblasts. Biologist Alexander Lerchl however finds serious faults in this study. By Siegfried Bär

With one exception, everyone in my circle of friends has a mobile phone, sometimes even two. The only exception is me (probably the only reporter without a mobile!). The reason is not that I'm afraid of electromagnetic fields from mobiles or base stations but my aversion to a device which allows anyone to disturb me at any time: the mobile decreases my self-determination and steals my time. This is my attitude towards mobiles.

In Germany, about one third of the population older than 14 is concerned about possible adverse health effects caused by mobiles or base stations (infas). In various Internet forums and publications one repeatedly reads that mobiles cause cancer. Furthermore, the reader is also informed that scientific studies, which prove these effects, are suppressed. On the other hand, scientific studies showing no adverse effects have been brought by the mobile phone industry and the authors were bribed.

That scientists have been bribed by industry to play down possible dangers of their products has been shown and is probably still the case. One example is the tobacco industry. Thilo Grüning from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has shown that the tobacco industry has tried to influence leading scientists by trivialising the risks of passive smoking. In Germany in 1975, the "Verband der Cigarettenindustrie" (association of tobacco industry) founded the "Forschungsrat Rauchen und Gesundheit" (research board on smoking and health), which was the centre for such activities. Influential directors of clinics were recruited and millions were distributed among suited scientists, predominantly among the board members. Some tobacco companies approached scientist directly. According to Spiegel (49/2005, translated), "In the beginning, 'Big Tobacco' required investigations to fight against the alleged discrimination of smokers. Then they wanted results for better marketing of lighter cigarettes. Finally, scientists were urged to negate the risks of passive smoking."

Whether the mobile phone industry uses similar tools is unknown to me. If they do, they are very successful: the vast majority of scientific investigations concerning the possible risks of mobile phone electromagnetic fields is negative, i.e. no effects were seen. Indeed, such effects would be difficult to explain since the energy of such fields is too weak to break chemical bonds, e.g. in DNA strands. So far, there is no biophysical mechanism, which would be able to explain such damages.

Activists against mobile phone "radiation" were, therefore, jubilant when a study was published in 2005 by Hugo Rüdiger's research group in Vienna (Diem et al., 2005, Non-thermal DNA breakage by mobile phone radiation (1800 MHz) in human fibroblasts and transformed GFSH-R17 rat granulosa cells in vitro. Mutat Res 583:178-183). Rüdiger, born 1936 in Dresden, is a professor for occupational medicine (emeritus October last year). In that paper the authors claim that GSM-type electromagnetic fields were able to break DNA molecules. This was shown by the comet assay.

This assay works as follows: cells are placed in an agarose gel and lysed; thereafter, an electrophoresis is performed, followed by staining with ethidium bromide. Intact genomic DNA molecules are too large to move into the gel, whereas damaged cells' DNA fragments do and form a comet. The extent of damage was assessed semi-quantitatively as the comet tail factor: in class A cells with no or next to no damage were counted and a calibration factor of 2.5% (proportion of total DNA in comet) was applied. The same was done for B cells (small comet, calibration factor 12.5%), and so on. E cells with the largest comet had the calibration factor of 97.5%. Thus, the class and the calibration factor approximately represent the length of the tail and the DNA damage. The status of a cell culture's genomic DNA is given by the comet tail factor, which results from the manual classification of 500 comets per slide (containing approximately 30,000 cells) using a microscope at 400x magnification. The sum of the products number x calibration factor, divided by 500, yielded the final comet tail factor (CTF) for the slide and the culture dish, respectively. Per experiment and group, the CTF values, i.e. values from three slides, were evaluated, and the averages and standard deviations were calculated. The results from the study by Diem et al. were found to be non-reproducible (Speit et al., 2007, Mutat Res 626: 42-47). Nevertheless, recently, another study by the Rüdiger group was published, showing once again deleterious effects on DNA from human fibroblasts exposed to the third generation mobile phone communication standard (UMTS), even at SAR levels well below the allowed limit of 2 W/kg. Their paper was published by the Springer Journal Int Arch Occup Environ Health (2008, 81, 755-767): Schwarz et al., Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (UMTS, 1,950 MHz) induce genotoxic effects in vitro in human fibroblasts but not in lymphocytes. The authors were Claudia Schwarz, Elisabeth Kratochvil, Alexander Pilger, Niels Kuster, Franz Adlkofer and Hugo Rüdiger. The paper reveals that a huge amount of data was analysed. Just for the data contained in Table 2, 30,000 cells were inspected and classified. Elisabeth Kratochvil, former Diem, did all this. The ITIS foundation (Zurich) blinded the exposure.

At the beginning of April, the German research magazine Laborjournal anonymously received a manuscript written by Alexander Lerchl, a biologist from Bremen, Germany, that had been accepted by Int Arch Occup Environ Health. In the meantime, it has been published online. Lerchl, a member of the German Radiation Protection Board of the Ministry for Environment, has been investigating biological effects of electromagnetic fields for decades. Lerchl took a close look at the paper by Schwarz et al. and concludes in his paper, "The critical analysis of the data given in the figures and the tables furthermore reveal peculiar miscalculations and statistical oddities which give rise to concern about the origin of the reported data." Among others, Lerchl was concerned about the following facts:

• The coefficients of variation (CV) of the CTF values are on average 2.9% and never exceed 5%. This, he writes, is "truly remarkable for this kind of biological experiment with a huge number of possible confounders and methodological inaccuracies, among them differences in the cells' status and cycle, possible differences in cell culture conditions (from at least 15 independently performed experiments), differences in exposure to EMFs and UV, variations during electrophoresis and staining and, most importantly, differences in microscopic examination and manual classification."
• Even more surprising, according to Lerchl, is the fact that the CVs are even lower at higher CTF values (exposed cells and positive controls). Here, the CVs were between 1.2 and 2.6% whereas the CVs of negative (incubator) controls and sham-exposed samples were 3.9 and 4.1%, respectively. This is especially curious since the CVs of the SAR values of the exposed cells were, according to Schwarz et al., at 26%. The CVs reported by Speit et al. were in the order of 30 to 40%.
• The inter-individual differences of the CTF values are in contrast to previous work from the same group.
• The CVs of the numbers of E cells of the sham-exposed cultures and the negative controls were more than ten times as high as the CVs of the comet tail factors. However, the high impact of E cell numbers, due to their high calibration factor, should have resulted in much higher CVs of the respective slides.
• The cross sum of average values given in Table 2 should always result in 500 since this was the number of cells being counted. In positive and negative controls, there are consistent deviations from 500 (e.g. 502.5 or 513 or 514.6).
• Schwarz et al. explain their small CVs with the high numbers (500) of cells as follows: "Due to the scoring of 500 cells, being about ten times the cells usually processed by computer-aided image analysis, standard deviations become very low." These 500 cells, however, were only counted to get one CTF value. If 500 instead of 50 cells are counted, the average will be more precise but there is only little, if any, effect on the variations between the slides / cultures which is more influenced by variations of the SAR values. If more slides per group were counted, the standard deviation would not be necessarily lower, but again it would be more precise. Not the standard deviation but the standard error decreases with the number of independent experiments.

You can find further arguments in the paper by Lerchl (click here for PDF) and in the interview with him.

We obtained a statement from the group leader, Hugo Rüdiger (surprisingly he was only available via his mobile). According to Rüdiger, Lerchl's comments are in part invalid. His statistical arguments "may not change" the principal conclusions of the Schwarz et al. paper. In a table, more than 30 publications are cited which, according to Rüdiger, have shown genotoxic effects of electromagnetic fields. He admitted, though, that studies exist, which do not show any effects and that other studies which showed effects were found to be non-reproducible. Rüdiger suggested that genotoxic effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields may be caused via oxidative effects, e.g. radicals, but he leaves open how photons, which are too weak to break DNA molecules, could produce radicals. Concerning the low CVs, he argued that his group always obtained such low values in their comet assays. Also, three other groups of researchers obtained similarly low CVs. Former data from his group, which showed higher CVs, as Lerchl mentioned, were based on inter-individual comparisons. Moreover, the large CVs of E cells in negative controls and sham-exposed cells are not surprising but to be expected since E cells in these two groups are rare (Lerchl was not surprised by this but by the fact that the CVs of the CTF values were so small, despite the large impact of E cells, H.R.). Rüdiger further argued that it is not always clear where Lerchl took the data from, e.g. the number of 14.6 cells (this was based on the calculation of the cross sum of cells n Table 2 which deviates from 500. For instance, '514.6 cells', is obtained from one line in that table, H.R.). Rüdiger blames Lerchl for having not asked him to provide him with the raw data. Further arguments from Rüdiger can be found in his paper (click here for PDF). Rüdiger concludes: "the critical comments concerning the publication by Schwarz et al. are largely based on an incorrect and perfunctory consideration of relevant publications in the field. The statistical points being made do neither give reason to doubt the validity of the data nor to modify the conclusions of the paper by Schwarz et al."

During my inquest into this case I was told repeatedly that Alexander Lerchl is a lobbyist for the mobile phone industry. I could find no proof of this allegation. The following is, however, interesting:

The second senior author, Franz Adlkofer, is a member of the foundation board and CEO of the Verum foundation, the successor of the research board on smoking and health, which was founded by the tobacco industry association and supported by this organisation until 2001. According to Thilo Grüning (Stern interview from Dec 16, 2005) Verum supports research which "should deflect from damages by smoking and which should detect other causes for cancer" (translated). Grüning sees electromagnetic fields from mobile phones as a typical example for this kind of strategy. The non-smoker and mobile phone user Adlkofer was, between 1976 and 1992, head of the scientific department of the tobacco industry association. Spiegel (49/2005) wrote: "Franz Adlkofer, organiser of German tobacco research, assured his colleagues in the USA that one study about the role of nicotine as a cause for cancer would be 'hidden' and another study would 'definitively not be published'" (translated). Franz Adlkofer told Laborjournal, he is not at all on the side of the tobacco industry but on his own side. He supported Schwarz et al. verbally and financially. He was also involved in the data analysis. He fully supports the reply by his co-author Rüdiger, although he would have used even stronger words. The discrepancy between Lerchl's aggressivity and his arguments, Adlkofer says, is incomprehensible.



Who is actually being paid by industry?

Interview with Alexander Lerchl

Last Changes: 30.04.2008