Interview with Alexander Lerchl
1. Mr Lerchl, I received anonymously the manuscript "Comments on "Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (UMTS, 1,950 MHz) induce genotoxic effects in vitro in human fibroblasts but not in lymphocytes" by Schwarz et al.". I have sent it to you by fax. Did you write it?
Answer: Yes, I did, and I sent it to the authors after the paper had been positively evaluated by two experts and was accepted by the Journal. I wanted to make sure that all six authors were informed about my accepted manuscript.
2. The last sentence in the abstract of your paper states: "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." What exactly do you think of the data from Schwarz et al.?
Answer: The data is, as one reviewer states, "too good to be true" because, according to his expertise with comet assay, the standard deviations are far too low. It is indeed very curious to see such low standard deviations of less than 5% (and not standard errors!) in these many independent experiments with all the biological variables and with microscopical inspection and manual classification of the comets. Sometimes, the CVs are even below 3% and this, in cells that were exposed to UV or electromagnetic fields, where the variations of the exposure were already higher by a factor of up to 10. Here, I have serious problems understanding this. Also, the inter-assay variations (between 1 and 2%) are smaller than the reported intra-assay variations, which is simply impossible. The statistical methods are also strange because non-parametric tests were applied, which are very insensitive, leading to minimum levels of p = 0.0238 at n=3 and n=6, respectively. To do this, data from sham-exposed cells and negative controls had to be pooled and surprisingly indeed these values were almost identical. Since the variances between the groups were similar, many more sensitive parametric tests would have been possible with much better results, which was actually the way data were analysed in a previous publication from that group. Thus, the interesting differences between exposed and sham-exposed cells would have been analysed without the need to pool data. But then the significance of the differences would have been so strong (p < 0.001), that one would have to assume immediate and severe danger for the health of those users who have only ever used their mobile once.
3. are you being paid by mobile phone industry?
Answer: No, but I know this argument well since scientists not supporting the view that electromagnetic fields pose a health risk are accused of being corrupted by the mobile phone industry. Due to this, I have refrained and will refrain from accepting funds directly from this side. My research projects are funded by the Federal Agency for Radiation Protection (BfS, Salzgitter) within the German Mobile Phone Research Program, and by the Forschungsgemeinschaft Funk e.V. (FGF, Bonn). Apart from these main activities, I give lectures and presentations at conferences and for education purposes for which I am reimbursed. By the way, when you read my papers you will indeed note that I sometimes do find effects, which I also publish. For instance, I recently published effects on hamsters whose body weights were found to increase during exposure. This observation led to another research project with the BfS. Here we want to investigate possible metabolic effects of electromagnetic fields.
4. You have submitted your paper to Int Arch Occup Environ Health. What was your experience?
Answer: It was a forceps delivery, if I may say so. After I informed Springer, the publisher, about my analysis on Feb 22 they, in turn, immediately informed that Journal. On this same day I also received a telephone call from the editor-in-chief. He suggested that I should write a "Short Communication", which he would handle himself. He assured a rapid processing and even asked the publisher as to whether publication would be possible in the same printed issue that carried the Schwarz et al. paper. I submitted the manuscript on Feb 26. One day later the editor asked me to provide him with a name of an expert for the comet assay, he had already identified an expert for statistics. On March 7, I received the review by the comet expert and, simultaneously, I was informed that the second expert would also recommend acceptance. On March 13, I received the official notification from the Journal that my paper could be published, provided I would consider the comments of both referees who recommended acceptance with minor modifications. I re-submitted the slightly changed manuscript one day later (Friday, March 14).
On March 17, I expected the paper to be finally accepted but that was not the case. The editor-in-chief had met Rüdiger during the previous week at a conference on occupational medicine in Hamburg (March 12 - 15). The editor and his co-editor of the Journal gave a talk on "scientific objectivity and ethical guidelines as editors" (translated, H.R.) In fact, they themselves didn't seem to be clear about these ethical guidelines since my paper, with my name, had been given to Rüdiger (most likely during the conference), although it had not yet been accepted. Apparently, something happened to change the editor-in-chief's appraisal of my discoveries. On March 17, he confirmed verbally and in writing that another review was pending, which had never been previously mentioned.
Later, even more than one reviewer was mentioned. It makes, however, no sense at all to provisionally accept a publication when reviews are still pending. The continually mentioned need for a rapid clarification had suddenly disappeared. Apparently, some people got cold feet!
I have expressed my concerns about the contradictions and the handling of this case to the editors and the directors of the biomedical journals of Springer. The latter told me that the publisher and the Journal are in a delicate situation but he shared my concerns. On March 19, the status of my manuscript changed to: reviewers assigned. Following this development I had an intense exchange of notes with Springer and the Journal, including the CEO for legal issue and licenses. Finally, I set a deadline of March 28 and announced that I would go to the media. On March 26, I suggested that my manuscript could be published as a "Letter to the Editor" (a category of publication which the Journal usually doesn't have) and the authors of the Schwarz et al. paper were thereby afforded one month within which to respond. The director of the biomedical Journals told me that this would have to be decided by the editors, who subsequently told me on March 28 that I will definitely be informed of their decision on March 31 ("promise"), which did not happen. I was informed on April 1 that my paper would, after all, be accepted as a Letter to the Editor, without further referees' comments, provided that some words be changed.
Who is actually being paid by industry?
Interview with Alexander Lerchl
