Chinese Lab Announces RF-Induced DNA Breaks
MobileMag
September 30, 2005
Zhengping Xu of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, addressing the 4th International Seminar on EMFs and Biological Effects held in Kunming China in early September, stated that cells exposed to a pulsed 1800 MHz RF radiation at an SAR of 3 W/Kg for 24 hours showed a statistically significant increase in DNA damage.
Xu’s Bioelectromagnetics Laboratory now joins a growing number of other labs that have found RF-induced DNA breaks. The effect was first reported more than a decade ago by Henry Lai and N.P. Singh of the University of Washington, Seattle. From the outset, Lai and Singh’s work had been repeatedly assailed by the cell phone industry and their consultants —most recently by Sheila Johnston and Vijayalaxmi, two members of the board of directors of the Bioelectromagnetics Society. They ciaimed to have refuted the Lai-Singh findings.
Last year, the European Union-sponsored the REFLEX Project who announced that 1800 MHz radiation could lead to DNA breaks. Those results were published this summer in Mutation Research. The MMF also noted that C.K. Chou of Motorola, a member of the MMF, complained at the meeting that it is difficult to publish “negative” results in China. WHO’s Mike Repacholi made a similar charge at the last Chinese EMF seminar held in Guilin two years ago, according to the MMF.