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Comment by onoj | Hacker News Reader

Worse - they found that the radiation CAN cause DNA damage.

The potential complications don't end there. In the mid-1990s, a biophysicist at the University of Washington named Henry Lai began to make profound discoveries about the effects of such frequencies not only on the blood-brain barrier but also on the actual structure of rat DNA. Lai found that modulated EM radiation could cause breaks in DNA strands—breaks that could then lead to genetic damage and mutations that would be passed on for generations. What surprised Lai was that the damage was accomplished in a single two-hour exposure.

In essence - even though the energy is not sufficient to ionize it is impacting the function of cells.

(this is why I posted the article)

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It is interesting the approach taken in US vs Europe. Europe is taking more of precautionary approach, they are at least doing more research, they seem more skeptical. In US worrying about cellphone radiation is considered "conspiratorial" for some reason. Are these flak groups sponsored by large wireless telecom carriers?

I observed the same thing in regard to food and additives. FDA seems to need strong irrefutable proof of toxicity before they would ban an additive, Europeans seem to take more of a precautionary approach -- if the additive is thought to be harmful, they will be banned. Is it just me or have others noticed the same?

I'm not sure that's really a general difference in approaches. After Canada banned BPA in baby bottles, people started going crazy about it in the US, and eventually the FDA decided to change its stance. Meanwhile in Europe, nearly all countries concluded no further research was necessary and that BPA was fine.

My European friends that I asked about this claimed that it was because "European governments are much more easily influenced by companies". Not the response I was expecting.

If you read the section on government regulations in the Wikipedia article on BPA, you'll get an interesting perspective on one issue, at least in terms of precautionary principle vs. safe till proven otherwise.

* In US worrying about cellphone radiation is considered "conspiratorial" for some reason.*

Indeed, as demonstrated by the majority of responses to this article. Surprising, at least to me.

It shouldn't be surprising if you understand a bit of basic logic. No one can prove a negative, yet this is exactly what the so-called "precautionary principle" demands of us.

I can't prove that cell phone radiation is always harmless to all respects of human health under all conditions, and you can't prove that there's not an invisible teapot in orbit around Neptune. Instead, the burden of proof must lie with the party making the positive assertion.

It would be very obvious by now if handheld radio transceivers caused cancer. The physics say it won't happen, and so does the epidemiology. Case closed for now, worry about something else.

What is lacking is long term studies. That is essentially what the doctor in the article notices.

The same is true for food additives. How many companies do you think conduct 20 year long studies on chemicals that mimic hormones? Pumping rabbits and mice with massive dosages might not be the same as a long term exposure to very small doses.

We're all "long term studies." Where's the brain-cancer epidemic? People who smoke are more likely to get lung cancer, an otherwise rare disease. So if everybody started smoking, we'd see a large spike in lung-cancer cases. However, we have not seen a large spike in brain-cancer cases across all populations who started using cell phones en masse in the 1990s.

So exactly what problem is being addressed here, besides poor high-school physics education?

The physics say it won't happen

Does it? That's a very strong statement. We are still very ignorant of the subtle workings of the body.

There have been numerous studies and as I see it the jury is still out. Mobile phones have only really been in common use for a decade; that's less time than it takes for eg. lung cancer to develop. I'm not "worried" as such, but I'm certainly open to new data, and think it's rather too soon to declare absolute victory to one side or the other.

Anyway I wasn't trying to say this study is right or wrong or anything really. I was just commenting on the instantly dismissive attitude of many of the responders to this article. I think such dismissiveness is unwarranted.

We are still very ignorant of the subtle workings of the body.

Not at the atomic level, we're not. Photon interactions work the same way in your brain as they do anywhere else.

I don't know what definition of "photon" you are using but I don't think it is appropriate to describe the effects of microwave radiation, which occurs at very different wavelengths as visible light, which "photon" traditionally refers to.

EM radiation at ~microwave levels has well-known effects, it's true, such as protein denaturing and other localised internal heating. The effect of randomly, and perhaps partially, denaturing proteins over long periods of time in important parts of your body is rather ill-studied, I would have thought.

Alright, you actually had me interested. A plausible demonstration of SSB (single strand breakage) or DSB (double strand breakage) after exposure to the type of RF that cell phones emit would be huge. And to his credit, that's exactly what Lai's results indicated (H Lai, NP Singh - Int J Radiat Biol, 1996).

Specifically, Lai found DNA breakage in the brain tissues of rats immediately after a 2hr exposure to a 2450MHz CW (continuous wave) signal, but not immediately after exposure to a 2450MHz PW (pulsed wave) signal. DNA breakage was only found 4hr after exposure to the PW signal ended. Lai didn't provide any temperature information, so we can't know if that was a factor.

Here's my problem: Lai's experiment was reproduced at least once, and found no significant difference in SSBs between the irradiated group and the controls (http://bit.ly/9qr2Hm).

This is on top of numerous other studies that have failed to confirm DNA damage from RF exposure (http://bit.ly/c9H4MR). I'm not saying that RF-induced DNA damage couldn't possibly happen, but the evidence for it seems weak or non-existent at best.

Sure, excessive heat will damage DNA. I would like to see a study that actually induces cancer in a rodent with cell phone radiation at cell phone exposure levels. I suspect, though, that it is not possible.

Absolutely none of Lai's dramatic experiments with the rats have been reproduced. It's very safe to assume they're bogus.

Seriously... if cell phone radiation was harmful, don't you think the trial lawyers would have discovered it by now?

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