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Mobiele telefonie beschadigt het DNA ?*
Elektromagnetische straling tast DNA en lichaamscellen aan. Dit is de
conclusie van een onderzoek dat gedurende vier jaar in Duitsland, Italië,
Spanje en Finland is gehouden. Straling van onder andere mobiele telefonie en
antennes zorgden tijdens laboratoriumtests voor breuken in het DNA die niet
altijd door de cellen konden worden hersteld. Beschadigde cellen kunnen leiden
tot kanker.
Deze ervaringen uit het laboratorium bewijzen niet dat de
straling gevaarlijk is voor mensen. Daarvoor zijn veldstudies nodig die zeker
vier jaar in beslag nemen.
'Conclusive' study of cellphones
fuels controversy
A study funded by the European
Union claims to show conclusively that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by
cellphones and power lines can affect human cells at energy levels generally
considered harmless. But despite the fact that the study was set up to settle
this matter once and for all, most experts are still not convinced.
The four-year REFLEX project
involved 12 groups from seven European countries, which all carried out
supposedly identical experiments. Results were then compared to see if any
consistent findings emerged.
The conclusion?
"Electromagnetic radiation of low and high frequencies is able to generate
a genotoxic effect on certain but not all types of cells and is also able to
change the function of certain genes, activating them and deactivating
them," says project leader Franz Adlkofer of the Verum Foundation in
Munich, Germany.
But the project certainly has not
achieved its goal of ending the controversy. Michael Repacholi of the World
Health Organization in Geneva questions how standardised the experiments were
and says the results are far from conclusive.
In one experiment, he points out,
two groups reported that very low-frequency radiation (which is emitted by power
lines) could produce double-stranded breaks in DNA - something most scientists
consider impossible - while another group had the opposite results. "One
has to question what went wrong, or was different, for them to get the results
they claim," he says.
The
experiments carried out by different groups were not completely standardised,
concedes one of the project researchers, Dariusz Leszczynski of the Finnish
Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority. He says that, despite ¬2 million in
funding, financial constraints meant different groups had to use different types
of equipment. (NewScientist
Jan.
2005)