Bioelectromagnetics

To The Don: Yes I confined my remarks largely to children and leukaemia and SIDS, but these are not the only ill health conditions associated with chronic exposure to EMFs. Other conditions associated in the peer reviewed literature include adverse birth outcomes, Alzheimers, bradycardia, lowered attention, asthenias, loss of short term memory, spontaneous abortion, male and female breast cancers etc. These are IMHO because in general Nature has exploited electric fields as a signalling system (using e.g. Ca2+ as a primary and second messenger in signal transduction), for electron transport processes in the synthesis of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, the universal energy biomolecule we use ubiquitously) and other charged particles. Electric fields influence their efficiency, leading to a variety of oprerational and developmental sequelae.

E.g. spermatozoa once entered into the egg change the charge on the ovum surface so that other sperm cannot enter and cause polyfertilisation, but electric fields can depolarise these membranes. The notochord similarly relies on electric current polarity, givng rise to electric fields, , and if this is reversed there are serious morphological consequences. In short, endogenous electric fields are an important constituent of normal development.
 
Coghill, is your theory based on electric fields interfering with bioelectric potentials inside the body?

Hans
 
Mulder: someone drew attention to his infamous Q and A site. I have read this carefully many times, and he has had to withdraw at least one response as a result of my protests. The site gives a very biased view of the literature in my opinion, and remember that at Wisconsin is situated the US Navy's enormous ELF transmitter for communicating with submarines, an installation which has kept researchers there in business for decades. Some say that Mulder is actually funded by the US Navy, but I have no proof of this.
 
cogreslab said:
Mulder: someone drew attention to his infamous Q and A site. I have read this carefully many times, and he has had to withdraw at least one response as a result of my protests. The site gives a very biased view of the literature in my opinion, and remember that at Wisconsin is situated the US Navy's enormous ELF transmitter for communicating with submarines, an installation which has kept researchers there in business for decades. Some say that Mulder is actually funded by the US Navy, but I have no proof of this.
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Do you have a web link for his "infamous Q & A"?
 
"HEALTH DANGER FUELS PROTEST"

Apr 2004

POWER line protesters have pointed to research which says a new high-voltage line could be a health hazard.

The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) carried out a review of research into links between leukaemia and electricity pylons.

It showed that that living in an area with electromagnetic radiation levels above 0.4 microtesla could double the risk to families who are exposed in the long term.

Average household exposure in the UK is between 0.01 and 0.1 microteslas. The NRPB says standing under a 400kv line could expose people to levels as high as 40 microteslas, though that reduces quickly as you move away from the line.

Experts say there is a small risk but that it could affect around one in 20 peopl. They have urged the Government to properly investigate the possibility of a link between high-voltage power lines and leukaemia.

The NRPB said its findings could be a quirk in statistics but suggested that politicians should not ignore the potential danger.

The findings call into question existing guidelines, which assume that 100 microteslas is safe over a 24-hour period and that far lower levels are safe over longer periods." http://icstirlingshire.icnetwork.co...ne=health-danger-fuels-protest-name_page.html
 
To MRC Hans: Prof Om Gandhi at Univ of Utah, Salt Lake City, has studied this aspect much more than I, and in his opinion this is quite possible. In the UK Camelia Gabriel is also working on the conductivity problem, and the general consensus is that specific absorption rate is the correct metric for answering that sort of question. At this lab we take the view that there are so many flaws in the SAR concept that it is no good predictor of bioeffects. You can find a long discussion of the problem on our site.

To answer your question directly, yes I believe that external electric fields can superpose on internal endogenous fields to the extent of disruption, based largely on the knowledge that the conductivity of physiological saline is almost lossless inside the body.
 
Well spotted Lucy. Yes I knew about this study, and see it has now finally been admitted (2 April 2004). I hope the posters who argued I had misquoted the NRPB's 2001 documents now accept they have changed their attitude somewhat since then, as I said.
 
Sorry the name is Moulder not Mulder (my error), and the link is
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ/toc.html

As an example of his bias, take the question (G16) about whether it is the electric or the magnetic component likely to cause cancer: he completely omits all references to my study, to that of Liburdy, Adey, Lyle and probably more, all of which confirm the importance of the electric component. Yet he is aware of all these studies, some of which even appear in his bibliography.

He does however address the ELF electric field issue more directly in question 16L, offering a brief literature review. This needs to be considered in much greater detail, since E.g. the McBride study protocols are flawed (I should have mentioned this study too before, but confess i had forgotten it). I will refresh my memory on this study and post a response to Moulder's review separately.
 
"[...]Now Bo Sernelius, a physicist at Linkoping University in Sweden, has a new lead. He modelled the dielectric properties of cells. Water molecules have poles of positive and negative electric charge that are known to create attractive forces between cells, known as van der Waals forces.

These are normally extremely weak, typically around a billion-billionth of a newton. Using a highly simplified mathematical model of two red blood cells, Sernelius calculated what effect electromagnetic fields created by different frequencies of radiation would have on the forces.

He found that the water molecules inside the cells attempt to align their positive and negative poles with the alternating field produced by the radiation. They all end up pointing in the same direction, and this strengthens the van der Waals forces.

According to Sernelius's figures, in fields of 850 megahertz - around the frequency used by mobile phones - the attractive forces appear to leap to micronewton strength. That is a huge jump of around 11 orders of magnitude, and completely unexpected, says Sernelius.[...] http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994855

MRC hans, are these links helpful?
 
"Peter Zwamborn, who led the TNO team that produced the report, says he cannot explain the effect but adds that the findings have forced him to re-evaluate his view of cellphones. "Now I see that electromagnetic fields do something to humans, but what bothers me is that I cannot understand it," he told New Scientist." http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994225
 
I have started reading stuff and listing the arguments.

My first observation is that I can trace many arguments of political nature that fight about policies and not scientific findings so I have started to suspect that the issue is political.

Maybe I am wrong and I will have to return to that.

Since you google Lucy could you please check if there are papers that suggest exactly the opposite? That there is nothing to worry about? Not that anybody suggests with certainty that there is something to worry about but what so ever...

Thank you.
 
It looks like BT are going to hide their so-called 'safe' transmitters. It makes you wonder what it is they have to hide...?

"BT points out that the new masts are 100 times less powerful than conventional masts having a maximum output of seven watts. But a spokeswoman for the UK campaign group MAST Sanity told New Scientist: "They might be low level, but no level is safe."

Groups such as MAST Sanity were enraged to discover early in October 2002 that conventional masts are already hidden behind signs at some petrol stations in the UK. Plans to allow masts to be attached to church spires in Britain were also criticised in July 2002." http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992996
 
cogreslab said:
To MRC Hans: *snip*

To answer your question directly, yes I believe that external electric fields can superpose on internal endogenous fields to the extent of disruption, based largely on the knowledge that the conductivity of physiological saline is almost lossless inside the body.
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But exactly because the internal conductivity of the body is quite good, the ability for external fields to produce potentials is seriously inhibited.

The conductivity of the body is far from lossless, but the overall resistance of a human body is in the order of 100-300 Ohms. The capacitance of a human body to an overhead wire is complex to calculate, but it is certainly less than 100pF. This gives a very high impedance to a 50Hz signal (obviously, or the energy loss in HT lines would be unacceptable), so the potential across a given body part will be very low indeed, even in the presense of a quite high external field, because the high conductivity of the body basically shorts out the field. If we are talking about such a small part of the body as a cell wall, the potential must be very low indeed.

Hans
 
I will have to go soon, but as a final shot today: Re Lucyanarchy's comment about disguises, there is a website (www.invisibles.com I think) of a firm who specialises in creating cellphone radiating antennae in disguised shapes, from plastic trees to false bits of buildings.
 
Lucianarchy said:
It looks like BT are going to hide their so-called 'safe' transmitters. It makes you wonder what it is they have to hide...?

"BT points out that the new masts are 100 times less powerful than conventional masts having a maximum output of seven watts. But a spokeswoman for the UK campaign group MAST Sanity told New Scientist: "They might be low level, but no level is safe."

Groups such as MAST Sanity were enraged to discover early in October 2002 that conventional masts are already hidden behind signs at some petrol stations in the UK. Plans to allow masts to be attached to church spires in Britain were also criticised in July 2002." http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992996
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They are a pressure group who insist that no mast is safe. The reason the transmitters are being hidden is because of the furore being whipped up (like MMR) by the press and special interest groups in a public who are not inclined or in a position to be interested in the full story.

Why is it moer dangerous to have a 7watt transmitter metres from you when it's apparently fine to have several milliwatts right by your brain ?

According to New Scientist, cellphones are safe for at least 10 years http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994624
 
Jeez, it does indeed look like Cogreslab are right:

"EDGWARE residents have vowed to make sure a massive new power cable under the A5 does not break new lower European limits on electromagnetic radiation.

The newly-completed £200 million National Grid tunnel, which runs from Elstree along Edgware Road to St John's Wood, will carry a 400,000 volt cable which is due to begin operating next year.

The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) recently reduced the safe limit for electromagnetic emissions from 1,600 to 100 microteslas (mT) over 24 hours, bringing British limits in line with international regulations.

But one expert, Professor Denis Henshaw of Bristol University, said the limit should be cut further, to about 0.4mT." http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/l...sidents_fear_danger_of_new_400_000v_cable.php

What do you think MRC Hans?
 
The Don said:

They are a pressure group who insist that no mast is safe. The reason the transmitters are being hidden is because of the furore being whipped up (like MMR) by the press and special interest groups in a public who are not inclined or in a position to be interested in the full story.
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No, the evidence clearly suggests that chronic EM exposure is a health risk. That's why the UK Govt have at least agreed to study further through Essex Uni.
 
Lucianarchy said:
*snip*
The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) recently reduced the safe limit for electromagnetic emissions from 1,600 to 100 microteslas (mT) over 24 hours, bringing British limits in line with international regulations.

But one expert, Professor Denis Henshaw of Bristol University, said the limit should be cut further, to about 0.4mT." http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/l...sidents_fear_danger_of_new_400_000v_cable.php

What do you think MRC Hans?
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I think this proves that the problem is not being suppressed and that authorities will rather impose overly conservative limits than arouse public fear, quite like in many other fields where the limits are often determined not by what we have evidence is dangerous but by what we can measure.

With friends like you, Lucy, Mr. Coghill does not need enemies. You are systematically debunking his claims of suppression by the authorities, and you are moving focus from electric fields he talks about to magnetic fields (Tesla is a measure of magnetic fields).

Good work! ;)

Hans
 
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