Subject: Re (Goldsmith) Re Cell Phones and Human Health (fwd)
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 185907 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 16:16:50 -0600
From: "Bill P. Curry"
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Re: (Goldsmith) Re: Cell Phones and Human Health (fwd)
Dear John,
Thanks very much for your reply. I certainly didn't mean to downplay the
importance of epedemiological evidence, and I have one of your papers which I
obtained from the Internet Grateful Med search engine and the Loansome Doc
paper distribution program after having seen it listed in John Moulder's FAQ
on Cellular Phones and Health. The reason I attended the Radiation Research
Society meeting in Lousiville was the fact that Moulder convened 2 sessions
related to this topic. He seemed to dismiss epedemiological evidence as being
weaker than laboratory experimental evidence, and I would like to get your
response about this attitude. I also have copies of papers by Rapacholi and
colleagues and by Maes et el. relating to the two main points I listed as
being supported by "incontrovertable evidence" because I didn't want to enter
the fray about the value and use of epedemiological evidence. Interesting
that this kind of evidence should be considered at all suspect, when it was
epedemiological evidence that first demonstrated the link between smoking and cancer!
I wanted to suggest a possible damage mechanism, because as far as I know, no
one has yet been able to estimate a "safe" level to which the radiation
incident on the human head should be attenuated. I see ads on the internet
for various cell phone shields to be fitted over the phones or worn by the
user. Although some claims have been made for 95% attenuation, the only
carefully tested devices seem to me to reduce the radiation by about a factor
of two. I think one can do better than that.
How well should we do? That question requires a damage mechanism to be
established and estimates made of threshold levels of radiation. Since a
number of calculations (but not many experiments) have been published about
the frequencies and density of states into which microwave absorption by DNA
molecules can occur, I thought that a plausible damage mechanism might be
absorption of microwave photons into the vibrational states of DNA that lie
near 1 Ghz (too small for bond breaking or initiating the "unwinding" mode of
the DNA molecules) and that internal energy transfer might then concentrate
enough energy in one or more modes to exceed either bond energies or cause
"unwinding." (Most of what I have seen in the literature treats "unwinding"
as being somewhat equivalent to dissociation, so it is called "melting.") If
this mechanism is significant, one could estimate the threshold level of
radiation that would cause such transitions by calculating the rate of
absorption of the incident radiation and the rate of internal energy transfer
into bond breaking or "unwinding" and balancing these rates against the rates
of deexcitation of the internal modes by processes that do not lead to
internal transfer. For simpler molecules, such a mechanism would likely be
collisions with other molecules, leading to either conversion of the internal
energy to translational motion (heat) or else an exchange of internal quanta
of the molecules under consideration with internal modes of other molecules.
Do you think a similar mechanism would occur for DNA energy transfer? I have
a vague recollection of haing seen a formula expressing the probability for
transfering several internal quanta into a single mode (about 35-40 years
ago). Perhaps it was in one of Eyring's books about kinetics of simple
reactions. Do you recall any such formula?
Thanks for citing literature related to my posting. I will try to get these
papers. I am dismayed that the stated goal of the research program I heard
described at the RRS meeting does not include trying to establish a damage
mechanism. (This was stated explicitly at the RRS meeting.)
Would you cite references for me that consider damage to cell membrances and
intercellular membranes - especially if they include estimates of the energy
required to produce such damage? I appreciate your having brought this
mechanism to my attention, and I look forward to receiving additional
information from you and others on this list.
--
----
Bill P. Curry, Ph.D. |Physics is fun.
EMSciTek Consulting Co. |Trying to make a living!
22W101 McCarron Road, |Phone: (630) 858-9377
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137 |Fax: same, but require prior notice
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html