Adapted from this Feb 8, 2021 article in Microwave News.
RF-EMR = Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation
The central question at the heart of the Vienna Affair is this:
Can RF-EMR, in general, and signals from cellular phone and infrastructure antennas in particular, damage DNA?
The answer depends on whom you ask. A typical Wireless Industry-funded response is ‘No, because the radiation lacks the quantum energy to break chemical bonds.’
But that is not the last word, because there are other ways to get the job done. Kundi told me in an e-mail last year:
“I believe that RF[-EMR] does not need to have sufficient energy to break chemical bonds in order to induce DNA damage and thereby cause cancer. The key to these effects is an interaction at the cell membrane that leads under certain circumstances to interruption of intracellular signal pathways. This causes interference with DNA repair which in turn leads to DNA damage. Furthermore, it can induce oxidative stress.”
Michael Kundi is the former head of the Medical University of Vienna’s Institute of Environmental Health and has published extensively on cell phone infrastructure and cancer. As the papers showing RF–induced DNA breaks mount up, Kundi’s assessment is becoming the dominant view.
It got a significant boost when the U.S. National Toxicology Program, NTP, reported seeing DNA breaks in some of the same animal tissues where tumors developed following RF exposure in its $30 million RF–cancer project.
Just a few days ago, on February 4th, Henry Lai —who was the first, with N.P. Singh, to show that non-ionizing radiation can break DNA 26 years ago— published an updated review on RF–genotoxicity in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. According to his latest count, as of January 2021, there have been 361 papers on the topic. Of these 237 (66%) reported effects and 124 (34%) did not.
Henry Lai, PhD Published This ReviewOnline on Feb 4, 2021
ABSTRACT
This is a review of the research on the genetic effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic field (EMF), mainly on radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and static and extremely low frequency EMF (ELF-EMF). The majority of the studies are on genotoxicity (e.g., DNA damage, chromatin conformation changes, etc.) and gene expression. Genetic effects of EMF depend on various factors, including field parameters and characteristics (frequency, intensity, wave-shape), cell type, and exposure duration. The types of gene expression affected (e.g., genes involved in cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and stress responses, heat-shock proteins) are consistent with the findings that EMF causes genetic damages. Many studies reported effects in cells and animals after exposure to EMF at intensities similar to those in the public and occupational environments. Involvement of free radicals is a likely possibility. EMF also interacts synergistically with different entities on genetic functions. Interactions, particularly with chemotherapeutic compounds, raise the possibility of using EMF as an adjuvant for cancer treatment to increase the efficacy and decrease side effects of traditional chemotherapeutic drugs. Other data, such as adaptive effects and mitotic spindle aberrations after EMF exposure, further support the notion that EMF causes genetic effects in living organisms.