Another WHO RF Review Challenged

A third RF systematic review commissioned by the World Health Organization’s EMF Project is under fire. This one is on RF–induced oxidative stress. Last month, two other WHO reviews —on pregnancy outcomes and on tinnitus— were both called into question as critics called for them to be retracted.

A team of 14 from six countries, led by Felix Meyer of the German Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), identified 11,599 studies on oxidative stress in the frequency range 800-2450 MHz. They then eliminated 11,543 of them as not meeting their criteria for inclusion. Of the remaining 56, there are 45 animal studies and 11 cellular studies.

Meyer and colleagues concluded:

“Overall, the effects were inconsistent across studies and there may be or may not be an effect of RF-EMF exposure, but the certainty of the evidence is very low.”

The review has been met with skepticism —at least by those not connected to the WHO, ICNIRP or the BfS.

“The authors of this ‘systematic review’ systematically excluded most of the relevant research,” Joel Moskowitz of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health said in an interview. “A strong case can be made that the Meyer review should be retracted.” Moskowitz runs the Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website.

Henry Lai, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle, spelled out where Meyer and his team went wrong in the following statement he provided Microwave News:

The basic problem with this systematic review is that they ignored the dynamic nature of oxidative responses.

Proof of oxidative effects (possible oxidative stress) comes from different considerations:

           1. Oxidative molecular reactions
           2. Concentration of cellular free radicals
           3. Changes in enzymes involved in free radical metabolism
           4. Expression of genes involved in cellular oxidative processes, and
           5. Inhibition by free radical scavengers (antioxidants).

These cellular responses, like most biological processes, have feedback loops — that is, they can compensate to maintain homeostasis. Overcompensation can lead to oscillations. Thus, it’s possible to see an increase, decrease or no effect depending on when the measurement is made. It is not obvious how this dynamic might affect the outcome of Meyer’s SR.

The Meyer review essentially only considered the first of the five possibilities above. These reactions include lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation and carboxylation, as well as DNA oxidation. Lipid and protein oxidation are relatively easy to measure. In RF studies, oxidative DNA damage is usually studied using a type of comet assay or measurement of oxidized DNA bases. If the normal comet assay is used, the damage caused by free radicals would lead to single- and double-strand DNA breaks. There are many RF studies using the comet assay showing DNA strand breaks. I suspect most of these are caused by free radicals, because they can be blocked by antioxidants.

In addition, only two hydrogen peroxide studies were included. There are, however, many other types of cellular free radicals —for instance, reactive nitrogen species. It would have  been more meaningful to look at the total oxidant status (TOS) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). There are many studies reporting effects of RF radiation on TOS and TAC.

Finally, Meyer should have also considered studies of ELF-EMFs on cellular oxidative processes since most environmental RF is ELF-modulated. There are at least 320 published papers on oxidative effects of ELF/static-EMFs.

In sum, the Meyer review left out a large portion of RF-oxidative effect studies.

Lai compiles his own bibliography of RF-oxidative stress papers. As of mid-August, his list includes 367 studies, published beween 1997 and 2024. By his count, 89% showed significant effects.

In a 2019 review, Lai described some of the many biological impacts which may be caused by changes in the concentration of free radicals brought about by oxidative stress. These include “many physiological functions such as DNA damage; immune response; inflammatory response; cell proliferation and differentiation; wound healing; neural electrical activities; and behavior.”

The WHO systematic reviews are part of a more than a decade-long process to update its summary document on RF health effects. The project has been mired in delays and controversy. Details here.

Fourth Review Questioned

August 23, 2024

Today, Environment International posted a letter to the editor in response to another WHO RF systematic review —this one on “self-reported symptoms,” which was originally published in early April.

In his critique, Michael Bevington, the chair trustee of Electrosensitivity UK, a charity based in London, states:

The review’s Interpretation is invalidated in three ways. Firstly, its parameters excluded much available evidence showing positive effects; secondly, the use of averaging hides individual cases which provide positive evidence; and, thirdly, its negative claim is contradicted by positive proof from other sources, including practical, judicial, legal and underwriting.

The lead author of the review is Xavier Bosch-Capblanch, a medical doctor at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Switzerland, who also has an appointment at the University of Basel. His team includes members from Nigeria, the U.K. and the U.S. —as well as Martin Röösli, a colleague of Bosch-Capblanch in Basel. Until recently, Röösli was a member of ICNIRP.

Bevington concludes:

“The claim that ‘available evidence’ suggests that acute non-thermal RF-EMF ‘does not cause symptoms’ is not substantiated by all the evidence available, including evidence from 1932 onwards when the condition of Radio Wave Sickness was first described...”

Note also: Bosch-Capblanch’s group has published a correction to the original paper to clean up “a few inconsistencies detected in the article after its publication, due to some dysfunctionalities in the proofreading process.” The published Corrigendum runs ten pages.

September 3, 2024

Environment International has posted Bosch-Capblanch’s three-point response to Bevington. The group argues that “Bevington seems to overlook the scientific approach of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.”

In a August 30 Tweet (X) noting the exchange, Röösli states: “The main purpose of a systematic review is to prevent confirmation bias.”

Jim Lin Offers Sharp Takedown of WHO Reviews

December 13, 2024

James Lin, a former ICNIRP Commissioner, raises what he calls “significant concerns” over the reliabaility of four of the WHO systematic reviews in his long-running column in the IEEE Microwave Magazine.

Among his many criticsms, Lin cites the reviews’ “lack of concerns for conflicts of interest.”

Correction to Pregnancy & Birth Outcomes Review

January 21, 2025

The authors of the WHO systematic review on RF effects on pregancy and birth outcomes in animals have issued a correction.

They report finding “a few inconsistencies” due to “errors” in the “extraction of the original data.” But, they “stress” that “none of these issues has produced any significant change in the quantitative outputs of the effects estimates or in the interpretation and conclusions of the systematic review.”