Del Signore A, Boscolo P, Kouri S, Di Martino G, Giuliano G · 2000
Researchers studied immune responses to electromagnetic fields in atopic and non-atopic women with traffic exposure. Women were divided into groups A, B, C, and D based on atopy and electromagnetic field exposure. Atopic women had reduced in vitro lymphocyte proliferation when stimulated with PHA. Women exposed to electromagnetic fields had lower NK cell levels and lower interferon-gamma production. Atopic women exposed to electromagnetic fields had higher serum IgE than other groups.
Cox RA, Luxton LM · 2000
The study aimed to investigate cerebral symptoms from mobile telephones. Mobile phones affect the inner ear in 5-8% of users leading to dizziness, disorientation, nausea, headache and transient confusion.
Chia SE, Chia HP, Tan JS · 2000
Researchers conducted a cross-sectional community study in Singapore with 808 men and women aged 12 to 70 years selected by one-stage cluster random sampling. The prevalence of handheld cellular telephone users was 44.8%, and headache was the most prevalent symptom among users compared to nonusers with an adjusted prevalence rate ratio of 1.31 (95% CI 1.00-1.70). Headache prevalence increased significantly with increasing daily usage duration, while using hands-free equipment reduced headache prevalence by more than 20% compared to never using it. Handheld telephone use was not associated with a significant increase in other central nervous system symptoms.
Cao Z, Liu J, Li S, Zhao X. · 2000
Researchers selected 81 staff with cellular telephone handsets and 63 staff without handsets from corporations as subjects. They investigated subjects using questionnaires on health, lifestyle, handset use, and the neurobehavioral core test battery. Data were analyzed with chi-square, stepwise regression, and covariance statistics. Handset users had longer average reaction times than non-users (P < 0.01). Longer handset use was negatively associated with corrected reaction number (P < 0.01) and positively associated with fast and slowest reaction times (P < 0.01, P < 0.05), and the authors suggested that handset use could cause adverse neurobehavioral effects.
Walters TJ, Blick DW, Johnson LR, Adair ER, Foster KR · 2000
Researchers measured cutaneous thermal pain thresholds in 10 human subjects during 3-second exposures to 94 GHz continuous wave microwave energy at intensities up to approximately 1.8 W/cm². Skin surface temperature increases were measured by infrared thermography during each exposure. The pricking pain threshold was 43.9°C, corresponding to an increase of approximately 9.9°C from a baseline of 34.0°C. The measured temperature increases agreed well with a simple thermal model accounting for heat conduction and microwave penetration depth. The results support using the model to predict thermal pain thresholds at other millimeter wave frequencies.
Unknown authors · 1999
Researchers investigated symptoms and risk indicators of reported hypersensitivity to electricity using a survey at a telecommunications corporation and comparisons with referred patients. No association was found between psychosocial work characteristics or personal traits and hypersensitivity to electricity. Results indicate that skin symptoms, not neurovegetative symptoms, characterize the syndrome at least during the first years of illness.
Sakakibara Y, Mitsui T · 1999
The aim of this study was to evaluate the kinds of EMI which affect the quality of life of PM patients. Researchers surveyed 1,942 pacemaker patients and received responses from 1,567 (80.7%). The main concerns were mobile telephones at 39%, MRI at 17%, and other sources including kitchen appliances, automobile engines, and high voltage power lines.
Kellenyi, L, Thuroczy, G, Faludy, B, Lenard, L · 1999
The study investigated effects of mobile GSM radiotelephone exposure on the auditory brainstem response. A 15-minute exposure to GSM phone radiation caused an increase in auditory brainstem response in the exposed side of human subjects. Subjects also showed a hearing deficiency in the high frequency range of 20 dB from 2 KHz to 10 KHz.
Hladky, A, Musil, J, Roth, Z, Urban, P, Blazkova, V · 1999
Twenty volunteers participated in two experiments using a Motorola GSM 8700 mobile phone. Electromagnetic fields during a 5-minute speaking task did not affect visual evoked potentials. A 6-minute exposure also showed no effect on memory and attention tests, but the phone call itself impaired switching attention performance, significantly worsening response and decision speed.
Johnson Liakouris AG · 1998
In this study, the controversy was evaluated with a methodology adapted from case studies. A review of the Lilienfeld Study found that disregarded health conditions match the radiofrequency sickness syndrome cluster, establishing a possible correlation with chronic exposure to low-intensity modulated microwave radiation. The author reviewed U.S. literature and found research results sufficiently consistent to warrant further inquiry.
Hocking, B · 1998
Researchers conducted a survey to characterize symptoms associated with mobile phone usage. Forty respondents from diverse occupations described unpleasant sensations such as a burning feeling or a dull ache mainly occurring in the temporal, occipital or auricular areas. The symptoms often began minutes after beginning a call and usually ceased within an hour after the call, though they could last until evening. Seventy-five per cent of cases were associated with digital mobile phones. Most of the respondents obtained relief by altering their patterns of telephone usage or type of phone.
Hanson Mild et al. · 1998
Duan L, Shan Y, Yu X · 1998
Researchers studied the effects of high-frequency radiation exposure on neurobehavioral function in workers. Four neurobehavioral functions were tested using the WHO-recommended Neurobehavioral Core Tests Battery. Exposed workers had significantly lower scores on various indicators compared to controls, and these scores correlated with neurasthenia detection to some extent.
Bergdahl J, Tillberg A, Stenman E. · 1998
Twenty-eight consecutive patients with symptoms allegedly caused by electricity or visual display units were odontologically investigated using a specially designed registration form. The most common oral and general symptoms reported were burning mouth, craniomandibular dysfunction symptoms, skin complaints, and fatigue. Urinary mercury analysis showed a mean concentration of 8.5 nmol Hg/L urine, with no patient exceeding 50 nmol Hg/L. Urinary mercury concentration correlated positively with the number of amalgam fillings and with craniomandibular disorders. No or low secretion of the minor mucous glands was found in 43% of the patients.
Unknown authors · 1997
From an initial questionnaire study among 4943 office workers, 163 VDT workers were selected for a case referent study of facial skin symptoms. The data comprise a self-administered questionnaire filled out by 149 subjects and interviews with representatives of the organizations concerned. Psychosocial conditions, especially lack of social support from co-workers, were associated with an increased risk of reporting skin symptoms. Stratification by sex showed that the associations between some psychosocial factors and health differed between men and women. The results indicate that there might be an interaction between psychosocial factors and electric fields in the workplace which increases the risk of reporting skin symptoms.
Schilling, CJ · 1997
Riu PJ, Foster KR, Blick DW, Adair ER, · 1997
Researchers measured human thresholds for skin warmth sensations at frequencies from 2.45 to 94 GHz. The thermal analysis suggests these thresholds correspond to a localized temperature increase of about 0.07°C at and near the skin surface. The thermal model results were insensitive to blood flow but sensitive to thermal conduction, with sensitivity increasing strongly with frequency. Thermal conduction becomes a dominant factor for surface temperature rise at microwave frequencies over 10 GHz.
Blick DW et al. · 1997
Researchers measured the power levels at which human skin first detected warmth from microwave radiation at frequencies of 2.45, 7.5, 10, 35, and 94 GHz. Detection thresholds were measured on the skin in the middle of the back in 15 adult male human subjects at all microwave frequencies and with infrared radiation. Sensitivity increased monotonically with frequency, and the threshold at 94 GHz (4.5 ± 0.6 mW/cm2) was more than an order of magnitude less than at 2.45 GHz (63.1 ± 6.7 mW/cm2). The threshold at 94 GHz was comparable to the threshold for infrared radiation (5.34 ± 1.07 mW/cm2).
Andersson B, Berg M, Arnetz BB, Melin L, Langlet I, Lidén S. · 1996
Seventeen patients were randomly assigned to a treatment group or a waiting-list control group in a pretest-posttest control group design. Patients participated in double-blind provocation tests before and after treatment. Subjective symptom ratings and blood samples for stress-related variables were collected. The experimental group reduced disability evaluations more than the control group, but no significant between-group differences were found in psychophysiological measures or subjective reactions to provocation. The provocation test concluded that alleged hypersensitive patients did not react to electromagnetic fields.
Grigor'ev IuG et al. · 1995
Researchers studied motor activity in rabbits under daily thirty-minute irradiation at 1.5 GHz for one month. From the 14th day, reliable disadaptation changes described as anxiety and alarm reactions were found. The researchers noted the importance of prolonged irradiation.
Unknown authors · 1994
Researchers conducted an open-field provocation in front of an ordinary TV set with two patients who regarded themselves as suffering from skin problems due to work at video display terminals. Before the provocation, skin biopsies from the anterior neck showed a high-to-very high number of somatostatin-immunoreactive dendritic cells and histamine-positive mast cells. At the end of the provocation, the number of mast cells was unchanged, but the somatostatin-positive cells had seemingly disappeared. The researchers noted that the high number of mast cells may explain the clinical symptoms of itch, pain, edema and erythema.
Brown DO, Lu ST, Elson EC · 1994
Researchers studied microwave evoked body movements in mice using head and neck exposure to pulsed and gated continuous wave 1.25 GHz microwaves delivered via a resonant cavity. The incidence of body movements increased proportionally with specific absorption dose when the whole-body average specific absorption rate was held constant at 7300 W/kg, reaching a plateau at 0.9 kJ/kg. For doses higher than 0.9 kJ/kg, response incidence was proportional to the specific absorption rate and reached a plateau at 900 W/kg.
Lim JI, Fine SL, Kues HA, Johnson MA. · 1993
The study investigated visual abnormalities associated with high-energy microwave exposure. A 44-year-old man was accidentally exposed to high-energy microwave irradiation and later reported a foreign body sensation and blurring of vision. Electroretinogram testing revealed a marked decrease in the flicker electroretinogram, and color vision tests were abnormal. Two years later, visual acuity was stable at 20/25 in both eyes, but the flicker electroretinogram remained markedly decreased.
Lai H, Carino MA, Horita A, Guy AW · 1992
Researchers exposed rats to single 45-minute and repeated daily 45-minute microwave sessions at 2450 MHz, 1 mW/cm², with a whole-body SAR of 0.6 W/kg. After a single exposure, receptor concentration increased in the cerebral cortex but not in the hippocampus or cerebellum. No significant change in binding affinity of the receptors was observed in any of the brain regions studied. After repeated exposures, no significant change in receptor concentration was found in the cerebral cortex. Handling and exposure procedures did not significantly affect benzodiazepine receptors.
Unknown authors · 1988
Nine men were exposed to 4.1 GHz radio-frequency radiation in an accident. Two men were exposed to 4.6 mW/cm2 for up to 90 minutes, exceeding the Australian standard of 1 mW/cm2, while seven others received lower exposures. Comprehensive medical examinations, including follow-up ophthalmological exams over nine months, were performed on all staff. Various abnormalities were found in all staff, but there was no consistent gradient of effect between exposure groups except possibly for hair loss. The investigators concluded that the exposure had not resulted in harmful effects.
