Explanation for Cancer in Rat, Mice and Humans due to Cell Phone Radiofrequency Radiation

Very recently, the National Toxicology Program reported a correlation between exposure to whole body 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation and cancer in the brains and hearts of Sprague Dawley male rats. This paper proposes the following explanation for these results. The neurons around the rat’s brain and heart form closed electrical circuits and, following Faraday’s Law, 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation induces 900 MHz electrical currents in these neural circuits. In turn, these 900 MHz currents in the neural circuits generate sufficient localized heat in the neural cell axons to shift the equilibrium concentration of carcinogenic radicals to higher levels and thus, to higher incidences of cancer. This model is then applied to mice and humans. Very recently, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) reported a correlation between exposure to whole body radiofrequency radiation and cancer in Sprague Dawley male rats. The experiment consisted of irradiating Sprague Dawley rats and B6C3F1 mice with 900 MHz radiation with four different intensities: 0 W/kg, 1.5 W/kg, 3 W/kg and 6 W/kg. The frequency of 900 MHz was chosen because it is typical for use in cell phones and other wireless devices. The exposure times were 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off for 18 hours a day, resulting in a total exposure of nine hours daily. The animals were exposed daily from in utero until two years of age. The animals were monitored so that exposure was at a low non-thermal or non-heating level. Groups of 90 animals were used for each species, sex and intensity. They reported the following results: 1. Excess cancers were found only in male rats but not in female rats, male mice or female mice. 2. Only brain cancers (gliomas and brain lesions) and heart cancers (schwannomas) were found. Schwannomas are cancers of the neural cell sheaths. 3. The incidence of cancer in male rats increased as the 900 MHz radiofrequency intensity increased from 0 to 6 Watts/kilogram. In particular, no cancers were found in any animal that was not exposed to radiofrequency radiation (0 W/kg). 4. Even at the highest radiofrequency power, 6 W/kg, this power was insufficient to significantly increase the rats’ average body temperature by more than one degree Centigrade. 5. The rats exposed to radiofrequency radiation lived longer than those rats that were not exposed. 6. Analysis of bioassays showed that “male rats are more sensitive to chemical carcinogenesis compared to female rats.” 7. A small minority of the reviewers of this study questioned the statistical significance of these results. 8. One of the collaborators in the NTP also mentioned that some previous studies had found similar brain and heart excess cancers in humans due to radiofrequency radiation. Theoretical understanding of the interaction between animals and electromagnetic radiation has a long and complicated history. Physicists in general have been very skeptical of any connection between any non-ionizing radiation and cancer. The classic paper by R. Adair on weak extremely low frequency (60 Hz) electromagnetic fields concluded that “such interactions are too weak to have a significant effect on human biology at the cell level.” Adair applied Faraday’s Law to a single cell radiated with weak 60 Hz electromagnetic fields and concluded that the induced electric field is small compared to thermal noise induced electric fields. Even this author expressed skepticism about cell phone radiation (900 MHz) causing cancer by using an analogy with Einstein’s theory of the photoelectric effect—the 900 MHz photon energies are about a million times less than the energy needed to break chemical bonds. D. Eichler applied Faraday’s Law to a closed neural circuit and calculated large induced electric fields across the synapse membrane. Recently, Barnes and Greenebaum proposed that weak static and high frequency magnetic fields could change the recombination rate of radical pairs and thus change the concentration of carcinogenic radicals like O2 in cells. Panagopoulos, Johansson and Carlo suggested that high frequency electric fields exert electrostatic forces on the cell membrane, disrupting the functioning of the ion channels. The following explanation for the NTP results is proposed. The neurons around the brain and heart form closed electrical circuits and, following Faraday’s Law, 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation induces 900 MHz electrical currents in these neural circuits. Given that the axons of these neural cells are about one micron thick, these 900 MHz currents in the neural circuits could generate sufficient localized heat in the axons of the neural cells to significantly raise the temperature of the neural and neighboring cells and shift the equilibrium concentration of carcinogenic radicals in these cells to higher levels and thus, to higher incidences of cancer. Consider a neural circuit on the surface of the brain or the heart in the shape of a circle of radius r. From Faraday’s Law, the induced voltage, V, in the neural circuit is equal to minus the time (t) derivative of the magnetic flux crossing the closed circuit. Assuming that the radio frequency magnetic field is B = Bocost where Bo is a constant and /2 = 900 MHz, then V = Bosint r 2 and is proportional to Bo, r 2 and . The resistance of the neural circuit, R, is proportional to its circumference and thus proportional to r, since the width of neural cell axons is largely independent of the size or type of animal. Then the heat generated in the neural circuit, P = V/R, is proportional to Bo , , and r and the heat generated per unit length of the neural circuit is proportional to Bo ,  and r. Now the question arises: how could this excess localized heat cause cancer? Again, let us consider a simple model consisting of carcinogenic radicals, like oxidants, O, and antioxidants that scavenge these radicals, A. Inside cells, chemical reactions occur that convert food into useful chemicals, heat, and muscular motion. Carcinogenic radicals are created as waste products of these chemical reactions. In order for the animal to protect itself from these carcinogenic radicals, the cells create antioxidants. The antioxidants bind to the carcinogenic radicals forming harmless molecules, OA, which then diffuse to nearby veins and are removed from the body via the kidney and urinary system. The concentrations of O and A, [o] and [a], are in approximate equilibrium with the concentration of OA, [oa]. In other words, the cell’s rate of production of O equals the cell’s rate of production of A, which in turn equals the rate of removal of OA from the cell. One can write down the following chemical reaction.