A new study has shown that unborn mice exposed to mobile phone radiation became hyperactive adults with poor memory. But scientists have added that the findings cannot be translated to humans.
The Yale University study was prompted by concerns an apparent rise in childhood behavioral disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) coincide with an increased mobile phone use. Scientists exposed 33 pregnant mice to electromagnetic radiation emitted from a mobile phone on an uninterrupted call for 24 hours and compared their offspring's behavior with a control group that had not been exposed.
They found mice who had been exposed to radiation in utero did not perform well in a series of memory tests. Study of the region of the brain responsible for these behaviors found the efficiency of nerve signals had decreased in the mice exposed.
Authors cautioned against reading too much into the study. Mouse gestation lasts only 19 days and their brain development was incomplete at birth unlike people, the authors noted in the journal Scientific Reports. “Definitive studies in humans are required prior to extrapolating these behavioral findings to humans,” they said.
Senior author Professor Hugh Taylor said, “We have shown that behavioral problems in mice that resemble ADHD are caused by mobile phone exposure in the womb. The rise in behavioral disorders in human children may be in part due to fetal cellular telephone irradiation exposure.”
Professor Katya Rubia, from the Institute of Psychiatry at the King's College London, said linking the behavior and brain changes of prenatal mobile phone exposure in mice to human ADHD and its increase in society was alarmist and unjustified. “Some enhancement in motor activity in mice is not translatable to the complex human ADHD behavior characterized by impulsiveness, inattention and motor activity.”
Professor Jim Stevenson from the University of Southampton denounced the study as “irresponsible.” He told the UK charitable trust, Sense about Science, “There is to date only little evidence of an association,” adding that no evidence from the latest mouse study supported the conjecture.
Dr Mischa de Rover, a psychologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said, “Good animal data is of crucial importance as a starting point for human studies but should never be used as a basis for risk assessment in humans.”
The critics pointed out that the unborn mice would have received a dose of radiation that was proportionally far higher than an unborn baby would get. They added that while the whole bodies of the mice were exposed a pregnant woman would tend to hold their phone a meter away from their uterus. The experts, from the University College of London, among others, added that a comparison is impossible between rodents and humans because mice are born after just 19 days with a brain that's at a far earlier stage of development compared to human babies.
A professor of health psychology from the University of Wollongong, Rodney Croft, said the scientists failed to measure the radiation given off by the phone or the radiation absorbed by the mice, which he said were major limitations of the study. “We don't know if there was a difference in the amount of radiation between the exposed and the control, and it is quite likely the metal apparatus housing the mice took some of radiation away from the them,” Professor Croft, the former executive director of the Australian Centre for Radio Frequency Bioeffects Research, said. “Nonetheless, should associations be found…this would be very important scientifically, particularly as none have been identified to date.”
ADHD is a development disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Between three and seven per cent of school-age children suffer from the disorder. Affected children tend to perform poorly at school and are at increased risk of delinquency. Diagnosis has increased at an average rate of three per year since 1997, making the condition “a growing public concern,” according to the scientists.
A spokesman from the Health Protection Agency, told Mail Online, “There is no hard scientific evidence that radio signals from mobile phones pose a risk to public health providing they are within ICNIRP (international body) guidelines. Very many studies into the effects of radio waves on health have been published over the past several decades. The authors of this study acknowledge themselves that their work had certain limitations. The Health Protection Agency constantly monitors and reviews this scientific research and will consider this study, along with other peer reviewed research, as part of that process.”
Study links poor food diversity in children to higher health costs