conflict between the mobile phone industry & science
mobile phone radiation:
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affair behind allegedly falsified studies quoted friends Elizabeth K. with the sentence: "A less strong personality would have killed probably." For months, the 34-year-old former lab assistant of the Vienna Medical University in their professional livelihoods at risk and may never talk to media . She is alleged to have forged two scientific studies on possible health effects of mobile knowingly rays. K., which was last summer with a gastric hemorrhage in the hospital denies the charge vehemently. They are merely, last April, when the studies in question were far from over, having been informed of her colleague Petra H., as the code of a radiotherapy machine can be cracked. The encryption is to ensure that the study results "double blind" and thus unaffected come about, so that the person who operates the radiation machine, does not know which cell lines were irradiated and which not. K. had worked as a laboratory assistant, among others, a study, part of the so-called REFLEX project was one of the Verum Foundation, Munich should study conducted and coordinated EU-wide study, the possible effects of mobile phone radiation on human cells. Last April saw the Vienna laboratory director Alexander K. pilgrims on a laboratory desk book with suspicious records, the pilgrims immediately interpreted as a massive fraud is suspected.
After a three-way dialogue between K, the laboratory director and the new head of the Department of Occupational Medicine, Christian Wolf, Wolf made a transcript, only the signatures of the wolf and the laboratory manager, are not incurred by K.. The accused, which has denounced her job at the Medical University on the same day, wants to face those minutes never have received. In any event, Wolf turned with the paper to Rector Wolfgang Schütz, who then went with the fake cell phone studies "to the public. Even international scientific journals like Science or media like "Der Spiegel" reported on the fraud case at the Vienna Medical University.
Contested
That the case of so much international interest comes, has to do with that between mobile industry and skeptical science highly competitive research. The mobile phone industry, the occupational physician Christian Wolf and other scientists for years, of explaining that it would have been able any scientific study, some emanating from mobile phone radiation health risks to prove. Many of these studies are in the opinion of independent Swiss experts are not worth the paper on which they stand.
therefore started the Verum Foundation in Munich, the REFLEX project, which one should clarify once and for all whether there is ever any biological effects of mobile phone radiation. Would deny this question, then one could avoid any further study of suspected health effects of mobile phone radiation. The study the EU-sponsored study of 3.2 million € in the period 2000 to 2004 in Europe carried out in several centers, including in Vienna under the leadership of Hugo Rüdiger, former Chef der Arbeitsmedizin an der Wiener Medizin-Universität.
Ergebnis: Handystrahlung könne zu DNA-Strangbrüchen führen und – ähnlich wie starke Sonnenbestrahlung – ein erhöhtes Krebsrisiko bedeuten. Für die Mobilfunkindustrie war dies ein Schlag ins Gesicht. „Die Effekte passieren nämlich weit unterhalb der derzeit geltenden Grenzwerte“, erklärte der Münchener Internist Franz Adlkofer, Koordinator der REFLEX-Studie.
Seit der Veröffentlichung der Studienergebnisse werden diese heftig angezweifelt, so auch von Christian Wolf, Rüdigers Nachfolger als Leiter der Wiener Arbeitsmedizin. Wolf ist zudem stellvertretender Vorsitzender des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats Funk (WBF), acting on behalf of the Transport Ministry as the expert panel on health issues in the field of mobile communications. The findings of the advisory board - that it is related to mobile phone radiation gives no health concerns - met with some scientists strongly criticized (see box page 79).
critics
Besides Wolf was also a biologist Alexander Lerchl of the Jacob University Bremen from the start to most massive to the critics of the REFLEX study. Reason: The data presented were simply "too good to be true" (see box page 77). At first shocked even the now retired investigator Hugo Rüdiger. With face of the message that he had betrayed one of its long serving staff for years, he wanted to withdraw the two studies at once. Only when he learned that K. denies the forgery, he was inspired by his ex-assistant to confirm in writing that they have the cell phone studies "invariably under Doppelverblindung" performed.
After weeks had passed without the forgery was able to prove or disprove it, beat Rector Schütz - according to Rüdiger - a "deal" before: Rüdiger should withdraw themselves from one of the two relevant studies for technical reasons. In return he would give Fälschungsvorwurf bei beiden Studien fallen lassen. Rüdiger willigte in den Handel ein, weil er seinen ehemaligen Mitarbeitern, die ihre wissenschaftlichen Karrieren noch vor sich haben, eine weitere Rufschädigung ersparen wolle.
Ende Juli schrieb Rüdiger einen „Letter of Retraction“ an Hans Drexler, Arbeitsmediziner aus Erlangen und Herausgeber des Journals „International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health“, in dem die jüngere der beiden Studien publiziert wurde. Darin hält Rüdiger jedoch fest, dass er von der „Richtigkeit der Daten überzeugt ist“ und sicher ist, dass sie „in naher Zukunft bestätigt werden“.
Damit war die Causa but still on the table: Although Drexler, after some initial hesitation, but ultimately agreed to withdraw the study, this is still not officially done. And while contactor denies the existence of the alleged Rüdiger deals, both now say Rüdiger like REFLEX Coordinator Adlkofer, this deal is even part of the minutes of the set of contactor Ethics Council, in which they had access after repeated Urgenz may take. In a related release Adlkofer writes: "The minutes, which is inexplicably handled as a confidential document and not published, [...] shows convincingly that the allegations are unfounded against the group most likely are. [...] But what the Rector? Regardless of the content of the minutes he repeated his accusations in other public statements. "
Final proof?
But in the meantime, Christian Wolf believes the final proof of the forgery to have found: On the back pages of K's book, he found records of laboratory experiments, together with codes, but these are provided with a date from the year 2005. K. concedes that it is obvious from these records is their own handwriting will, but do not understand how the records from the year 2005 will come in a book that they will not until January 2008, in use.
On 13 K. November was again heard by the Ethics Council. There she was, according to Rüdiger confirm in writing that their codes were known since the year 2002. So they should admit that they have the first of two studies that have carried out in 2004 with GMS signals REFLEX study, and not just a fake in 2007 with UMTS signals conducted follow-up examination. K. refused, however, the signature and declared once again that they had learned only in April 2008 as the codes can be cracked.
The fact that the laboratory assistant, the codes since 2002 I know, but can not prove with the ominous, Wolf book discovered in the laboratory records from 2005. And the study in 2004, the only one to Vienna by the researchers was carried out as part of the REFLEX project was, at first not in Vienna but in Berlin, because around that time in Vienna did not exist the necessary irradiation machine . To this end, K was sent to Berlin for about three weeks to complete their studies at the local machine. A they were under constant surveillance of foreign colleagues, immediate results "fabricated", it is difficult to imagine.
Meanwhile, the Vienna Institute for Cancer Research led with other methods, studies of those cells that had been used previously in the irradiation study, the occupational physician. Yet cancer researchers arrived at results that match the results of radiation studies (see box left).
REFLEX Coordinator Franz Adlkofer suspects now behind the events in Vienna, an intrigue with far-reaching purpose: "This is an attack on REFLEX and the follow-up projects, because they hurt the industry and speak against the existing limit values."
Adlkofer had previously submitted under the name MOPHORAD a successor project to the EU, which now are the first time the effects of mobile phone radiation on living people for. Only if they also show there effects that could be said with sufficient certainty whether cell phone radiation pose a health risk or not. But although the project was rated as excellent, the EU seeks to not have this now.
the full story see the current profile of 48/2008.
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