Lessons and Perspectives from a 25-Year Bioelectromagnetics Research Program

Andrew W. Wood, Alireza Lajevardipour and Robert L. McIntosh
Additional contact information
Andrew W. Wood: School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
Alireza Lajevardipour: School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
Robert L. McIntosh: School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: The question of whether electromagnetic fields from electric power or telecommunications systems can be linked unequivocally to health detriments has occupied scientific research endeavors for nearly half a century. For 25 years, the bioelectromagnetic research group at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, has pursued a series of investigations with relevant endpoints, such as neurophysiological and neuropsychological effects, cell calcium level changes, proliferation, and genotoxic effects. Most have shown no significant changes due to fields, however, in some pilot studies significant changes were revealed, but in most cases these were not replicated in follow-up studies. This highlights a feature of this research area, generally; the unambiguous identification of small changes in noisy data where the understanding of possible interaction mechanisms is lacking. On the other hand, mathematical modelling studies, particularly with respect to fields near metallic implants, in workers exposed to fields in harsh environmental conditions and at very high frequencies (THz), continue to add to the expanding knowledge database on the characteristics of the complex electromagnetic environment we live in today.

Keywords: electromagnetic fields; radiofrequency fields; magnetic fields; tissue electric properties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/10/950/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/10/950/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:10:p:950-:d:78795

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().