Comment on "Constraints on biological effects of weak extremely-low-frequency electromagnetic fields"

Abstract

In a recent paper, Adair [Phys. Rev. A 43, 1039 (1991)] concludes that weak extremely-low-frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields cannot affect biology on the cell level. However, Adair’s assertion that few cells of higher organisms contain magnetite (Fe_(3)O_4) and his blanket denial of reproducible ELF effects on animals are both wrong. Large numbers of single-domain magnetite particles are present in a variety of animal tissues, including up to a hundred million per gram in human brain tissues, organized in clusters of tens to hundreds of thousand per gram. This is far more than a "few cells." Similarly, a series of reproducible behavioral experiments on honeybees, Apis mellifera, have shown that they are capable of responding to weak ELF magnetic fields that are well within the bounds of Adair’s criteria. A biologically plausible model of the interaction of single-domain magnetosomes with a mechanically activated transmembrane ion channel shows that ELF fields on the order of 0.1 to 1 mT are capable of perturbing the open-closed state by an energy of kT. As up to several hundred thousand such structures could fit within a eukaryotic cell, and the noise should go as the square root of the number of independent channels, much smaller ELF sensitivities at the cellular level are possible. Hence, the credibility of weak ELF magnetic effects on living systems must stand or fall mainly on the merits and reproducibility of the biological or epidemiological experiments that suggest them, rather than on dogma about physical implausibility.