Robert R. Brown

https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2025.2471222

Brown, R. R. (2025). Hypotheses and Images: Cellphone Radiation and Clumping Blood. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 67(3), 57–60

EXCERPT

Assessing human health risks from environmental exposures remains a vexing challenge. Experiments on cell cultures (in vitro) or living animals (in vivo) are employed to predict damage to human health. In vitro tests are increasingly questioned for their relevance to human health.

Researchers have described an abnormal response in the blood termed the rouleaux phenomenon for people exposed to cellphone or Wi-Fi router radiofrequency radiation (RFR). Rouleaux is an atypical condition where red blood cells adhere to each other, yielding a clump or cluster resembling a stack of coins. Until now, the diagnosis of rouleaux by researchers has been based on an in vitro technique involving evaluation of stained blood from living animals or humans through “live blood cell analysis with dark field microscopy.” This technique is subject to two types of artifacts: misinterpretation of the sample, or because there are blood clumps from improper preparation rather than from exposure to radiofrequency radiation.

As a diagnostic radiologist with decades of experience evaluating blood flow with ultrasound, I realized ultrasound technology could diagnose red blood cell clumping from radiofrequency radiation in dynamic real time, in vivo. During ultrasonography, rouleaux formation has a well-recognized appearance, and is associated with infectious and inflammatory processes, connective-tissue diseases, some forms of cancer, and other health conditions.

A colleague and I carried out a study on a healthy volunteer, recently published in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine. We showed that just 5 minutes of direct exposure to an operating cellphone in contact with the skin surface behind the knee (see Supplemental Videos Links, page 57) produced rouleaux formation in the popliteal vein.

The blood vessel in this location, the popliteal vein, is easy to see because it is large and close to the skin surface. Our subject initially had a normal-appearing vein on ultrasound, meaning there was nothing visible inside of the vessel. A normal vessel’s interior (arrows) appears black on ultrasound because there are no reflections of sound occurring from within the vessel.

Normal ultrasound appearance of the popliteal vein, arrows indicate blood vessel interior.

For a structure to create a white dot or reflection of sound, that is, an “echo” on ultrasound, it needs to be of sufficient size. The detectable size is determined when the technologist chooses a probe that emits a certain frequency or frequency range depending on how deep into the body they want to see. The lower the frequency, the more deeply the sound travels, but the probe will only detect larger things.

We used a linear 2–9 MHz transducer for the vascular ultrasounds. Frequencies between 2 and 9 MHz only detect structures larger than 154 microns.

Although rouleaux formation is usually reversible in healthy persons, meaning the blood will return to normal over time, there are reports that rouleaux may increase one’s risk for developing a larger blood clot, which could then lead to a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism or stroke.

Our findings help confirm that radiofrequency radiation emitted by a cellphone, and most likely other electronics utilizing wireless communication, creates potentially damaging physiological effects at exposure levels significantly lower than the commonly accepted safety level. Although such effects have been described by hundreds of researchers, they have been discounted by industry and regulatory agencies, who rely on determinations of specific absorption rate, SAR, for safe exposure limits. This study presents a visible manifestation of at least one phenomenon occurring within current SAR exposure levels. Regulatory reliance on SAR has led us down a dangerous path impacting human and environmental health.

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