Some Negative Results in the Search for a Lethal Effect of Magnetic Fields on Biological Materials

Abstract

DURING recent years there has been an increasing number of reports in the literature of the ability of magnetic fields to affect biological systems. Gerencser and Barnothy¹ noted differences from control of cultures exposed to 15,000 gauss, while Butler and Dean² found growth inhibition in tissue culture of KB cells exposed to 4,000-gauss magnetic fields. Maclean³, using intense and ‘mild’ magnetic fields of unspecified strengths, reported various effects on tumour-bearing mice, but since only 12 animals were used for the entire investigation and these were divided into 3 groups, the results can have no statistical significance. Negative reports have appeared too, and in the most recent of these Halpern and Greene⁴ reported that the growth rate of HeLa cells cultured in a 1,200-gauss magnetic field was not significantly different from controls. This communication extends this negative finding to much higher magnetic field strengths. Three separate experiments were performed, using HeLa cells cultured in vitro.