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Study Hints That Wi-Fi Near Testes Could Decrease Male Fertility

Posted by timothy on from the does-not-bode-well-for-me dept.

Pierre Bezukhov submits news of a report that "a laptop connected wirelessly to the internet on the lap near the testes may result in decreased male fertility," writing "'[The scientists who conducted the research] placed healthy sperms under a laptop running a Wi-Fi connection. After four hours, the Wi-Fi exposed sperms showed 'a significant decrease in progressive sperm motility and an increase in sperm DNA fragmentation' compared to healthy sperms stored for the same time in the same temperature away from the computer. That is, the sperms exposed to Wi-Fi were less capable of moving towards an egg to fertilize it and less capable of passing on the male's DNA if it does fertilize an egg.' The scientists blamed the damage on non-thermal electromagnetic radiation generated by the Wi-Fi." However, the experiment was based on sperm outside the body; the researchers (here's the abstract from their study) note that "Further in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to prove this contention."

3 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That's not a bug, it's a feature by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the kicker - they ran the laptop with the wifi switched off, but only measured the RF output of the laptop in that state. They didn't perform - or performed, but didn't publish - the obvious control experiment.

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  2. Re:They're claiming it's not thermal damage by IICV · · Score: 5, Informative

    They actually aren't claiming anything. I tracked down the paper (which was fucking harder than it should have been, the article didn't cite anything but the journal and month - turns out it was in the supplemental issue from September, not the main journal). The real citation is:

    A. Van-Gheem, J. Martin, L. Penrose, N. Farooqi, S. Prien, Short-term exposure to cell phone levels of radio frequency radiation do not appear to to influence semen parameters in vitro, Fertility and Sterility, Volume 96, Issue 3, Supplement, September 2011, Page S155, ISSN 0015-0282, 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2011.07.610.
    (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028211017079)

    I wonder why the article didn't cite it? Maybe because in the title itself, it says "do not appear to influence". Anyway, turns out it's not a real paper, it's really just a blurb about "We did this and it turns out nothing happened".

    Here's the results section:

    As expected, all measured semen parameters decreased with time (p

    So basically, I have absolutely no idea where this article came from. What it says directly contradicts the paper it claims to be reporting on. It looks like there is an agenda here, but it's not the scientists'.

  3. Re:They're claiming it's not thermal damage by wes33 · · Score: 5, Informative

    there are two papers: the Van-Gheem et.al. paper you cite and then there is the
    one the slashdot article is about, which is:

    Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation. by Avendaño C, Mata A, Sanchez Sarmiento CA, Doncel GF.

    The authors are the Argentineans which the linked article mentions.

    It's (to be) published in Fertility and Sterility.

    So I basically don't know what you're going on about ...