International Group of Scientists Warn of EMF Dangers [PLUS: ICNIRP will debate ‘Thresholds of thermal damage’]
May 28, 2015 in News by RBN Staff
On May 11, 190 scientists from 39 nations submitted an appeal to the United Nations, UN member states and the World Health Organization (WHO) requesting they adopt more protective exposure guidelines for electromagnetic fields (EMF) and wireless technology in the face of increasing evidence of risk. These exposures are a rapidly growing form of environmental pollution worldwide.
Source: Pagosa Daily Post
SPECIAL TO THE POST · MAY 26, 2015
Now, less than two weeks later, the International EMF Scientist Appeal has grown to 205 EMF scientists from 40 countries. Between them, thescientists have published over 2,000 peer-reviewed EMF studies.
The International EMF Scientist Appeal asks the Secretary General and UN affiliated bodies to encourage precautionary measures, to limit EMF exposures, and to educate the public about health risks, particularly to children and pregnant women.
The Appeal highlights WHO’s conflicting positions about EMF risk. WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified Radiofrequency radiation as a Group 2B “Possible Carcinogen” in 2011, and Extremely Low Frequency fields in 2001. Nonetheless, WHO continues to ignore its own agency’s recommendations and favors guidelines recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). These guidelines, developed by a self-selected group of industry insiders, have long been criticized as non-protective.
The Appeal calls on the UN to strengthen its advisories on EMF risk for humans and to assess the potential impact on wildlife and other living organisms under the auspices of the UN Environmental Programme, in line with the science demonstrating risk, thereby resolving this inconsistency.
Martin Blank, PhD, of Columbia University, says, “International exposure guidelines for electromagnetic fields must be strengthened to reflect the reality of their impact on our bodies, especially on our DNA. The time to deal with the harmful biological and health effects is long overdue. We must reduce exposure by establishing more protective guidelines.”
Joel Moskowitz, PhD, of University of California, Berkeley, says, “ICNIRP guidelines set exposure standards for high-intensity, short-term, tissue-heating thresholds. These do not protect us from the low-intensity, chronic exposures common today. Scientists signing the Appeal request that the UN and member nations protect the global human population and wildlife from EMF exposures.”
CONFERENCE:
ICNIRP will debate ‘Thresholds of thermal damage’
On May 26 – 28, 2015, ICNIRP will meet in Istanbul, Turkey, to revisit its own old ideas on thermal and non-thermal effects of cell phone radiation. According to the ICNIRP’s announcement, the scope of the meeting on “Thresholds of thermal damage” is as follows:
“In view of updating the guidance on limiting exposure to high frequency (HF) fields, ICNIRP will review the current scientific knowledge on the thresholds of thermal damage. The current workshop will revisit the ICNIRP 1998 concept, namely that the health relevant increase of body core temperature is approximately 1° C and a whole-body exposure with an average SAR of 4 W/kg result in a core temperature increase of less than 1°C within 30 min. Details of this concept as well as thresholds for partial/local body exposures are subjects to review.”
Closer look at the program gives an impression that the aim of the meeting is to re-confirm that exposures, causing increases of tissue temperature by less than 1 degree Celsius, are harmless.
By organizing such workshop, ICNIRP, seemingly attempts to deal with the piling up evidence, indicating that exposures at levels below the current safety limits may cause biological and health effects in cells, animals and humans.
ICNIRP, urgently needs to address the problem: Are biological effects, caused by exposures below safety limits, harmful or not?
According to the “ICNIRP-made” draft of the WHO Environmental Health Criteria review, cell phone radiation causes only thermal effects. Non-thermal effects do not exist because… we do not know mechanism that could cause them.
Meeting in Istanbul might be just a way to re-confirm that thermal effects are the only effects and to re-assure that the effects are harmless, as long as the temperature rise does not exceed 1 degree Celsius. I think that we know that temperature increase by up to 1 degree Celsius is relatively harmless, and we know it before and without the Istanbul meeting of ICNIRP.
I think ICNIRP thinking on thermal and non-thermal effects goes in wrong direction. ICNIRP considers only macro-scale effects and bulk heating of the tissue. In my opinion, ICNIRP should turn its attention to the micro-scale effects, happening on level of cells, organelles and molecules.
I will participate in the ICNIRP meeting on “Thresholds of thermal damage” and write blog on what has happened in Istanbul.
