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Long-Term RF Study On Animals Starts Amid Exposure Limits Debate
RCR Wireless News
Journalist: Jeffrey Silva
May 05, 2003
Controversy has erupted in efforts to bring radio-frequency radiation exposure
guidelines in line with a global standard, a change a leading scientist claims
would make America's mobile-phone safety limit the weakest in the world.
The debate is playing out in a committee of the Institute for Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, which is working on revisions to the current RF standard
for mobile phones and base stations.
Much of the world adheres to the RF standard of the International Commission on
Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. The ICNIRP standard, based on a specific
absorption rate of 2 watts per kilogram averaged over 10 grams of body tissue,
takes into account the largely cartilage-comprised outer ear, or pinna, in terms
of radiation exposure.
The IEEE, whose current standard is based on 1.6 watts per kilogram averaged
over one gram of human tissue, wants to exclude the ear from consideration in
the new RF standard. Thus, the ear would be subject to a looser radiation safety
limit otherwise reserved for hands, wrists, forearms, feet, ankles and lower
legs.
"By relaxing the SAR limit for the pinna ... we would abandon the harmonization
with the ICNIRP standard for cellular telephones and thus create the most lax RF
standard in the world for these globally used devices," said Dr. Om Gandhi, of
the University of Utah, in a March 28 letter to Richard Tell, chair of IEEE's
Risk Assessment Working Group.
"The ramification for this major departure from ICNIRP guidelines for handheld
cellular telephones," continued Gandhi, "can be substantial when one realizes
that the ICNIRP guideline has been adopted not only in Europe, but also in Asia,
Australia, and elsewhere."
In a March 15 letter to Gandhi, Tell pointed out that IEEE members are near
unanimous in supporting a less stringent radiation safety limit for the ear and
that mobile phones increasingly do not reach their maximum radiated power
anyway.
"As a matter of fact, the trend has been to reduce the transmit power as the
technology has evolved," said Tell.
Whether that trend will hold as wireless carriers roll out next-generation color
phones-fueled by high-speed processors to handle data-intensive content-is
unclear.
All health lawsuits brought against industry to date have been dismissed for
lack of scientific evidence.
Federal health and safety officials plan to travel to North Carolina later this
month for a briefing by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
officials on a $10 million long-term animal study-the largest of its kind in the
United States-that is being developed in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
The National Toxicology Program, a unit of NIEHS selected by the Food and Drug
Administration for the project, will investigate the controversial issue of
non-thermal effects that some studies attribute to mobile-phone radiation.
"The existing exposure guidelines are based on protection from acute injury from
thermal effects for RFR exposure. Current data are insufficient to draw definite
conclusions concerning the adequacy of these guidelines to be protective against
any non-thermal effects of chronic exposures," states a fact sheet published by
the NTP in March.
The Environmental Protection Agency has embraced the same position on the RF
standard.
The wireless industry downplayed the NTP document and challenged the notion that
radiation safety guidelines may not give the nation's 140 million mobile-phone
subscribers adequate protection.
"The statement by NTP is virtually unchanged from the statement they issued last
year in the 2002 NTP Fact Sheet," said Jo-Anne Basile, vice president for
external and industry relations at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet
Association.
"The standards-setting bodies in the United States as well as those in other
parts of the world are continually reviewing the latest research to determine if
any changes are required," added Basile. "They have recommended no additional
protective measures beyond the substantial measure of safety already built in to
the current standard. The FDA, the Federal Communications Commission, the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration and the EPA, as well as expert scientific panels
around the world, have been consistent in their view that the existing federal
guidelines are sufficient to protect the public health. CTIA and the wireless
industry globally have always supported sound, independent and well-focused
research. Additional focused research provides public health agencies more data
upon which to base standards, public policy and guidelines to protect the
public's health."
Last month, EMR Network President Janet Newton and Jeff Munger, in-state
legislative liaison to Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.), met with FCC Commissioner
Michael Copps to seek FCC action on a 2001 petition that states the current RF
standard is dated and does not reflect results of newer studies-including those
showing non-thermal effects.
Dr. Ronald Melnick, head of the RF research program at NTP, said the animal
study could help clarify the non-thermal effects question.
"I'm not predicting that we will find something or that we will not find
something," said Melnick.
Melnick said equipment alone will cost $1.5 million to $2 million. The remaining
$8 million will cover the administration of lifetime animal studies. Requests
for proposals for the latter will go out this fall, he said.
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