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2013 Short Takes
Content
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Two-Year Gestation
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has released its detailed evaluation of the cancer risks associated with RF radiation, which serves as the rationale for designating RF as a possible human carcinogen.
The IARC monograph comes close to two years after an invited panel of experts from 14 countries reached this conclusion following an eight-day meeting at IARC headquarters in Lyon, France (see our report).
An electronic copy of the 430-page document is available at no cost from IARC. A paper copy will be available soon.
The basis for IARC designation of RF as a Class 2B carcinogen is summed up in one sentence: "Positive associations have been observed between exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless phones and glioma and acoustic neuroma" (p.421). Those associations with brain tumors and tumors of the acoustic nerve were observed by the Interphone study group and Lennart Hardell's team in Sweden.
The panel's decision was close to unanimous. One strong dissent came from Peter Inskip of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, who walked out of the IARC meeting before the final vote. One or two others, including Maria Blettner of the University of Mainz in Germany, were reported to have also disagreed with the majority opinion. There was talk that the dissenters would file a minority opinion, but no signed statement appears in the IARC monograph. Instead, their view is included in the final paragraph of the report: The available evidence does not support a "conclusion about a causal association" due to "inconsistencies" between the Interphone and Hardell studies and the lack of an exposure-response relationship.
The dissenters also point to a lack of association in a large Danish study —though this effort has been widely criticized (see our take). Finally, the dissenters argue that, "up to now, reported time trends in incidence rates of glioma have not shown a trend parallel to time trends in mobile-phone use." That last argument was punctured in November when the Danish Cancer Society reported a spike in aggressive brain tumors over the last ten years. At the time, an insider called the increase a "frightening development," though no link to cell phones was made.
Today, the FCC —finally— issued a package of rules and requests for information related to RF health and safety. We say finally because the commission announced that this was on its way last June (see "What's Up at the FCC?"). No one at the FCC is eager to say why it took so long, except that it covers a lot of ground.
The document is indeed long (over 200 pages) and complex. There are some new final rules; for instance, the pinna is now officially an "extremity" and subject to a much looser SAR limit (see ¶42). And, there are some new proposed rules; for instance, a blanket exemption for all transmitters with a power output of 1 mW or less (see ¶121). But none of these is a major change.
The heart of the document is a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to help the FCC determine whether it should reassess its RF exposure limits. This is just about what the GAO recommended last summer that the FCC do with respect to cell phones.
One of the key issues on the table is whether there is a need for precautionary policies, specifically to protect children (see ¶¶5-7 and ¶¶236-243):
[W]e ask whether any precautionary action would be either useful or counterproductive, given that there is a lack of scientific consensus about the possibility of adverse health effects at exposure levels at or below our existing limits. [¶6]
Comments and reply comments will now be submitted to the FCC over the next six months. Then the commission will mull them all over. And perhaps sometime in the future it will issue a new set of rules. No one should expect anything to happen very quickly. After all the FCC's last RF safety proposal came out ten years ago.
Postscript First
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