A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

National Grid Reveals New ICNIRP Guidelines

November 12, 2010

According to the U.K.'s National Grid, here is ICNIRP's new statement on chronic EMF health risks: "It is the view of ICNIRP that the currently existing scientific evidence that prolonged exposure to low-frequency magnetic fields is causally related with an increased risk of childhood leukemia is too weak to form the basis for exposure guidelines. In particular, if the relationship is not causal, then no benefit to health will accrue from reducing exposure" [emphasis added].

At the same time, ICNIRP has doubled the occupational magnetic limit to 10 G (1 mT) and the public exposure limit to 2 G (200 µT).

We will have much more to say about this stunning rejection of precautionary policies in the future [see our November 15 post], but for the moment, we ask: Why did this important news first appear on an EMF Web site run by an electric utility rather than ICNIRP itself? If nothing else, it reinforces the widely-held perception that ICNIRP is a subsidiary of industry. It's high time for full public disclosure on how ICNIRP elects its members and where it gets its money. 

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