**2.5 EFHRAN reports**

526 Wireless Communications and Networks – Recent Advances

research. The Standing Committee on Radiation and Health deals with questions relating to the health effects of exposure to radiation and questions surrounding the use of medical imaging techniques. Following the rise of technologies such as mobile telephony, attention has in recent years mainly focused on the risks of non-ionizing radiation. Applications, such as high-voltage power lines, also give rise to queries from time to time. The standing committee also monitors scientific developments in the field of ionizing radiation, ultraviolet radiation and ultrasound. Members of the standing committees are carefully

The annual update 2008 (published in 2009) considered two different aspects of RF-bio effects: RF-effects on brain function and 'Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity'. It was prepared by the members of the "electromagnetic field committee" and discussed and approved by the standing committee "Radiation". The report includes a description of the criteria used in the evaluation process. These were inclusion of peer reviewed scientific papers of 'sufficient' quality only, attention for dose-effect relationships and reproducible or consistent results that were supported by quantitative and statistical analyses. Possible working mechanisms were also taken into consideration although absence of such mechanisms did not necessarily exclude plausibility of a causal relationship between exposure and effect. For human studies further attention was paid to 'double blind studies', the constitution of the control populations and other methodological aspects of the study (exposure regimes etc.). Minority

The Health Council's conclusion was that effects on brain function were described in some papers but that there were no indications that they might be hazardous. They also concluded that good quality papers do not support the existence of a causal relationship between RF-exposure and symptoms like headache, migraine, fatigue, itching, insomnia etc. But there was a relationship between supposed RF-exposure and subjective symptoms

The Dutch health council also published other reports or advises on the subject that we do

*Recent Research on EMF and Health Risks; Sixth annual report from the Independent Expert Group* 

The Swedish Radiation Protection Agency has appointed an independent international expert group for the evaluation of scientific developments and in order to provide advises on the possible health effects of electromagnetic fields. This working group takes into consideration other expert group reports as a basis for its discussions and reports that should be updated each year. The report from 2009 is the 6th and latest report that was published so far. It concerns *in vitro* and *in vivo* effects of radiofrequencies, in particular genotoxic and non genotoxic endpoints, effects on reproduction, neurodegenerative effects, immunological effects, behavioural effects, cancer etc. Also human studies were evaluated including investigations on brain activity, cognitive functions, sleep disorders, subjective complaints and epidemiological (cancer) studies. The working group consisted of 9

selected so as to form a multidisciplinary group of independent experts.

indicating the presence of a nocebo effect. No advises were formulated.

**2.4 Statens strålskyddsinstitut (SSI = Swedish radiation protection agency)** 

not consider here (see http://www.gezondheidsraad.nl/en).

http://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/Allmanhet/

opinions were allowed.

*on Electromagnetic Fields, 2009* 

internationally renowned experts.

*Report on the analysis of risks associated to exposure to EMF: in vitro and in vivo (animals) studies, July 2010* 

http://efhran.polimi.it/docs/IMS-EFHRAN\_09072010.pdf *Risk analysis of human exposure to electromagnetic fields, July 2010*  http://efhran.polimi.it/docs/EFHRAN\_D2\_final.pdf

Members of the "European Health Risk Assessment Network on Electromagnetic Fields Exposure" (EFHRAN) belong to research institutes from 7 different European countries and are supported by external collaborators from 12 countries. All are international experts in research on non ionizing radiation. Some industrial groups, as for example the European 'consumer voice' in standardisation – ANEC and the GSM Association (GSMA) or the Network Operators' Association AISBL (ETNO) were associated to EFHRAN. The working group evaluated investigations on animals and humans. The role played by EFHRAN members and associated groups in the realisation of the report was not made very clear. The evaluation of effects were done according to a scoring method that is similar to the one used by IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). For each endpoint the evidence was evaluated as being "sufficient", "limited", "inadequate" or "inexistent" (= lack of evidence). A critical evaluation was performed of the relevant scientific literature which was based on the data provided by the SCENIHR (2009) report and on data that were published afterwards. The EFHRAN report was devoted to different kinds of non ionising radiation but we will here only consider the evaluation of studies on radiofrequency radiation.

The EFHRAN conclusions were as follows:

Cancer related studies:


Effect on the nervous system:


Effects on reproduction and development:


Other effects:

