DOCA Committee not serious about consultative process.

Late in 1995 the Australian Federal Government's Department of Communication and the Arts (DOCA) convened a committee on "Electromagnetic Energy and Public Health". This committee was created in response to the increasing level of public awareness as to the possible health hazards from ELF and RF/MW electromagnetic energy.

This committee has been having various public meetings where selected representatives from several community groups opposing mobile phone towers were invited to make submissions and provide community input into the committee's decision-making process.

Initially it appeared that this committee was seriously taking note of these concerns and would be making positive recommendations to DOCA, taking into consideration community concerns. However recently at the end of August, in committee meetings in Melbourne and to a lesser extent in Sydney any appearance of co-operation was shattered.

According to interviews with four community representatives to this committee, all the evidence, and documentation, indicating possible health hazards submitted to the committee by the community groups (including the Hocking study, the Neil Cherry report, etc.) were criticized and arbitrarily rejected for consideration by the committee.

According to these community representatives, the DOCA EME committee apparently considers any future EMF/EMR research studies to be a low priority and will only consider the eventual findings of Dr. Michael Repacholi's World Health Organization (WHO) international EMF Project (see WHO article), which the DOCA committee believes will provide definitive answers to the health hazards questions, from the ELF powerline frequency to the microwave mobile phone frequencies.

It is important to note that this WHO study is not conducting any further research but only re-examines those previously done studies and as such is only a rehash of the same old information. As one researcher remarked to me, "this kind of thing has been done to the death".

The inadvisability of waiting for the 5 year WHO study to give urgently needed answers to the mobile phone health hazards issue is obvious when one realizes that practically all of the studies to be re-examined by the WHO are irrelevant to the safety (or not) of mobile phones and base stations.

Almost all of existing studies deal either with the extremely low frequency (ELF) end of the electromagnetic spectrum or with acute short term exposures to RF/MW electromagnetic radiation and not with the biological effects of chronic exposure to the low power microwave frequencies used by the mobile phone system.

This lack of relevant existing scientific knowledge is mentioned in the June 1994 CSIRO Report on the Status of Research on the Biological Effects and Safety of Electromagnetic Radiation: Telecommunications Frequencies where it is stated that:

"Although there has been no epidemiological study completed specifically addressing the higher frequency range used for telecommunications there have been some reports of increased incidence of tumours in animals exposed to microwaves together with a known carcinogen."

As far as the relevance of the studies to be re-examined by the WHO to actual human health issues it is important to look at what the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), chaired by Dr. Michael Repacholi, states about these same studies:

"Most of the established biological effects of exposure to RF fields are consistent with responses to induced heating, resulting in rises in tissue or body temperature of greater than one degree C. (UNEP/WHO/IRPA,1993).

Most studies examined endpoints other than cancer, many examined physiological and thermoregulatory responses, effects on behaviour and on the induction of lens opacities (cataracts) and adverse reproductive outcome following acute exposure to relatively high levels of RF fields. Very few studies are relevant to the evaluation of RF exposure on the development of cancer in humans."

Considering this, there is limited benefit in the Australian government giving money for the WHO EMF Project where by definition it can tell us nothing new and cannot provide the answers to the real questions?

One thing the WHO EMF Project does provide however is time for the telecommunications industry to establish its infrastructure, and it also allows time for protests and opposition to be exhausted.

Does it really make sense to wait five years for the WHO and Repacholi to give, in effect, yesterdays answers to questions which they cannot possibly answer, because the necessary research to answer these questions has not yet been done?

Meanwhile the profileration of mobile phone towers and other RF/MW transmitting technology continues, with real concerns as to wether or not any real "on the ground" research will be conducted in Australia to determine its safety.

One example of this new technology is a new class of short-range computer communications devices that operate at 59 to 64 GHz, and could expose operators to levels in excess of 5000 micro watts/ sq. cm.( The Australian limit for public exposure is 200 micro watts/sq. cm. and for occupational exposure 1000uW/cm.sq.).

Hewlett-Packard, the manufacturer of this equipment, has stated to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that setting an exposure limit of 5 milliwatts/sq.cm.(5000 micro-watts) would make their technology "impractical", and unnecessary because "scientific data simply does not exist for health effects of power levels at these frequencies". Microwave News March/April 1996 page 9.)

This line of reasoning leads to some interesting comparisons. For instance, how far would a pharmaceutical company get if they tried to market a new, untested drug and argued for its safety because no scientific testing has been done and therefore there is no evidence of ill effects !

Getting back to the DOCA committee, any answers as to health effects issue being left up to Dr. Michael Repacholi and the WHO EMF Project is of concern to many scientists (including Dr. Ross Adey), researchers and concerned individuals as Dr. Repacholi has many times testified in hearings on behalf of the power and telecommunications industries.

He has also previously expressed an opinion that there are no athermal (low level) biological effects and always sides with the industry in issues of adverse biological effects. He has also frequently referred to two studies, Robinette (1980) and Lilienfeld (1978) as evidence of a lack of adverse health effects associated with human exposure to RF/MW radiation.

However both of these studies have been found to be severly flawed and are considered by many scientists to be biassed (See page 6). As a result of this, his impartiality is very much in question.

It would seem that money spent financing the WHO project could be better spent in actual research and not just going over old ground. There are concerns that the DOCA EME Committee is placing far too much faith in the WHO Project without understanding its limitations.

It is a bit puzzling that Mr. John Neil, from DOCA, who is Australia's representative on the WHO project made the remark at the Melbourne DOCA committee meeting that EME health research was of low priority!

It is also of concern that the chairperson of DOCA's public committee meetings has sent out translations of a German information sheet on RF/MW radiation (titled RADIO SIGNALS) which absolutely dismisses the health hazards issue.

Will DOCA use this as a model for their own soon to be published information sheets? The following statements from this German information sheet illustrates, in my opinion, that the DOCA EME Committee is not taking seriously the complexity of this issue.

"That radio technology has been in use for almost 70 years with no proven health hazards to human beings or to the environment is a fact that is often overlooked. Intensive research in this area has yet to establish a hazard."

"...only an open and objective approach to researching this issue will yield arguments that convince the general public of radio technology's safety and usefulness." ...

"Electromagnetic waves are natural in the truest sense of the word."..."In addition to the thermal effects of electromagnetic waves, there are the so- called non-thermal effects. These, however have been found only in X-rays and gamma rays which, due to their high energy, can be dangerous to human beings if over-exposed..."

" To date, research into electromagnetic radiation indicates that electromagnetic systems, when used as directed, pose no health hazards."

To find such an unscientific, biased document, which ignores a large body of evidence in dismissing any health hazards, being presented as scientific report from a DOCA representative should be cause for concern. Does this represent DOCA policy, and will this be the opinion taken in their own information sheets, currently being pre-paired for the Australian public ?