Re: Alastair's WHO report below. This was mentioned by guru in his recent article in NETWORK NEWS. What we do know about this "study" is that it is headed by a person who has a past record of being a "lackey" to industry.
Let the record show that:
What is needed in the way of EMF research is NOT another "study of past studies" -- as the WHO effort will be.
What is needed is a few HUNDRED million dollars invested in FUNDAMENTAL research covering the MECHANISMS of EMF biological interaction ... and the PARAMETERS of that interaction -- to include the possible role of harmonics and transients!!!!
BTW -- guru feels "a little bit proud" of the quality and volume of recent discussion within EMF-L that has -- indeed! -- covered some of the above material. It reinforces guru's belief that THE PUBLIC CAN UNDERSTAND!!!! Let's keep "shining the light" and get the message to the public.
Cheerio...
This might have come up before I joined this list. If it has I apologise for bringing it up again.
Did you know that the World Health Organization established an International EMF Project in 1996? The press release was in June 1996.
It is to last for 5 years initially and the aim is "to pool together current knowledge and available resources of key international and national and scientific institutions in order to arrive at scientifically-sound recommendations for health risk assessments of exposure to static and time varying electric and magnetic fields in the frequency range 0-300 GHz. This range includes static (0 Hz), extremely low frequency (ELF, 0-300 Hz) and radio frequency fields (RF, 300 Hz - 300 GHz)".
This has come into being as "research has suggested that exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) may produce a broad range of health effects such as cancer, changes in behaviour, memory loss, Parkinsons and Alzheimer's diseases. While insufficient research has been conducted to substantiate these effects, sufficient concerns and perceptions of risks have been raised that there is an urgent need for an accelerated programme to provide scientific consensus and clarification of these issues".
Lets hope that this is so, although it has already been questioned at the First International Advisory Committee Meeting in Geneva on 30-31 May, 1996 by a Dr Al Awadi who asked why industry was apparently excluded from the project, adding that industry had a great deal of scientific and technical expertise.
The response from the WHO legal department was that "involvement of "interested" parties, such as industry, as formal members of the Committee, was not possible under the accepted code of operation of WHO. Although some participation by industry at a technical level was acceptable they could not participate in final health hazard assessments, so as to ensure that workers and members of the public have confidence in the independence of the conclusions."
National representatives of Kuwait, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, Finland, Sweden, United States, United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Ireland explained the concerns that they had for their countries.
http://www.who.ch/programmes/peh/emf/emf_home.htm
I certainly will be watching it to see what they get up to.