The article below features Dr. Devra Davis of Environmental Health Trust and Dr. Joel Moskowitz and is reposted curtesy of TR Daily. TR Daily of Wolters Kluwer is a leading provider of information, business intelligence, and regulatory and legal workflow solutions for legal, corporate, and compliance professionals across several industries.
International Commission Releases New Radio-Frequency Guidelines
The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has released new guidelines that it says will ensure people are protected from radio frequency (RF) signals of 5G services. The guidelines also cover 3G and 4G devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and radio.
The new guidelines, which took seven years to develop, are more appropriate than the organization’s first guidelines released in 1998 because they include higher frequencies used for 5G services, said ICNIRP Chairman Eric van Rongen.
“We know parts of the community are concerned about the safety of 5G and we hope the updated guidelines will help put people at ease,” he said. “The guidelines have been developed after a thorough review of all relevant scientific literature, scientific workshops and an extensive public consultation process. They provide protection against all scientifically substantiated adverse health effects due to EMF exposure in the 100 kHz to 300 GHz range.”
A news release said the primary changes in the new guidelines dealing with 5G and spectrum above 6 gigahertz are (1) “the addition of a restriction for exposure to the whole body;” (2) “the addition of a restriction for brief (less than 6-minute) exposures to small regions of the body;” and (3) “the reduction of the maximum exposure permitted over a small region of the body.”
The ICNIRP said that other “minor” changes include (1) “greater transparency to make the logic and scientific basis of the guidelines easier for the health protection community to engage with;” (2) “additional means of assessing compliance with the guidelines;” and (3) “greater specification of how to assess complicated exposure scenarios.”
The guidelines are published in the scientific journal “Health Physics.”
ICNIRP said its guidelines consider non-thermal effects of RF emissions. It said that it “considers all potential adverse health effects, and sets restrictions to ensure that none occur, regardless of the mechanism of interaction between the exposure and the body. The lowest exposure levels that can cause adverse health effects are due to thermal mechanisms, and so restrictions have been set based on the thermal effects, as these will protect against any other effects that could occur at higher exposure levels.”
Critics who complain about inadequate RF standards set around the world, including the failure to consider the impact of 5G deployments, particularly point to what they said is a lack of attention to non-thermal RF effects.
Read more: Scientists Counter ICNIRP’s Guidelines On 5G, Cell Phone And Wireless Radiation Exposures
