WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE 1999

MR T WILLS-SANDFORD, MR D BROWN, DR Q BALZANO, MR T HARRABIN and MR M PINCHES

  99. Order, order. Thank you very much for attending this afternoon to help us with our inquiry here on the Science and Technology Select Committee. You may be aware that we are doing quite a major report on scientific advice to government, the quality of that advice, how government uses it and the effect that advice might have on government policies. We have decided to do that with a series of case studies. The first one we did was on genetically modified foods. The second one is on mobile phones. It is in that context that we have invited you here this afternoon and we thank you for coming along and helping us. Would you care to give us a minute or two—please, no more than that—on your organisation?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) Yes; certainly. I am Director of Information and Communications Technology at the Federation of the Electronics Industry. I was asked about 15 months ago to take the role as spokesman for the mobile phone industry on this issue. We are a trade association and recognised as a leading one by the Department of Trade and Industry. We cover mostly public policy issues on behalf of our members and the members include computing, telecommunications, radio, electronic components and defence electronics.

  100. The reason that there is so much interest in mobile phones is that there is some scientific evidence—some supported by peer review, some not, some highly speculative and certainly the press are taking an interest in mobile phones and there is an implication—that there is a health risk with mobile phones; specifically of course people are talking about the possibilities of cancer. Could you tell us what you think of the evidence for this health risk and what actions you are taking, either to prove that the health risk is not there, or to show that it is absolutely minimal? I know you cannot prove a negative but I wonder whether you would tell us what you think of the health risk of mobile phones?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) In the industry we believe that it is important to look at the totality of science when evaluating this risk. Just recently several bodies, including the Royal Society of Canada, the NRPB over time, from whom you heard last time, and an organisation called ICNIRP, which is International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, have all done this and they have all come to the conclusion that there is no scientific evidence to link the use of mobile phones to any adverse human health effect.
  (Dr Balzano) You asked what the industry is doing. Let me address that part of your question. Over a long period of time the industry has been actively engaged in biological research to remove or to reduce the margin of uncertainty that is surrounding the issue of health effects from the exposure of humans to radio frequency electromagnetic energy. These research efforts go back at least 20 to 25 years and are continuing on today and will be expanded in the near future.

  101. Has there ever been any evidence that you are aware of that concerns your industry?
  (Dr Balzano) If you want to call it concern, there is a reason to look into some areas of the experimental evidence which has been produced over the years, in order to clarify the issues which have been raised by the experimental evidence. That is what is being done; it has been done and will continue to be done. As you pointed out, you cannot prove experimentally a null-hypothesis. As issues come up, a responsible industry will immediately try either to replicate or confirm the experimental outcome of a potential human health effect.

  102. You have a big audience this afternoon. You have not only the people who are in this room, but you have a wide audience which will read the findings of this Committee. Are you telling them that you are looking at various bits of scientific work which are indicating that mobile phones are dangerous and so far you have come to no conclusions yourselves?
  (Dr Balzano) We have looked over a long period of time at the scientific evidence. There have been international standard setting committees which have looked at the issue. In the United States since the late 1970s there has been no major US Government-sponsored research in this field. As a responsible industry, we decided to do what is called due diligence research to clarify the issues which were left open by the research of the 1970s.

  103. You do not reassure me. I hope you might reassure others. In fact I am more worried now than before I started the session this afternoon. The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) has a set of guidelines which are generally looking at the thermal effects from mobile phones. Do you think these standards should be revisited? Are they something which should be updated in light of the large use now of mobile phones and the proliferation of them?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) We are very happy to leave that judgement to the NRPB. We have great faith in them and, as our memorandum says, we believe there is a large number of highly respected international scientists in the NRPB, so we are very happy to leave that judgement to the NRPB.

  104. You are just interested in selling phones and you do not really care about the standards to which they are sold. You leave that to somebody else.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) Not at all. We are interested in selling phones and services and so on which comply with internationally agreed guidelines.
  (Mr Brown) Perhaps I could just tie together some of these threads. The study of the biological effects of non-ionising radiation, radio frequency radiation, has been going on for six decades probably. During the last two decades it has focused on the particular relationship between mobile phones in that band of the spectrum and possible health effects. A vast—and I think that is the word—a vast number of studies has been undertaken internationally over that period and scientists the world over have come solidly to a consensus view that there are no adverse health effects of using mobile phones. And so, to return to your opening question, I have no hesitation in saying that the scientific opinion considers mobile phones to be safe.

  105. I will keep my mobile phone now. We are told that the NRPB guidelines which we heard about at our last witness session are five times higher than those of other international organisations. In other words, they are allowing five times the dosage of other international organisations. Do you think this is something again that should be looked at? Are we being too lenient in this country compared with our foreign neighbours.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) I heard the NRPB witness last week. We know that the European Union have made some recommendations and we await with interest the final judgement of the NRPB but we have great faith in the NRPB and are happy to wait for that outcome.
  (Mr Pinches) Yes, you are quite correct that the current NRPB guidelines are five times looser than currently applicable in some other countries and the EU is currently preparing a recommendation that will have the impact of changing the guidelines across Europe to make them in line with certain other countries. As far as we are aware and as far as the NRPB themselves have confirmed, there is no scientific evidence that justifies the need to do that, but we are all aware that there is also public concern about these issues and therefore at the moment we have designed and built our network, as have other operators, to comply with the current NRPB guidelines in the UK. We are in the process of assessing the new EU recommendations in that respect and we will modify our network if necessary to ensure that it does in future comply with the tighter guidelines when the EU recommendations in that respect are properly clarified.

  106. You would not think of doing it without the EU guidelines. If you are able to reduce it by one fifth, why do you not?
  (Mr Pinches) We believe the majority of our sites today already comply with the new guidelines. However, we cannot be clear until any changes to those guidelines are properly documented and clarified and we have had an opportunity to check and test and we will need to visit many of our sites and we may need to modify some sites. We will undertake to do that if necessary and we will complete that within 18 months of publication of those guidelines. Until they are published we cannot commit to more than that.

  107. What is the industry doing to reduce levels of exposure from mobile telephones? Would it be possible, just as a precaution, to so design them that the levels of exposure to radiation could be reduced?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) Your question presupposes that there is a need to do so.

  108. My question presupposes that there is an argument about it and, if it were easy, then it would be reasonable to take a precaution.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) We can talk about it in two parts: masts and handsets. Through the natural evolution of technology, better design, better communications and so on, mobile phones today put out less energy, are more efficient, than older ones.
  (Mr Pinches) Clearly with the growth in the market of mobile telephones an increasing number of masts is required to support the users and today we have some 16 million users in the UK. As the number of masts increases, the distance that the mobile phone needs to communicate to the nearest mast also reduces and therefore as the market is growing, effective emission levels in practice for the customer are inherently and automatically steadily reducing with market growth.

  109. That is a consequential effect of something you are doing for other reasons. Is it possible to take a precaution, such as redesigning the mobile phone, to reduce exposure levels quite deliberately?
  (Mr Pinches) It is difficult to redesign a mobile phone to reduce an exposure level in the sense that it is required to work and communicate over a certain distance. It will inherently reduce with time.

  110. Some mobile phone users are using shields and buying ear pieces in the belief that this will help reduce exposure. Is that not the case?
  (Mr Pinches) We need to separate those two questions. The use of shields and the use of ear pieces achieve two slightly different things. Clearly the use of a shield to prevent the mobile phone radiating is actually setting out to defeat the purpose for which the product is designed in the first place. The attempt to reduce the emission from that phone is likely to be compensated by the mobile phone network instructing the mobile phone to increase its power accordingly. So we would not recommend the use of shields as an effective way of reducing emissions. As we said earlier, we also see no need to reduce the emission levels, but your question was how, if there were a need, we can do that. Clearly the use of a headset, if a consumer has a particular concern and for some reason wishes to have that phone further from his head, then the use of a headset provides the possibility of doing that and we are certainly very happy if the consumer should choose to make that choice and do that. We are very happy to support that and make such headsets available and they are available for pretty well all the phones in the market today.

  111. Is that true, that all companies are making those sorts of headsets available as a precaution?
  (Mr Brown) I would have said yes, that is true, to the first part of your question but not as a precaution, because we are clear in our view that the science says that mobile phones are safe.

  112. I understand that. I am just saying that there are people who may understand it too but still have a nagging feeling there might be something in it and therefore they would rather take a precaution if it were possible.
  (Mr Brown) Yes, I understand completely. Certainly I believe it is the case that all mobile phone companies, certainly Motorola for one, make available a range of accessories which people buy for lots of reasons; they buy headsets at least as much for comfort in prolonged use and to avoid holding it up in that position for a great length of time. We are very happy for them to buy whatever accessories they want for whatever purpose.

  113. You said that you are not convinced that the shields which people buy as accessories have any effect. I understand the MOD have just bought some shields for their mobile phones.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) The answer is that 20 people in one department in the MOD did. In our view it is contrary to any science. I am afraid I cannot speak for them, but it would be an exaggeration to say all the MOD have bought them.

  114. I was just going to ask whether you thought it a sensible thing to do. I think you are saying no.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) In our view it is not necessary and the science would say there is no need to.

  115. All the guidelines on safety of mobile phones refer to the thermal effects. What is the evidence of any other non-thermal effect of the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones?
  (Dr Balzano) Let me point out that when the limit levels were set, all biological effects were taken into account, the so-called thermal and the so-called athermal. The athermal effects were found to be not reliable, not reproducible from the scientific point of view, so they could not be used to set limit levels for human exposure. These effects were not reproducible, they were not reproduced although several attempts were made, so that particular set was excluded from being a reliable base to set limits for human exposure. Having said that, the literature that was evaluated by this group of scientists included all effects. The effects which were found to be reliable were those which are either caused by heat or accompanied by a temperature increase in the tissue. That does not necessarily mean that these are thermal effects but accompanied by a measurable increase of temperature in the tissue.

  116. What other non-thermal effects are you referring to?
  (Dr Balzano) Some of them are, for example variation in the calcium efflux or uptake by cells. There is a large phenomenology of biological effects, especially at the so-called in vitro level, that have been reported in the literature and are available to be replicated. Some scientists have tried replication under very controlled conditions and such effects were not replicable. At that point they cannot constitute a base to establish public policy.

  117. Is that a general view in the industry that they are not replicable?
  (Dr Balzano) Not in the industry, in the scientific community.

  118. In the scientific community at large?
  (Dr Balzano) That is right.

  119. In that context, what is your assessment of the reports by Drs Lai and Singh of DNA fragmentation effects caused by mobile phone type radiation?
  (Dr Balzano) That is a very good example of an experimental procedure which has not been validated and has not been able to be replicated. When this paper of Drs Lai and Singh was published, even before it was published, the information was made available to Motorola. Immediately Motorola felt that this was an important scientific outcome that needed to be further explored. Indeed we proceeded immediately with further exploration and a validation test over a long period of time has failed and pure replication of the experiments has also failed. So, it cannot be concluded at this point that the work of Drs Lai and Singh can be construed as being solid scientific evidence.