WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE 1999

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

  160. When you say you will check, do you mean you will check and write to us?
  (Mr Pinches) No, I meant we will check and change them if necessary to make sure they do comply. I will happily write to you as well if you would like that.

  161. No, I misunderstood; I am sorry. You said you were not sure all of them do but "we will check". I thought you meant you would check and inform us but you mean you will check and change.
  (Mr Pinches) No, check what other operators wish to do in the future.

  162. You are saying that generally a lowering of the acceptable levels will really have no impact on the industry at all.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) It is fair to say, and I think Mr Pinches would probably agree with me, that the devil is in the detail in terms of what we actually have to do in the end. We await the detailed recommendations as they come out from the NRPB.

  163. What detail do you fear? The basic thing is that they are about one fifth of the level measured in the same units are they not?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) For instance I can give you example we were talking about just a couple of days ago.
  (Mr Pinches) The actual level is understood. But, for example, consider the situation of window cleaners cleaning buildings which have cell site antennas on them which may be sited six floors up on the outside. The public are unlikely to be present immediately in front of an antenna but a window cleaner might be. We need to understand precisely how the situation in which it will apply or might not apply in terms of issues such as public access or occupational access is worded in the recommendation before we can be absolutely sure what work we may have to do.

  164. So the anxiety falls on the antenna rather than on the mobile phone itself; is that true?
  (Mr Pinches) Yes.
  (Mr Harrabin) Yes.
  (Dr Balzano) These lower levels were expected by the industry because ICNIRP proposed them a while back and CENELEC proposed them a while back. So we expected these lower limits. As far as we are concerned, this is a non-event. We have been there for a while. This is not an issue.

  165. What would be the implications of introducing satellite phones? Would that make compliance with these standards more difficult?
  (Dr Balzano) No; absolutely not. There is a technical reason if you want. If you have the time I will give it to you.

  166. We have the time.
  (Dr Balzano) Cellular phones on the ground have to communicate around the area. With cellular phones and satellites the energy goes straight up otherwise you do not make the link. The antenna is completely above the head of the user and the energy is propagating upwards so the exposure is even lower than the levels you encounter in the terrestrial cellular phones.

  167. You are actually saying that the introduction of satellite phones will be potentially less hazardous than the terrestrially based ones.
  (Dr Balzano) Yes.

  168. I am sorry, I do not quite see that. Why, because the energy is above my head, am I going to get less in my head than if it comes at me sideways?
  (Dr Balzano) Because the antenna completely clears your head otherwise you will not make a connection with the satellite. It is a very weak link between the radio and the satellite. It is barely enough to allow a conversation. There is not much margin. We have to use all the energy extremely efficiently and what happens is we end up with a very large antenna which is completely above the head of the user—I wish I had the antenna here to show you—and the energy goes straight up. It does not go sideways. Sideways would be wasted energy because the satellite is picked up at 10° over the horizon in one direction and sets at 10° above the horizon in the other direction. We cannot waste any energy. We are talking about 220 miles up instead of two miles down the street. So, we end up with a much larger product, a much larger antenna which, since it protrudes above the head of the user, practically exposes the user to extremely low levels which are far below anything seen up to now.

  169. But it introduces no further potential hazard compared with the present generation of mobile phones?
  (Dr Balzano) No, sir.
  (Mr Pinches) Vodafone is an investor in Globalstar which is one of the new mobile satellite consortia and I can advise you that the first prototype handsets for the Globalstar service have been tested and shown to comply with exactly the same SAR levels as other mobile phone handsets and we see no difficulty and consider the situation very similar.

  170. In the memorandum which Motorola sent to this Committee, in paragraph 5.12, it says that "... there is a sound basis for public confidence in the safety of mobile communications" and that consumers share that confidence. Where is your evidence for such confidence in safety, particularly from consumers?
  (Mr Brown) I can speak only for UK consumers. The kind of opinion research that we do I am sure is replicated worldwide. We engage MORI to conduct fairly regular surveys of a cross-section of the public and we come at this question by asking a very simple question, unloaded as it were: "What, if anything, do you dislike about mobile phones?" It is unprompted. We get a range of replies: 28 per cent of people do not like them ringing in public; 22 per cent, quite reasonably, do not like people using them when they are driving; five per cent do not like the cost of the line. Against that backcloth 17 per cent are concerned by the stories that they see in the press and see on the television. That is a minority and that leads us to the view that we expressed in our memorandum, "We believe this confidence is shared by most consumers". That said, the fact that 17 per cent of consumers really do not understand the science they are apparently reading about and are worrying about it is a matter of great concern, which is why we are focusing ever more on how to explain that science to people.

  171. How should the public react to the stories like the Panorama programme? We are assured by the industry and we are assured by the NRPB, who reacted to the Panorama programme, that mobile phones are safe. How should the public react to the advice they are getting from you, and the perhaps alarmist stories which they read in the newspaper and see on the TV? Have you noticed any reaction from the public because of these stories? Has customer behaviour changed at all?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) One of the great challenges, which I think your Committee has been looking at, is the way scientific information is imparted to the public and how it is interpreted. I share some of your concerns. We have done a number of things to improve our communications. One can always do better. There is no question about that. For instance, we have an extremely extensive website. We have published a number of pamphlets and people like myself are for ever communicating via radio, television, press and so on. We have done a lot but we are going to do better, indeed we are increasing the resources within the FEI devoted to this. I would pass it to Vodafone in terms of any reaction in terms of number of users and so on, but I am not aware of any.
  (Mr Harrabin) We have seen two effects. Firstly, we are very pleased to say that certainly over the last year, when we have seen this increase in press activity on this particular topic, we have seen a very dramatic increase in levels of sales of new phones and we have also seen a continuation in the increased usage by our existing customers of their phones. We are not observing a change in customers' behaviour in terms of buying and using phones. We are however seeing an increase in what was previously a relatively small level of queries and concerns coming in. To address that we are producing various documents to communicate with various interested parties. For example, this is one we have recently put together for people who write in with concerns about health effects associated with our masts and antennas. We seek to lay out in very clear layman's terms what the issues are, we try to lay out Vodafone's position which is that we believe the consensus of science shows that there is no known risk. However, we also recognise, and the statement made by the NRPB when they came to see you here was to the effect, that there is some sparse and inconsistent scientific data which is what has led to the press speculation and we have said that we understand that, we recognise that concern and one of the things the industry is doing is supporting further research in order to look into those areas further so that over time we can continue to increase public confidence. Also at the back of here for example we have taken the ten most commonly asked questions from people who write to us and we have provided answers in layman's terms.
  (Mr Brown) To offer a complementary thought, the Panorama programme makes an interesting case study in itself of how to deal with this and in the immediate aftermath of that programme a number of bodies, including the NRPB and the British Medical Journal, went to press straightaway trying to—indeed succeeding—put that science in context. But, seen from the consumers' point of view the response to that programme was a number of relatively low key, low volume responses, albeit all suggesting that really there is perhaps not as much to worry about as the Panorama story. However, one worries that together the sum of those responses is still a relatively mute response and there would be a lot to be said for the public having in its mind the one source that it ordinarily would turn to for an entirely credible independent view on not just mobile phones and health but all matters of scientific concern. One feels somehow that that is the little bit of the jigsaw, arguably the last little bit of the jigsaw, which is missing in the scientific advisory process. In the case of mobile phones and health it may well be that enriching the terms of reference of the NRPB might provide an easy way of doing that but I am sure there are other ways of doing it as well.
  (Dr Balzano) What I should like to add to what my colleagues have said is that not only should the public be educated but I wonder whether the members of the news media should be educated also. In general, and it has been my personal experience and that is as far as I can go, it has been very difficult to have a meaningful exchange of information with these ladies and gentlemen. They are smart, they are intelligent, they are capable but they are generally jejune on the principles of science and the uncertainty of science. The concept of the uncertainty of science is very difficult for these ladies and gentlemen to understand. They consider science to be an Apollonian set of laws instead of seeing it as Dionysian; very messy experimental evidence which is eventually sifted and becomes a law and that is finally science. It has been very difficult and anything the Government or a governmental agency can do in that area probably would substantially push forward understanding of these issues, not just cellular phones.

  Chairman: May I just say in response to that, that it may well be possible to educate the media. What would be more difficult would be to get them to use their education because that would not sell newspapers or television programmes.

  172. As far as public confidence is concerned, I think we have all had some fairly hard lessons recently over genetically modified food. Two years ago there were no particular problems with public confidence in genetically modified food and now no-one can sell a jar of genetically modified tomato paste for love or money. One of the things we now recognise quite clearly is that the public is not satisfied at all with statements such as that there is no evidence of risk. So long as there is anyone reporting a study, whether it is justified or not, that there is a cancer risk or a whatever risk, the public are liable to be very nervous. How do you think we can address the possibility of the public being alarmed by unfounded scare stories?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) One of the suggestions which has been made today, if we are talking about mobile phones in particular, is expanding the brief of the NRPB to communicate that. It is down to a number of parties. It is down to the scientific community, including the academic community. It is down to industry of course. Government has a role to play in terms of setting the agenda and some helpful things were said last week by the Minister of Health. She said it was not up to her to create the environment, but kite marking scientific reports and so on would all contribute towards a better understanding of science. I do not have a magic answer. I do not know whether any of my colleagues do. It is clearly difficult and the comments of the Chairman are relevant in terms of if we do, how much of it will get reported.

  173. How does your industry react to proposals for putting precautionary health warning labels on products and identifying the exposure levels associated with the individual products so that a prospective phone buyer could choose a model which had the lowest identified exposure? How would you react to that?
  (Mr Brown) Let me say a few sentences, but if it goes deeply into the science I shall defer. Two parts. First, we think it is entirely inappropriate to put precautionary health labels on products for which there is no evidence to suggest they are unhealthy. That would be to deepen the mis-characterisation issue of the underlying science. Mobile phones are safe and that is that. On the matter of making available the margin by which they meet the SAR standards set by NRPB and others, the issue there, at the risk of going over old ground again, is that once you are below the standard SAR levels you are safe and in fact the differences between SARs between different phones from different companies below that level is not properly meaningful, it is not properly indicative of relative health risks because there is no relative health risk. They are all safe.

  174. None identified so far.
  (Mr Brown) None identified so far. I stand corrected. After six decades and several hundred studies.

  175. Granted. We have also learnt a dreadful lesson from GM foods and the Monsanto effect, if you like. Monsanto, as you know, have carried out an advertising campaign intended to reassure the public about the safety of GM foods and it had precisely the reverse effect. How are you going to avoid getting caught in that sort of trap?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) We have taken a slightly lower key approach to this and maybe it has been successful. We have thoughtfully decided, certainly initially, to be reactive about it but Vodafone are in contact with millions of customers.
  (Mr Harrabin) We work very closely with the other three cellular operators, together with BT and Cable & Wireless and last month we had an away-day specifically to look at what our stance should be and how we should seek to improve public confidence over time. Our single conclusion is that we have to be very open and frank, we have to show that there are no secrets, that there is nothing we are aware of that we are not making available to the public and you will see that will be the general way in which we are approaching this problem.
  (Mr Brown) I think there are some fundamental differences between the GMO concern and mobile phones. Perhaps I might point to two. One is that the scientific foundation for mobile phones goes a long way back. It is superbly documented and has been well crawled over by leading independent bodies around the world for a long time. The second one is quite a different reason. It is the matter of choice, that in mobile phones people understand very well that they have a choice to make as a consumer. They can review the science for themselves as well as we are able to explain it to them and I know we must do better at that. Then they can decide whether they use a mobile phone or not. I suggest that they do not have quite that same confidence about GMOs. It is not as easy to know whether you are ingesting GMOs as it is to know whether you are using a mobile phone.

  176. You think this maybe explains why it is that although there have been almost as many attempts to suggest that there are health risks associated with mobile phones as there were with GM foods, nonetheless people are buying and using mobile phones just as happily in spite of these suggestions.
  (Mr Brown) For those two major reasons and perhaps a host of minor ones people innately sense that the science underpinning mobile phones is there and has been there for a long time. Secondly, they are able to exercise choice.
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) In there is perception of benefit as well but that is embedded in what Mr Brown was saying.

  177. Do you think these constant current health scares we get regarding mobile phones are damaging your business or eventually will have an effect on your business as such?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) It has not been. The numbers have demonstrated, as Vodafone are saying, that it has not been. It does not mean to say we do not take it seriously, because we do. We are concerned about it and we wish to be seen to be open and transparent about it. We take it seriously but based on the evidence so far, it is not damaging our business.

  178. How do you find the Government responding? Do you have access to Ministers? Are they responding properly, as you would expect? Do you have any concern that the Government should be behaving differently?
  (Mr Wills-Sandford) No, I certainly do not. We have the access we require.

  179. Do you find them quite responsive?
  (Mr Harrabin) May I say specifically that round about Christmas I actually wrote to the Minister of Public Health asking whether I could meet with her along with colleagues from the other operators. She responded very promptly and set up a meeting with her officials. We also had officials there from the DTI and certainly from Vodafone's perspective we have also met with the DTI separately. We are very comfortable that we have had good access, certainly to officials, to talk about these issues in some detail.

  180. So, full marks to Ministers.
  (Mr Harrabin) Certainly.
  (Mr Brown) Absolutely.

  Chairman: What a way to finish! Mr Wills-Sandford, may I thank you and, through you, the whole of your team, Mr Pinches, Mr Harrabin, Mr Brown and Dr Balzano, for coming along this afternoon and helping us. My fear of taking too long because there were too many of you was ill-founded. I thank you for your succinctness and, indeed, helpfulness and full content of your responses. I am sure—at least I hope—you will take an interest in our report when we publish it in due course and we thank you for making a contribution to it. Thank you very much indeed.