Scientists decry Canada's outdated Wi-Fi safety rules - 'prudent avoidance should be recommended with cellphones and Wi-Fi'

Extracts from article by Paul Christopher Webster in Canadian Mediucal Assoc. Journal, May 2015: Federal parliamentarians concluded three hearings into Health Canada's safety regulations for cellphones and other wireless devices by asking for a detailed analysis of numerous recent cancer studies that indicate far tougher safety regulations may be warranted.

The studies in question were not acknowledged in the scientific review, Safety Code 6 (2015) Rationale, which exclusively released to CMAJ by Health Canada. The Safety Code 6 guideline, which was released Mar. 13, states that no new biological information pertinent to safety guidelines has emerged since 2009. Further, it states that the large number of recent studies raising safety concerns "suffer from a lack of evidence of causality, biological plausibility and reproducibility and do not provide a credible foundation for making science-based recommendations."

This contention led scientists and safety advocates at the hearings before Parliament's Standing Committee on Health to mount a withering attack, saying that Health Canada's Rationale and Safety Code 6 are outdated, incomplete and invalid.

As a result, at the conclusion of the hearings on Apr. 30, the Standing Committee on Health asked Health Canada to "provide detailed information in the form of a full scientific monograph" on its assessment of 140 studies identified as alarming by Canadians for Safe Technology, an Oakville, Ontario–based advocacy group.

The group's CEO, Frank Clegg told the health committee on Apr. 23 that despite paying the Royal Society of Canada $100 000 to convene a panel to assess the safety of radiowave-emitting devices (a panel that was subsequently marred by conflict-of-interest allegations and the resignation of its chairman) "Health Canada has not invested the necessary time, nor had the balanced opinion of experts necessary to undertake a proper review."

After noting that health regulators failed to forestall public health disasters with tobacco, asbestos, bisphenol A, thalidomide, DDT and urea formaldehyde insulation, Clegg said "prudent avoidance" should be recommended with cellphones and Wi-Fi "until the science proves beyond reasonable doubt that there is no potential for harm. For the last three years science has published a new study every month that shows irreparable harm at levels below Safety Code 6."

For the full article go to: http://www.cmaj.ca/site/earlyreleases/7may15_scientists-decry-canadas-outdated-wi-fi-safety-rules.xhtml