Radiation literature survey

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This is a review by the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSM) on scientific studies published from October 2013 to September 2014 investigating electromagnetic fields (EMF) and health. The key topics discussed were the association between extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields (MF) and childhood leukaemia and health risks from use of mobile phones and from environmental transmitters (such as mobile phone base stations). The report mentioned that recent studies suggesting an association between ELF-MF exposure and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s disease, warrant further investigation.

Link to Swedish Radiation Safety Authority

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Overall, the report by SSM did not reveal any new findings to support a causal association between EMF exposure and adverse health effects.

For ELF fields the same conclusion from previous reports still holds – associations between ELF MF and childhood leukaemia have been observed but a causal relationship has not been established. For radiofrequency (RF) fields, new studies with improved exposure assessment did not indicate any health risks for the general public in relation to RF exposure from environmental transmitters, such as base stations and radio and TV transmitters.

The conclusions of the SSM report are consistent with other recent health risk assessments e.g. the Health Protection Agency in 2012 on Health Effects from RF EMF and the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) in 2013 and 2015 on potential health effects of EMF.

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This is a prospective cohort study that assessed whether the exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) electric and magnetic fields (EMF) from electric blankets is associated to thyroid cancer. The cohort comprised of 89,527 women aged 50-79, recruited at 40 clinical centers throughout the United States between 1993 and 1998. The information on the use of electric blankets was collected at the start of recruitment and the cohort was followed for over 12 years. No association was found between ever using electric blankets and thyroid cancer (Hazard ratio, HR = 0.98, 95% confidence interval, CI = 0.72-1.32). Using electric blankets more frequently did not increase the risk of thyroid cancer. The authors conclude that these results do not support that using electric blankets increases the risk of thyroid cancer.

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There is not a lot of epidemiological data on ELF EMF exposure and thyroid cancer to date. There have been several studies investigating ELF EMF and other hormone-sensitive cancers especially breast cancer. Several reviews including the World Health Organization (WHO) health risk assessment in 2007 on ELF fields concluded that there is no established evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies that ELF magnetic fields (MF) increase the risk of breast cancer (WHO, 2007).

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This animal study investigated whether short-term exposure to ELF MF affects the nervous system. Rats were exposed to ELF-MF at 50 Hz, at a level of 0.3 millitesla (mT) (one and a half times the public exposure limit of international guidelines). The study did not find any significant changes in the physiological parameters of the nervous systems that were monitored.

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This is a nested case-control study where the association between occupational exposure to ELF-MF and electrical shocks and leukaemia was investigated. From a cohort of 14.9 million adults, a total of 5,409 acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cases were matched with 27,045 controls. The exposure to ELF-MF and risk of electrical shocks were assessed using job-exposure matrices. The authors concluded that there is no association between occupational exposure to neither ELF-MF nor electrical shocks and AML.

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Thiscase-cohort study looked into the association between dementia and occupational exposures to solvents, pesticides, metals, ELF-MF, and many other risk factors. The cohort consisted of 120,852 subjects, aged between 55 and 69 years, living in the Netherlands. After a follow-up period of 17.3 years, 682 male and 870 female cases were available. The authors found positive association between a type of dementia and occupational exposures to three risk factors combined - metals, chlorinated solvents and ELF-MF - which seemed driven by metals (HR = 1.35, 95% CI = 0.98 - 1.86).

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This is a cohort study that looked into the possibility of any association between pregnancy outcomes and parental RF EMFexposure to mobile phones. The cohort included more than 100,000 pregnancies from all over Norway, recruited during 1999-2009. Two sets of questionnaires mainly asking about mobile phone use were handed out to the expectant mothers during gestational week 15 and 30. Expectant fathers were also given a questionnaire during gestational week 15. The responses were then assessed against the pregnancy outcomes identified from the birth registry. The authors found no association between parental mobile phone exposure and any of the studied pregnancy outcomes.

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According to a report by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) in 2015, the investigations on RF EMR exposure from mobile phones and reproductive outcomes have not been informative. This is mainly due to methodological limitations including confounding i.e. uncontrolled lifestyle factors. The committee concluded that it is not possible to weigh the evidence due to a lack of informative studies. It is important to note that the study by Baste et al which is a large prospective cohort study, did not find an association.

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This animal study investigated whether exposure to radiofrequency (RF) EMF causes promotion of tumours. Pregnant mice were treated with a carcinogen and exposed to RF-EMF at four exposure conditions: sham, at specific absorption rate (SAR) of 0.04, 0.4 and 2 Watts per kilogram (W/kg) (ranging from 2-100% of the public exposure limits in the Australian Standard for RF exposure). The study found tumour-promoting effects at exposure levels below the limits although no clear dose-response effect was observed. The authors concluded that further studies are warranted to investigate the underlying mechanisms.

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This human provocation study investigated whether the radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by terrestrial trunked radio (TETRA) cause any adverse health effects. A total of 30 participants were randomly exposed to a TETRA-like signal of 385 megahertz (MHz) at three different exposure conditions - Sham, at a Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of 1.5 Watts per kilogram (W/kg), and at SAR of 6 W/kg, for 2.5 hours each. The study found that the TETRA's short-term EMF exposure did not negatively impact the cognitive function, mood and well-being of the human participants.

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The EMF exposure from a TETRA handset can be higher than that of mobile phones, depending on the output power of the transmitter, the distance between the handset and the head and the time period of the device operating (duty cycle). A study by Gabriel et al (2000) that estimated the SAR produced in a phantom head due to TETRA using modelling found that the SAR at some parts of the head could exceed the basic restrictions for public exposure for some exposure situations. For example, with TETRA Class 3 radio (transmitter-s peak output power of 3 W) when transmitting at maximum power (cited by a report by Health Protection Agency in 2012 on Health Effects from RF EMF).

In this study by Sauter et al, there was one exposure condition where participants were exposed to TETRA signal as high as a SAR of 6 W/kg, which is three times the basic restriction for public exposure. The study did not find any significant difference in the cognitive performance, mood, and subjective complaints of the participants when exposed in three situations - sham, 75% of public exposure limit or three times the public exposure limit. Moreover the participants and the researchers were both blinded to the exposure which eliminates the nocebo effects.

Previous human studies on TETRA (Riddervold et al, Wallace et al, and Nieto-Hernandez et al) also did not find any significant difference between the exposed and non-exposed group.

Many previous provocation studies have not been able to establish a causal relation between EMF exposure below current exposure limits and adverse health effects. This includes the non-specific symptoms reported by individuals claiming to have electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). See ARPANSA's commentary on January 2010's literature report.

ARPANSA has recently issued a fact sheet about EHS (http://www.arpansa.gov.au/RadiationProtection/Factsheets/is_ehs.cfm)

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This in vitro study investigated whether RF EMF emitted by mobile phones causes adverse health effects in human sperm. Semen samples were either not exposed or exposed to RF EMF from mobile phone for 1 hour, at a SAR of 1.46 W/kg (roughly around 75% of the ARPANSA RF Standard public exposure limit) and then assessed for sperm motility, velocity and some protein activities. The authors concluded that RF EMF exposure from mobile phones has some negative impacts on sperm cells.

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The impact of prenatal and childhood exposure to extremely low frequency EMF from high voltage power lines on the incidence of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) was investigated in this case-control study. The study included 22 cases of newly diagnosed ALL and 100 controls that lived in low socioeconomic environment in Iran. The authors concluded that there is an increased risk of childhood ALL (odds ratio, OR = 3.651, 95% confidence interval, 95% CI, 1.692-7.878) with pre- and postnatal exposure to EMF from high voltage power lines in a population with a low socioeconomic background.

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