GSMA call for harmonised safety limits in US standards review
The US communications regulator should change the country’s mobile phone radiofrequency safety standards to the science-based limits recommended by the World Health Organization, the GSMA have recommended.
In a submission to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Notice of Inquiry into national radiofrequency exposure limits, the GSMA said US safety standards should be brought into line with the majority of other countries around the world which have adopted the exposure guidelines set by independent authorities ICNIRP and the IEEE.
The major change would be to the way mobile phone radiofrequency exposure is measured in SAR tests from the FCC’s current 1.6 W/kg (watts per kilogram) measured over one gram of tissue to the WHO recommended 2.0 W/kg averaged over 10g.
GSMA Senior Director of Research and Sustainability Dr Jack Rowley said that while both limits were considered by health authorities to protect the public against all established health hazards from exposure to mobile signals, the ICNIRP/IEEE standards are based on more recent scientific evidence and represented an internationally harmonised approach.
“The GSMA agrees with the FCC that examination of any potential changes to the exposure limits must be ‘science-based’,” Dr Rowley said in the August 30th submission.
“As an international trade association the GSMA generally supports harmonisation of technical standards as providing significant consumer benefits. The GSMA recommends that the FCC consider the scientific rationale of the IEEE Committee in C95.1, 2005 and the ICNIRP and examine the present FCC partial body SAR limit to consider alignment with the internationally harmonised value of 2 W/kg measured in 10 g.”
Dr Rowley said that to his knowledge currently 115 countries use the ICNIRP limits as the basis of national exposure standards for mobile devices and 105 for mobile phone networks, while only nine countries follow the FCC limits for mobile networks and thirteen for mobile devices.
The GSMA’s submission was one of more than 400 received by the FCC in response to the regulators request for feedback on whether the country should change its safety standards for the first time since being established in 1996.
The submission warned against the adoption of arbitrary exposure limits in an attempt to ease public concern about the safety of mobile phone networks.
“The WHO have said that science-based exposure limits should not be undermined by the adoption of arbitrary limits and research has shown that extra precautionary measures usually have the opposite effect on public perception,” Dr Rowley said.
“This has been the outcome in India where exposure limits were lowered to 10 times below the ICNIRP guidelines in 2012 but had failed to reassure concerned citizens, instead it has reinforced a perception that the science-based limits are not safe.”
Dr Rowley said similar problems had resulted in Brussels, where arbitrary exposure limits on mobile networks had severely restricted the ability of mobile operators to provide adequate network coverage.
The GSMA’s submission also recommended the FCC strongly oppose unscientific local laws like buffer zone policies around network towers, which GSMA research had shown could cause major problems for network coverage, with no additional health benefit.
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