Health Committee on April 29th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the committee.

I welcome the witnesses. This is a very interesting study we are doing, and we have a really good, broad balance of witnesses today. We have with us, as an individual, Dr. Anthony Martin Muc, assistant professor at Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.

Welcome, Dr. Muc.

We welcome the Next-Up Organisation, with Dr. Annie Sasco, the director of epidemiology for cancer prevention.

From the University of Ottawa, we welcome Dr. Habash from the School of Information Technology and Engineering.

From the Department of Industry, we have with us Marc Dupuis, director general, engineering, planning and standards branch, in the spectrum, information technologies, and telecommunications sector.

My goodness, that's a long title.

Welcome.

Also, Peter Hill is the director of spectrum management operations with the same department.

Welcome.

We have a very special guest from Athens: Dr. Dimitris Panagopoulos.

Can you hear me, Doctor?

[Dr. Dimitris Panagopoulos, Department of Cell Biology and Biophysics, Faculty of Biology, University of Athens, As an Individual]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We have a teleconference from London, with Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy, as an individual.

If you have a comment, just address the chair, and I will get you in to make a comment. Can you do that?

[Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy, Lecturer in Biology (retired), Imperial College London, As an Individual]

Yes, I can do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

We have also a video conference from Stockholm, with Dr. Olle Johansson, associate professor, experimental dermatology unit, the department of neuroscience, the Karolinska Institute.

Welcome. Can you hear me?

[Dr. Olle Johansson, Associate Professor, Experimental Dermatology Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, As an Individual]

Yes, I can, and welcome to Sweden. It's a lovely day in the sun here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you for your plug for Sweden. It's a lovely day here, too, with sunshine in Ottawa, Canada. We have good weather. At least we can talk about the weather before we start. Thank you.

We will begin with a five-minute presentation from Dr. Anthony Muc, please.

[Dr. Anthony Martin Muc, Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Occupational and Environmental Health Unit, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

The request to attend this meeting came as a bit of a surprise to me. I didn't really have any material to prepare. I simply came to offer my perspective and views on this issue. I think I'll leave it at that and leave more time for questions and discussion.

If you would like to know anything specific about my background or anything, please let me know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Muc, you have only five minutes. I can stretch it a little bit, but we have a lot of witnesses so I'm going to be pretty tight on the time. I'm a little more lenient when it comes to our guests because we want to hear everything you have to say.

Welcome. Begin, please.

[Dr. Anthony Martin Muc]

Just to provide some context, I started my career related to microwaves in the early seventies here at Health Canada. I proceeded from that to a job with the Ontario Ministry of Labour, where I was dealing with non-ionizing radiation in a broader sense. I got involved in lasers, microwaves, RF sealers, and all of those sorts of applications in industry and such. I was eventually a participant in the magnetic field study that was carried out by Ontario Hydro in conjunction with Hydro-Québec and Électricité de France.

I took early retirement in the early nineties and have operated as a consulting physicist on these kinds of issues since then. Generally speaking, I've been involved in the standards-setting committees, organizations like ACGIH. The National Research Council of Canada had an associate committee related to environmental criteria. It dealt with chemical and physical agents and their standards and guidelines for that sort of thing. I had a stint with the World Health Organization with the EMF project in 1999.

Basically--how can say this?--I'm a supporter of the standards as they exist. I think they're based on a distillation of all the scientific literature that's been accumulated, probably since the 1600s, going right back to Galvani. People have always been interested in electromagnetic field effects of one sort or another.

As for some of the controversies that exist, there are always indications of associations. It takes a certain amount of accumulation of information and evidence before those sorts of indications cross the threshold for public policy. That debate will continue on all fronts.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Dr. Muc.

We'll now hear from Dr. Annie Sasco.

[Dr. Annie Sasco, Director, Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention, Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, Next-Up Organisation]

Good morning.

My name is Annie Sasco. I am an MD with doctoral training at Harvard in epidemiology, two master's degrees, and a doctoral degree. I have been working in cancer epidemiology for the last 25 years at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization.

During that time I saw a doubling of the number of cancer cases in the world, and that led me to question the reason why. I became interested in environmental contaminants, be they physical, as in the case of ionizing or non-ionizing radiation, chemicals, or whatever.

I have been asked by Next-Up to be a witness here today. I think it's important for scientists to sometimes go beyond the mere statistical results and see, if you are interested in prevention, how to push for policies. I think those types of organizations such as Next-Up are very important in doing exactly that.

On the issue of electromagnetic fields specifically, I have been a witness in several centres on that already, including, last year, in the French Senate in front of the Office parlementaire d'évaluation des choix scientifiques et technologiques.

What do we know today about electromagnetic fields? And what I also want to say is, “When do we have enough evidence to take action?”

With regard to electromagnetic fields, we have, of course. more than plenty of evidence of exposure; I think that exposures in the human population have greatly increased in the last 20 years. That's a very recent phenomenon in terms of frequency of exposure of a population from multiple sources; and even if it's a sole source at a low level, there is the possibility, of course, for interaction and for cumulative effects over time, since exposure starts in utero and goes on for a whole lifetime.

So we have evidence that there is ever more frequent exposure and, in fact, soon the problem will be that no one will be unexposed, which will make comparison difficult, and therefore epidemiology difficult.

With regard to biological effects, more will be said by other witnesses, I guess, but there are two groups, thermal and non-thermal, with the issue of potential general toxicity and whether these EMFs have a promoting or an initiating effect for cancer occurrence.

As for experimental studies, there have been too few, in a way, and most of them have been done by industry-funded researchers. There have been very few public studies done with public funds that have looked at the evidence in animals, although with regard to exposure to carcinogens, animals are usually good cancer models and long-term effects models.

Epidemiology is, of course, the most relevant. What do we know just on cellphones and antennas? There have been many studies on cellphones, the largest one being the Interphone study, with several thousand cases and controls, which was done in 13 countries on glioma, meningioma, parotid gland tumours, and also acoustic neurinomas. The final results should be out, I have been told, in the coming days. For the time being, results for several countries are already out, but not yet, to my knowledge, for Canada.

They show somewhat contradictory results, but nevertheless, in several studies or some studies there is a tendency for increased risk for the heaviest users even if that's defined in different ways. And that's exactly what one expects to see. At the beginning, obviously, we are still young, in a way, in regard to exposure in the population, but it could be just the beginning of a more frequent problem in the years to come. The issue of children being particularly sensitive to this exposure has to be underlined, although at this time there is very little data, and more is needed. Similarly, we need more studies with valid protocols to look at issues of actual hypersensitivity.

So do we already have enough to act on it? I think we have a great level of suspicion and already quite a lot of data that goes in that direction. If we want to wait for final proof, at least in terms of cancer, it may take another 20 years, and the issue then will be that we will not have any unexposed population to act as a control.

We may never have the absolute final proof, but if our goal is to reduce somewhat the burden of cancer and other chronic diseases in the years to come, we have enough data to go ahead with a precautionary principle to avoid unnecessary exposure.

Regulations vary a lot across the countries, whereas population does not vary so much, but we can come back to this later.

I thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Sasco. There will also be time for questions so that you can fill in things that you find are very important.

We will now go to Dr. Habash from the University of Ottawa.

[Dr. Riadh Habash, School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE), University of Ottawa]

I am Riadh Habash from the School of Information Technology and Engineering. I work closely with the Institute of Population Health. I have been involved in this field since 1980. My duty is participation in general reviews of most of the areas. Recently we published two reviews, both in 2009. I'm a member of the IEEE Committee on Man and Radiation.

I will go back to my style as a teacher. I always start with the distinction between ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation. We are talking about non-ionizing radiation when the electron volt energy, or the energy, is not sufficient to ionize the cellular part or the system and concerns go beyond EM radiation to EM fields, that is, extremely low frequency fields. That means power lines and substations.

I believe that our major concern here is EM radiation. That means mobile phones and some other communication facilities. Based on our reviews and on various lines of study, we have reached certain conclusions, and we can discuss these conclusions during the discussion period.

But again,as I say, there are some concerns regarding further research in certain areas, especially the usage of mobile phones by children and the effects on the brain. That is based on some positive studies, epidemiological studies conducted especially via the Interphone studies. I have addressed those concerns in the brief and I would be willing to discuss those matters during the discussion period if needed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

You have another couple of minutes, Dr. Habash. Did you want to make comment on what your findings were?

[Dr. Riadh Habash]

These are general findings. As I say, the main concern is on the long-term lower-level effects of electromagnetic fields.

As mentioned, we are still at the beginning of our exposure, meaning possibly 10 or 20 years of mainly mobile phone usage. We believe that further investigation is needed. Replication of studies with positive and negative effects also is needed. I believe that further research, mainly on children, is important in this regard. Of course, more epidemiological studies based on the effects on the brain are also needed.

There is an important need for deeper studies on the interaction mechanisms of electromagnetic fields with biological systems, and in that area we can say that little work has been done so far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Doctor.

We'll now go to the Department of Industry and Monsieur Dupuis.

[Marc Dupuis, Director General, Engineering, Planning and Standards Branch, Spectrum, Information Technologies and Telecommunications Sector, Department of Industry]

Chair and members of the committee, it is our pleasure to be here as Industry Canada's representatives.

Industry Canada's basic role is to ensure that Safety Code 6 levels are respected with regard to, firstly, portable radio communication devices such as cellphones, and secondly, antenna towers and their surroundings. Different limits and assessment methods exist for these two situations.

I am Marc Dupuis, director general of Engineering, Planning and Standards Branch. My group is responsible for the compliance of radiocommunication equipment to standards.

Each model of new radiocommunication equipment in Canada has to comply with standards set by the department, including Safety Code 6. Equipment cannot be sold in Canada unless the model is certified by accredited bodies through our process. Manufacturers have the responsibility to ensure that their equipment meets these standards throughout the manufacturing cycle. Once the equipment is on the market, the department tests individual units of these models to ensure that the equipment continues to meet standards.

With me is Peter Hill, senior director of spectrum management operations. His group deals with antenna sitings of radio stations.

All antenna installations in Canada must respect Safety Code 6 guidelines for the protection of the general public. Before an antenna can be installed, we require that licensees ensure that emissions from an antenna in areas that are accessible to the public will be within Safety Code 6 limits, taking into account the cumulative effect of other antennas in the vicinity.

Once the tower is operational, it remains a condition of licence under the Radiocommunication Act to respect these limits. Industry Canada also performs audits and tests to ensure that these sites are in compliance afterwards.

The procedures that we use in order to ensure that the department's standards for equipment certification are met, incorporate measurement methods developed by international expert bodies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the International Electrotechnical Commission. These measurement methods are recognized world-wide as the most reliable way to verify RF exposure. One of the main responsibilities of accredited bodies is to conduct market surveillance activities. They are required to conduct physical audits on selected equipment samples.

Moreover, highly trained staff at Industry Canada's Certification and Engineering Bureau are also directly involved in testing radio equipment to ensure that the individual units available to consumers meet the same standards as the original models.

As I mentioned above, Industry Canada conducts regular audits of antenna installations to ensure compliance. I am confident that, through the various initiatives in place, Industry Canada is taking every reasonable measure that it can to ensure all sites in Canada respect Safety Code 6 limits.

Indeed, our experience, from mathematical modelling to actual field measurements, has demonstrated that for the vast majority of radio communication and broadcasting installations, the RF, or radio frequency, field levels are at a very small fraction of the regulatory limits in Safety Code 6--many thousand times below Safety Code 6 limits. Our measurements use sophisticated equipment that is regularly calibrated, and the measurements are performed by highly qualified and trained personnel.

Industry Canada provides a number of documents for the departmental Web site for Canadians concerned with RF exposure. For instance, “Frequently Asked Questions on radio frequency Energy and Health” has been jointly developed by Health Canada and Industry Canada. In addition, a handbook and numerous information sheets are also available. The links to these sites can be found in the appendix to these opening remarks. In addition, copies of the handbook and information sheets have been available to the committee and distributed this morning.

Again, Madam Chairperson, our role at Industry Canada is to ensure that apparatus and antenna installations respect Safety Code 6 limits for the protection of the general public. We rely on Health Canada's expert advice and also ensure that our own personnel have the necessary calibrated equipment and training to perform these complex measurements to ensure compliance in the marketplace.

We would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have concerning Industry Canada's role with respect to Safety Code 6.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Dupuis.

We are now going to go to video conference, and we are going to start in Athens, Greece, with Dr. Dimitris Panagopoulos.

Welcome, Doctor.

[Dr. Dimitris Panagopoulos]

Hello. Thanks for inviting me.

I shall try to describe, within a few lines, 10 basic conclusions from our experimental and theoretical work at the University of Athens over the last 11 years on the biological effects of mobile telephony radiation.

Conclusion number one is that GSM radiation at 900 and 1,800 megahertz, from mobile phone handsets, is found to reduce insect reproduction by up to 60%. The insects were exposed for six minutes daily during the first five days of their adult lives. Both males and females were found to be affected.

Second, the reduction of insect reproductive capacity was found to be due to cell death induction in reproductive cells. In the papers distributed to the committee members, we can see pictures of eggs from insects. In the first picture, we see eggs from a non-exposed insect. In the second picture, we see eggs from an insect exposed to radiation from a mobile phone handset. We can see the characteristic fluorescence denoting DNA fragmentation and cell death. You have more pictures like this.

Third, the effect of short-term exposure is evident at radiation intensities down to one microwatt per square centimetre. This radiation intensity is found at a distance of about one metre from a cellphone or 100 metres from a corresponding base station antenna. This radiation intensity is 450 times and 900 times lower than the limits set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, ICNIRP, at 900 and 1,800 megahertz, respectively.

It is possible that for long-term exposure durations of weeks or months or years, the effect would be evident at even longer distances or at even lower intensities. For this, a safety factor should be introduced in the above value, of one microwatt per square centimetre. By introducing a safety factor of 10, the above value becomes 0.1 microwatts per square centimetre, which is the limit proposed by the BioInitiative Report.

Fourth, the effect is strongest for intensities higher than 200 microwatts per square centimetre; this is when we have a cellphone very close to our heads. Within that so-called window, around the intensity value of 10 microwatts per square centimetre, the effect becomes even stronger. This intensity value of 10 microwatts per square centimetre corresponds to a distance of about 20 to 30 centimetres from a mobile phone handset or 20 to 30 metres from a base station antenna.

Fifth, the effect increases with increasing daily duration of exposure in terms of short-term exposures of one minute to 21 minutes daily.

Sixth, the effect is non-thermal. There are no temperature increases during the exposures.

Seventh, the effect at the cellular level is most likely due to the irregular gating of ion channels on cell membranes, which is caused by the electromagnetic fields. This leads to disruption of the cell's electrochemical balance and function. This mechanism is a non-thermal one.

Eighth, although we cannot simply extrapolate the above results from insects to humans, similar effects on humans cannot be excluded. On the contrary, they are possible, first because insects are, in general, much more resistant to radiation than mammals, and second, because the presented findings are in agreement with the results of other experimenters who are reporting DNA damage in mammalian cells or mammalian and human infertility. There are many references for these findings in papers also distributed to the committee.

Ninth, reported observations during the last years regarding the diminishing of insect populations, especially bees, can be explained by a decrease in their reproductive capacity, as I described.

Our tenth and last conclusion is that symptoms referred to as “microwave syndrome”, like headaches, sleep disturbances, fatigue, etc., among people residing around base station antennas, can possibly be explained by cellular stress induction on brain cells or even cell death induction on a number of brain cells.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Doctor. That was very insightful.

We'll now go to the teleconference in London.

Dr. Goldsworthy, are you online?

[Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy]

Hello. I am online.

I'm a retired lecturer from Imperial College London.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We want to get your expertise. You have five minutes, Doctor. Would you begin?

[Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy]

I'll do my best. I have sent the committee a lot of material containing scientific evidence, but what I want to do now is just summarize it, so I apologize for not giving references.

I had a lifelong interest in radio communications and was one of the first people I know to buy a mobile phone, but I'm afraid all is not quite right. As the number of mobile phones--cellphones--expanded, a whole series of weird health effects started to appear.

The cellphone companies had no idea what was causing them and still less of an idea on how to stop them happening. The only solution was to deny their existence, and this is what seems to be happening. They argue that because the results are not consistent, this is due to experimental error and can therefore be ignored.

But this argument is flawed because it doesn't take into account biological variability. We are all the product of thousands of genes that interact with each other and the environment in unpredictable ways. Each individual is unique. Not every smoker dies of cancer, we don't all have the same side effects from taking medicinal drugs, and we can't all be expected to respond in the same way to electromagnetic insults. Just because everyone is not affected doesn't mean that no one is affected.

They also say there is no plausible explanation for such diverse results. In this presentation, I've explained just how these effects, these multitudes of effects, are produced, and how modifications to the signal can put most of them right.

There are two mechanisms that explain nearly all of them.

The first one is based on the pigment cryptochrome. Plants use it to measure light and animals use it to navigate in the earth's magnetic field. Both animals and plants use it to regulate their body clocks.

Now, Ritz and his co-workers, in 2004, discovered that bird magnetic navigation was disrupted by a radio waves because of their effects on cryptochrome. This is also true for insects and probably causes colony collapse disorder in bees. The radio waves don't break chemical bonds, they just interfere with the transport of an electron between two parts of the molecule that is essential for its function.

Cryptochrome also controls circadian rhythms and the body clock, which regulates the sleep-wake cycle and also the immune system. The immune system works best at night. This explains the sleep disturbances found in people living near mobile phone base stations. It also increases their risk of cancer by reducing the ability of the immune system to cope with incipient cancer cells. It might also contribute to the decline of the bees, which are becoming increasingly susceptible to pathogens. As you all know, the loss of the bees would be devastating to our agriculture.

Fortunately, we can do something about it. According to Ritz, cryptochrome is sensitive to a broad range of frequencies, but they're mostly below 10 megahertz. These are well below the carrier frequencies used in mobile phones, but are generated when they are modulated to carry digital information. They are due to harmonics, they are not essential, and they can be suppressed. The cellphone companies should do this straight away.

Secondly, there are effects on cell membranes. Low frequency electromagnetic fields and radio frequencies that have been modulated with low frequencies can remove calcium ions from cell membranes. This weakens them and makes them more inclined to leak, which explains most of the other biological effects such as cardiac arrhythmia.

The heart muscle beats in response to electrical waves propagating through it. These are generated by ions moving across its cell membrane. If they leak, these ion movements are less pronounced and the heartbeat becomes irregular, which could result in heart failure--lack of information.

When cells leak into the surrounding matrix, it can cause inflammation. That which is beginning to show is early dementia. The brain is separated from the blood by what we call a tight junction barrier, in which the gaps between the cells are sealed to prevent the entry of unwanted materials. Cellphone radiation makes this barrier leak to let in toxic materials that can lead to early dementia.

Allergies, which are also on the increase--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Goldsworthy.