Evidence of meeting #57 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was studies.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you very much.
Dr. Leszczynski, are you familiar with the World Health Organization's warning list on agents that might cause cancer? They've maintained this list for 30 years. It includes 900 agents, and most of them on that list move up over the years. Are you aware of any agent that has ever gone down the list? Were there any false alarms, or do they generally go up the list to categories of higher danger?
Conservative
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much. I want to thank our two presenters.
I want to pick up and follow on my colleague Terence Young's questions a bit, because he was asking a question, and I understand, Dr. Leszczynski, you didn't have these answers at your fingertips with regard to possible carcinogens that were moved off or down the list, but I think you gave your own examples at the very beginning.
What I heard you asking in your particular presentation, which I think is what we need to struggle with here as a committee, is this. Is there an ethical and moral need for us to look at a precautionary principle, or do we continue to follow what we saw with acid rain, with cigarettes, etc., where generations of people were harmed, died, got cancers, heart diseases, etc., and the ecosystem was destroyed by acid rain? What is the ethical duty of parliamentarians or people who are in charge of the health and safety of a nation or communities to have a consideration of not just the clear and definite evidence...? As Mr. Young and Dr. Tarzwell were saying, yes, there is some evidence but not all.
I think this is eventually an ethical and moral issue for us all. Do we err on the side of safety and precaution so that we do no harm or as little harm as possible, or do we wait for definitive studies?
You talked about that, but you didn't give me an answer about what you think is the moral and ethical duty of people like us, parliamentarians, who actually have to create, make legislation or regulations that would keep our citizens safe. You didn't answer that question yourself. You posed it a lot of times. I'd like to hear what you think.
Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski
There are two take-home messages from my presentation and what I wanted to present you with.
First, we need an unbiased, thorough review of the scientific evidence that is currently available. This is not done in most cases because the majority of committees that are set up have bias problems. We need this good review of evidence. This is what is most important for you as decision-makers, that you can have an unbiased evaluation of science, and this will be the basis of your decision on what to do.
When one committee was set up by IARC in such a way that many diverse scientific opinions were included, scientists with very different opinions, often opposite opinions, were invited to this working group. During nearly two weeks of debate we came up with the conclusion that we have evidence of possible harm. We found limited evidence in the epidemiology and limited evidence in animals that there is a possibility of harm. None of the committees, for example as I mentioned, ICNIRP, which is a very important committee, Health Canada, and many other committees came to the same conclusion. Either committees come to the conclusion there is absolutely no harm or they come to the conclusion there is really very serious harm, but when looking at the composition of those committees' experts, we can see that either committees consist of experts having a no-harm opinion or a harm opinion. This is one problem.
Second, once you have this kind of round table unbiased evaluation of science, there's this moral, ethical question. Should business go on as usual or should we protect the population, take some precautionary steps?
Because we don't know for sure, but we have indications, we have red flags that something might be happening. Should we protect the population or not? At the moment, I would suggest looking at our past. We should not forget about our past and we should learn from our history. We should learn from tobacco, asbestos, DDT, and from many other miraculous agents that we first developed. Humanity thought that was a really fantastic chemical, a fantastic application, we could use it fully to advance our goals, and later on we have to wait for tens of years to find out if there is some problem.
We should learn from the past. When we see some red flags, we should take precautions and use the precautionary principle.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
You answered my questions.
Are you a researcher, Dr. Tarzwell?
Clinical Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
My main areas of publication are functional brain imaging and psychiatric disorders and the interaction of medically unexplained—
Liberal
Clinical Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
—so yes.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
In other words, you researched your presentation to us.
Looking at glioma, because that's not your area of expertise, I'm just wondering, glioma is not the only thing we need to look at. We saw and heard today in a presentation of a researcher herself who had a clear indication on slides of clumping of her cells after a 10-minute exposure. Clumping of her cells doesn't lead to glioma or other blood diseases. It could easily lead to thrombosis, etc. Especially if she travels a lot or she sits a lot, those are clear things she has to think about. We have other areas in which we need to look at the broader amount of harm that could possibly be done.
Have you looked at all those areas that people have suggested could be a problem, especially in children and in vulnerable populations, with regard to exposure to these radio frequencies and Wi-Fi? Do you have an answer for that? I have about 30 seconds for your answer.
Clinical Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
The brief answer is no, I have not examined the entirety of the scientific literature on harms.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ben Lobb
Thank you very much.
Mr. Lizon, you have seven minutes. Go ahead, sir.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Tarzwell and Professor Leszczynski. Thank you for appearing at the committee, especially Professor Leszczynski. I think it's after midnight in Helsinki and that's where you are.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Let's look at two scenarios. First, there is no effect on human health, and therefore, you're okay.
Let's look at the other scenario. You made comparisons to smoking and to asbestos. We all know that the population that was affected by smoking, or by asbestos, was only a fraction of the total population. In the case of cellphones, when we look at the scenario, there is a serious problem and it's a huge number of people. In many countries 70% or 80% of the population uses some kind of wireless device, whether cellphones or those who have a work area with Wi-Fi, etc. If there is a serious issue, do you have any estimates, if there is a bomb down the road, of how big it is going to be?
Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski
I do not have estimates right now, but yes we may talk about it as potentially a large problem. You said a large part of the population is exposed. Right now there are over seven billion cellphone users. If you can imagine, in Finland we have a total population of slightly over five million and we have over six million cellphone connections. Therefore, humanity is saturated with those devices, but at the same time we have to remember that we all are different, and therefore, we may respond differently to this radiation. Not every smoker gets lung cancer and this we have to consider also with exposure to cellphone radiation.
Therefore, those who are saying...they often show different kinds of blocks where there is a dramatic increase in the number of cellphones in the world and there is not much increase, if at all, in brain cancer. First of all, we are talking about the first 10 or 15 years of avid use in comparison with development of glioma for 40 years or 50 years. This is not yet indicating what will happen.
Another problem is that since not every smoker gets lung cancer, not every cellphone user will get brain cancer, if this radiation exposure will be finally proven to cause this. Therefore, it is not possible to expect that if we have a huge bump in cellphone numbers then we should expect a huge bump in brain cancers. It is not so.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
If you were to advise the committee on the precautionary measures, what would your advice be? We did hear from the previous witness, Dr. Miller, who stated that there is no safe level for radiation because it's the strength of radiation and also the time of exposure. What would your advice be? How should we proceed?
Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski
This is difficult to say right now because we don't know what the cap-off level would be. We don't have enough good studies for this sort of research to find out what is a safe level, or a cap-off level, where the majority of the population is not affected. We don't have this kind of study. We didn't do this kind of human experiment where we could see that if we exposed people to certain levels nothing happens and if we went above the certain level something happens. We don't have such a study, not at all.
Even though for tens of years we did research in this area, we don't have such studies because those studies believe that we should take people exposed to cellphone radiation and take some of those biochemical samples, analyze their content, and see what is happening on a molecular level. We have only done three of these studies on humans so far, with seven billion users. That shows what kind of problem we are facing. We don't do correct research to find out what the problem is. Very often what we are doing is a gimmick.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
In your personal view would lowering the level be a good first step or not?
Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski
Yes, it would be a good step although I cannot tell you honestly how much we should lower this level. There is always the fact that people using regular cellphones, like you and me who buy them from a shop, assume that they're buying a safe phone off the shelf because the government is watching this. If after 10 years of using this cellphone I'm increasing my risk of getting brain cancer, something is wrong there. The safety standards are not protecting me.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ben Lobb
Thank you very much. We certainly appreciate the time you have taken.
For the professor in Finland, thank you very much for working well into the evening.
That will do it for today. The meeting is adjourned.