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.
Professor, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
Yes, that would be a lovely gift from grandma.
Chief Executive Officer, C4ST, Canadians For Safe Technology
May I comment, though, grandmother, that's interim. We want you to change safety concepts.
Chief Executive Officer, C4ST, Canadians For Safe Technology
That's fair.
We have both hats in mind.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentations.
Certainly, as I mentioned before, I was on the committee that originally set that process in place in terms of the work done by the Royal Society. Certainly the intention of the committee was to have something that was very solid in terms of its response to that issue.
I understand Canada is also currently very active with the WHO in terms of a massive undertaking. Is maybe that the better place to be really looking at the scientific reviews around this issue?
Could someone speak to the WHO process? It seems sometimes like we have all these different countries that spend a lot of time, money, and energy, and keep reinventing the wheel. What about this international collaboration piece and is that the better mechanism?
Professor Emeritus, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
We would like to believe it was, but unfortunately the information coming out in the form of drafts for comment have suggested that the WHO process has been as conflicted behind the scenes as the Royal Society panel in Canada. It's unclear where the problems are arising from, but there do appear to have been substantial industry links of some of the people who were in the WHO division before. Although we would hope things would improve at the moment, I am not confident that it will happen.
Chief Executive Officer, C4ST, Canadians For Safe Technology
I would also add, Ms. McLeod, that as a Canadian I am proud that we're leading the world on some things, like acid rain. I don't want to wait for an international consensus to act. I would be afraid to death that my future grandchildren would have to wait for the WHO to lead what I think is clear evidence today that Health Canada has the mandate, the authority, and the resources to lead the world, or be among the leaders, in fact, not even lead the world, but catch up to some countries. I would really resist relying on a WHO process.
When they did the IARC committee—and you'll hear from the next speaker, that the IARC committee, and Dr. Miller wrote the paper on the cancer section—you had a full body of scientists who had contrarian opinions. That's what I have learned over the last several years now is where good science happens. You have two sides of the debate and they get in a room and debate, as they did in 2011 when they debated among 30 scientists around the world. The WHO committee is not made up of a balance of scientists with opposing views.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I really appreciate that. Of course, as you can imagine, we need to listen to the people who are saying “black swan”, but we also, if there's consensus within the scientists.... It becomes a bit of a challenge for some of us to weed our way through the different processes.
I have a quick question for you, Dr. Havas. Why was that phone banned, and why is the baby monitor not in—
Professor, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
The reason the Federal Communications Commission gave was that it interfered with military frequencies, which is nonsense.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you.
Dr. Miller, you talked about case studies. As we all know, they can be that black swan that starts to alert us, but then obviously we need some processes after that. Can you talk about that? Maybe I missed it in your presentation, but have we gone beyond the obviously significant past case studies to actual epidemiological data that is showing dramatic increases that have happened over time?
Professor Emeritus, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, As an Individual
A number of us are working on this. There is now evidence that in the United States there have been increases in brain cancers associated with cellphone use. People have said that it hasn't happened, but in fact it has happened. I'm collaborating with Dr. Davis, who's coming here next week, on a paper that will document this further.
There is also a large international collaboration now ongoing of studies identifying large numbers of people whose exposure will be documented. They will be followed for several years to find out whether or not their exposure to the radio frequency field has increased their risk of cancer. But this is a very long-term endeavour. It will probably take a decade or more to get information of that sort.
So there is a lot of activity. There isn't very much, I'm afraid, in this country, except for the MOBI-KIDS study, but I believe people are increasingly recognizing the need to collect the necessary data to provide us with the information we require.
Conservative
Professor, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
It's EHS, electrohypersensitivity.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Is that actually a recognized diagnosis now?
Professor, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
It's recognized by the Austrian Medical Association. They recently put out a document trying to alert doctors on it and how to identify it. The World Health Organization in 2004 held a conference on electrical hypersensitivity. That's what they called it, but they decided that a better name for it would be idiopathic environmental illness. As “idiopathic” means that we don't have a clue as to what's causing it, this meant that they didn't have to do anything about it. There was a lot of debate on that and a lot of disagreement among the scientists. It just means that you don't have to deal with the problem, because you assume that you don't understand what it is.
It is recognized in parts of Europe. It's recognized by certain associations within the United States. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine is one of the groups that recognizes electrohypersensitivity along with multiple chemical sensitivity.
Chief Executive Officer, C4ST, Canadians For Safe Technology
I would add, too, that the Canadian Human Rights Commission does recognize electrohypersensitivity as well. If somebody is diagnosed in the workplace, they actually have the ability to go through the process and get support and compensation.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Is there any sort of indication of what percentage of the population might struggle with this?
Professor, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
I think probably between 1% and 3% have severe electrohypersensitivity. It's very difficult for them to survive in our type of world. Many of them have to move to the country, and they can't use computers. Probably another 35% have mild to moderate symptoms, which means when they come home after a day of work they have headaches, they feel awful, they can't sleep, but they can still trudge on.
Women's College Hospital in Toronto actually diagnoses people with electrical hypersensitivity, so we have diagnostic capabilities here in Canada.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ben Lobb
Thanks very much.
That will conclude the first panel. We thank the guests for appearing.
We'll suspend while we bring online our video conference guests.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ben Lobb
We're back in session, ladies and gentlemen. Conversations at the back will have to be completed later.
We have two guests by video conference, Professor Leszczynski and Professor Tarzwell. I would note that Professor Leszczynski is from Finland. For him it's quite late in the evening right now, so I appreciate his time and consideration for this.
I'll call for a little bit of order at the back, please. I was an auctioneer as a child, growing up in my dad's business, so I do know how to call a room to order if I have to. Thank you.
First, we'll get Professor Leszczynski to start his presentation, then Professor Tarzwell, you'll follow up after him.
Go ahead, sir.
Professor Dariusz Leszczynski Adjunct Professor, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
Thank you for inviting me to this hearing. It's an honour and a pleasure.
My name is Dariusz Leszczynski. I'm currently adjunct professor for biochemistry at the University of Helsinki, in Finland. I have done research in the area of biological and health effects of cellphone-emitted radiation since 1997. I was a member of the expert group of IARC, which in 2011 classified cellphone radiation as a possible human carcinogen.
When scientific evidence is unclear, contradictory, or ambivalent, careful and unbiased interpretation of it is of paramount importance. However, it is often the case that such scientific evidence gives room for a diverse interpretation that may lead to the development of contradictory expert opinions, causing confusion and impairing development of rational recommendations aimed at protecting the general population.
This is the current situation in the area of cellphone- and wireless communication-emitted radiation. Unclear experimental evidence leads to the polarization of the scientific opinions into two extremes: the no-effect opinion and the harmful-effect opinion. Currently scientists do not agree on the matter of biological and health effects of radiation exposures. The term “consensus” might be be misleading for the general public. We should rather speak about “differences in scientific opinion”.
A recent comment by the head of the World Health Organization's EMF project, Dr. Emilie van Deventer, well describes the current situation, and I will quote her comment given for The Daily Princetonian, “There is no consensus, it’s true. There’s a big group and a little group, but it’s still two groups.”
Talking about a big and a small group is a pure speculation because the size of the groups was never examined. From my nearly 19 years of experience in this area of research, I know that the vast majority of the scientists do not openly take a side in the debate.
The interpretation of scientific evidence by committee is of most use for the decision-makers. This is the reason that the development of unbiased opinions by committees are of paramount importance. Opinions of committees are defined by the expert composition. In an ideal committee, experts would not have conflict-of-interest issues and would be independent of any kind of lobbying; only science would matter. Nearly all of the committees dealing with the health effects of radiation emitted by wireless communication devices have a problem of biased expert selection, a potential conflict of interest, and a potential influence by an industrial lobby, which may occur in spite of set-up firewalls.
The majority of the committees consist of scientists having the same expert opinion. Individual committees experts commonly do not reflect all current scientific opinions. This concerns both international committees and national committees. This includes the committee in Canada that provided evidence for Safety Code 6. The composition of the Health Canada expert committee was clearly biased towards the no-effect opinion, and some of the experts are known to advise the telecom industry. This is a serious potential conflict of interest.
The above-mentioned system of firewalls to protect experts from influence of industry doesn't work. Industry sponsors know who receives funding; sponsored scientists know who provides funding. This is especially worrisome when the influential ICNIRP committee is in part funded by the industry through firewalls of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia. The same goes for the EMF project of the WHO. If your experts know very well that the opinions of ICNIRP will be unfavourable for the telecom industry, their sponsorship may end. The firewall is only a gimmick.
Currently, WHO's EMF project is preparing an evaluation of the scientific evidence concerning health effects of radiation emitted by wireless communication devices, the so-called environmental health criteria for RF-EMF. The major problem with the draft document of environmental health criteria is the lack of balanced presentation of the scientific evidence. The environmental health criteria draft was written solely by scientists with a no-effect opinion.
The environmental health criteria document will have a global impact on billions of users of wireless technology and on the multi-trillion dollar business. This is why it is disturbing that preparation of such a document is solely reflecting opinions of ICNIRP, an organization with a firm, single-sided, no-effect opinion. This is a disturbing situation, where one group of scientists was given preferential treatment only because of their close link with the WHO and where other relevant expert opinions were deliberately and arbitrarily excluded without scientific debate.
Recommendations for decision-makers developed by committees, where memberships are consistently biased towards either a no-effect opinion or harmful effect opinion, are not representative of the whole currently available scientific evidence and should be viewed with extreme caution, or outright dismissed, until the proper, unbiased evaluation takes place.
To my knowledge there was only one scientific committee—IARC's working expert group in 2011, of which I was a member—where the full scope of diverse scientific opinions were represented. IARC classification completely disagreed with one-sided opinions of the majority of international and national committees, including Health Canada. Until an unbiased, round table of scientific debate takes place, where all scientific opinions will be duly represented and evaluated, the opinions developed to date by various international and national committees, based on biased expert selections, should be dismissed by decision-makers as insufficient.
According to year 2000 documents of the European Union on the precautionary principle, there are three criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to implement the precautionary principle. All of them are currently fulfilled.
Number one, scientific information is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain to make a firm decision. This is exactly what the IARC classification says on cellphone radiation as a possible human carcinogen, group 2B.
Number two, there are indications that the possible effects to human health may be potentially dangerous. Increased risk of brain cancer in long-term, avid users is a dangerous outcome, shown by three replicated epidemiological studies: European INTERPHONE, Swedish Hardell group, and French CERENAT studies.
Number three, the effects are inconsistent with the chosen level of protection. Epidemiological studies showing an increased risk in long-term, avid users were generated in populations using regular cellphones meeting all current safety standards. This means that the current safety standards are insufficient to protect users because the risk of developing cancer increases in long-term, avid users.
Proponents of the precautionary principle need to understand that precaution does not equal prevention of use of wireless technology. Requirements to develop more efficient, less radiation-emitting technology, and further biomedical research on the radiation effects, will create new knowledge through research and will create jobs in the research and technology. Implementation of the precautionary principle will not prevent technological developments. Claims by some that the implementation of the precautionary principle will cause economic stagnation are unfounded.
In the current situation of inadequate review of scientific evidence by groups of scientists with biased selection of members, and until the round table, unbiased review is performed, decision-makers should implement the precautionary principle. The reason is not that the harm was proven beyond doubt, but because the harm is possible and evidence is uncertain and suggesting that harmful health effects are possible. The precautionary principle was developed just for such situations where scientific uncertainty with concomitant indications of possible harm requires society to wait for more scientific evidence. Saying, “Better to be safe than sorry” applies here.
Thank you.
Conservative
Dr. Rob Tarzwell Clinical Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Good afternoon, and good evening in Finland.
Thanks very much for inviting me to appear before this committee. I think it's an ongoing and imperative role of the state to assess risks to society and take appropriate mitigation where necessary. The issue before the committee today is the risk of cellphone radiation, and for simplifying purposes, I'll assume radiation meaning more than approximately the one-gigahertz to three-gigahertz range.
As for my own background, I am competent in and am a practitioner of nuclear medicine. I also am a psychiatrist. I've an interest both in the human radiobiological effects of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, and an interest in the psychological factors that relate to medically unexplained symptoms or medical-appearing presentations of skin situations where there's no evidence of organic pathology, but perhaps psychopathology.
I provided some documents to the committee. I don't know if those were received in time and distributed. The first document I want to make reference to is the preamble from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which outlines how its findings should be interpreted. First of all—
