Health Committee on April 28th, 2015

[Dr. Devra Davis]

At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which took place in San Diego just a few days ago, they heard several studies reporting on the damaging effect of cellphone radiation on parent-child relationships and on the acquisition of language for children. Parents who are preoccupied with their cellphones, with their babies, and with their infants are not talking to those babies. We know, those of us who have survived motherhood, talking to babies is how they learn to babble back at you. When you talk to your baby from the time you're pregnant, when they're born they know your voice. You need to keep talking to them.

I remember, when I was doing a post-doc, reading to my child because I wanted her to hear my voice. If a parent is completely obsessed with these devices the child's acquisition of language suffers.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

I would like to ask you a multiple question, the same question I asked the person at Health Canada who is ultimately responsible for Safety Code 6. His reply sounded like the mayor in the movie Jaws, saying the beaches are safe.

Here's the question. Can you tell me if it's safe for my constituents to hold a cellphone to their heads? Is it safe for my two-and-a half-year-old granddaughter to have a baby monitor in her room all night? Is it safe for a woman to carry a cellphone in her bra? Is it safe for young men to carry cellphones in their front pants pockets? Is it safe for children to use cellular phones and tablets?

[Dr. Devra Davis]

I guess it's easy to say no to all of those except that, if you have a sick child and you have a large house, and you have a baby monitor that would be located far away, and you were in Switzerland you would get a baby monitor that only turned on when you needed it.

Our baby monitors in the U.S. and Canada are programmed to be on 24-7. You could save greenhouses gases if the government, right now, mandated that all Wi-Fi devices could be automatically powered down when they weren't being used. It would not even be that difficult to imagine a way to save greenhouse gases. The Swiss phones, the Swiss so-called cordless phones, don't broadcast 24-7. They're only used when the person needs it. There's a way for software and hardware to be configured to make that happen. No one has ever calculated the energy savings that would result from it, but it would be substantial.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Dr. Davis, we're hearing a lot of evidence of potential harm and evidence of harm. The folks at Health Canada responsible for Safety Code 6 have taken this inflexible position. It seems like they have everything vested in saying it's safe. They don't even consider they might not be right and they're not offering any potential change.

Why is it that we're hearing from you and others that there are real risks and we're hearing from countries all over the world? Can you guess why Health Canada is taking this position?

[Dr. Devra Davis]

Of course, you'll have to ask them, but I'd like to point out to you that among the countries that have recently established a national institute for research on wireless radiation safety is Israel. Israel lives and dies by radar. They use it, they know what it is, and they know that they need to be smart in using it safely.

Other countries are Taiwan and India. India is a high-tech country, and has huge problems. The Indian Council of Medical Research has a major study under way now of cellphone users and health because they think it's a serious public health issue in India. Again, it's a very high-tech country.

Those countries have generally banned advertising with children and cellphones. That's an easy thing to do. Turkey did it. France has done it. The trash-talking babies with the cellphones, which looked really cute, is a horrifying idea for many reasons, which pediatricians and developmental neuropsychiatrists talk about as well. An iPotty, that is a potty with a holder for an iPad, is a terrible idea, yet it exists, and there are plastic baby teething rattle cases for iPhones, as well as iPads.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

We're over time, Ms. Davis.

[Dr. Devra Davis]

I do actually think that Safety Code 6 has done something good, and I want to commend them for that. In the beginning they acknowledge the need for more stringent standards for children. Samsung, in its insert, says a cellphone is not a toy. It would be good for that information to get more broadly distributed, getting the information out of the phones and onto them as labels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Fry, go ahead.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

There have been very interesting presentations today.

Dr. Herbert and Dr. Davis, it's very compelling evidence that you have basically with regard to autism and with regard to fertility. As a physician, I can tell you that it all makes a great deal of sense when you look at a mitochondrial breakdown of the walls and some of the slides that you showed us. I think your evidence is clear, compelling, very well done; your research is well done.

I wanted to ask my question of Mr. Lord. It would seem to me that industry should be concerned. We have listened now to three sessions of presentations, the majority of which, over 90% of which, have said to us that there is clear causal evidence between not just autism but brain tumours. There is clumping of red blood cells. There is the fertility issue. There are many issues. We heard from the last group that there are prenatal problems with women who may have carried a laptop on their laps while they were working, etc.

My question is this, and I know you weren't here to listen to all of the evidence. Shouldn't industry be looking at the fact that nothing is 100% great and good and wondrous and safe? Everything that we use has a plus and a minus to it. There's not a single thing in this world that is all perfect. Shouldn't your companies, and the cellphone companies and telecom people, start looking to see if in fact they could mitigate some of the things by looking at what the lowest possible frequencies that could be used are, or how you could create the kind of stuff we see in Europe, voice-activated powering on and powering off, so that the precautionary principle is there?

I can give you an example of one industry that actually continued up until 10 years ago to say that there is no side effect from their product's use, and that's the tobacco industry, which had to be legislated and had to be forced long after there was compelling evidence of harm done by using cigarettes. It's one thing that we know, if used as requested, it will cause you to become sick.

Do you think that there is some way that telecoms could look at maybe having some sort of monograph with the use of your product that's easy to read for everyone, that says, please don't keep this on your lap if you're pregnant? Nobody's saying that it can cause...but just in case here's what you do and here's how we can warn people by saying, please take care.

You just said you don't believe that there's hard evidence. But even without hard evidence, we've seen that it takes years sometimes—50 years in tobacco, 20 years in acid rain—to get that kind of evidence out there. Do you not think that there is work? We're told by some people that in fact telecom and wireless industries can in fact recommend a lower dosage use, ways of preventing and having caution.

[Dr. Devra Davis]

The Australian telecom industry does do that.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Is this something you would like your telecom companies to look at, given the evidence? WHO has upgraded this now to a possible carcinogen, so could we not get industry to be forward-thinking and progressive in trying to look at how they can prevent risks?

[Bernard Lord]

Thank you very much for your question.

The sector and the companies in Canada are very forthright. We continue to support and encourage more scientific research, if it is warranted and desired. There has been research on this for a very long time. It's easy to throw words around that incite fear that are not based on anything.

In Canada, we rely on government. You mentioned the health of Canadians. I think the people who really care and have the responsibility for the health of Canadians are the Canadian government. As a former minister of the Government of Canada, I'm sure you would agree this is very important. Standards that are set in Canada are set by the Government of Canada. They're not set by the industry. I think that's important to recognize. The industry will continue to fully comply with those standards.

We will support and we do support research, but you have to appreciate that when research is supported by the sector or the industry, then people who don't agree with the research will simply say the research is biased because it has been funded or supported by the industry. When the industry decides not to support research, then we're told we should support research.

The fact is that we do support research. We do fund independent research where we have no impact whatsoever on the research that is done. We take the evidence that is provided and supported by the World Health Organization, and the standards that are set in Canada are based on those international standards.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Lord.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

We're over five minutes, I apologize.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm so sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Now I would ask the committee at this time...because we do know that the bells are going to go here in a minute or so. Ms. McLeod has a turn and we need unanimous consent to allow her to have her five-minute round. That would put us at about twenty after, and then we'd still have quite a bit of time, 25 minutes, to get to our vote.

I ask the committee for unanimous consent on that.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

All right. Ms. McLeod, go ahead.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Great. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to everyone for providing that support for the final round. I think it's always nice to be able to do a full round.

We had heard earlier from Anne-Marie Nicol, and she indicated that the review of Safety Code 6 could have been much more comprehensive, so I thought that was interesting, because certainly this study is focused on emerging evidence and health risk. But I was very interested in also getting a bit of an industry perspective. I don't think there's a meeting I go to in a rural community that doesn't have service where they're not begging me for service. They frequently talk about accidents on the highway. They talk about their ability to set up small businesses. I think we have to be very cognizant of potential risks, but we also have to be aware of the critical importance of health and safety.

Mr. Lord, a number of countries have lowered standards significantly. What did the industry have to do to continue to provide the appropriate services, but meet those new standards? Can you walk me through how that can happen? We should be able to get baby monitors that people can turn on and off. I'm surprised they're not available in Canada because it seems logical. Can you walk me through the impact of different industry standards?

[Bernard Lord]

I cannot provide you that answer—I wish I could—because I don't have the data or the information based on how the standards would be changed.

I can tell you that the industry and the sector in Canada will comply with whatever changes are brought by the government. The fact that the government bases its regulations on science that is accepted worldwide I think is the right approach. The sector will continue to provide that. It's essential to ensure that Canadians do have access to that service. Everywhere I go in Canada, people ask us for more. Nobody asks us for less.

When we look at what's happening in Canada, Canadians are more connected than almost anyone around the world. We spend more time online than anyone in the world. We're among the heaviest users of mobile technology. What we expect—if we want to use numbers to scare people—is that in the next five years data consumption in Canada will grow by 700%.

What's happening is a rollout of more networks and more devices throughout our communities to enable that growth, which is supporting jobs, businesses, health care, education, community safety, everywhere in our communities. That's the part of the story that has to be told as well. This can be done, and it is done respecting the standards that are set based on science. I'm sure the folks from Health Canada have indicated to you that they apply the precautionary principle. It is included in the standards in Canada. I've asked those questions and they've told us that it is, and we respect that.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Quickly—I think the bells are going and I have only one minute—I would presume in these countries where they have made changes, industry has accommodated. But you haven't had those conversations in terms of how industry has made the adjustments.

[Bernard Lord]

If it's a question of not advertising devices to a certain group of the population, obviously that's easy to comply with. We'd have to look at each country to see how they've complied to the different regulations they have.

We have had conversations. We have conversations, at times, with other groups, other industries, and other countries. But to tell you specifically, I don't have that information. If you request that information, we can certainly find it.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I think it would be of absolute value.

[Bernard Lord]

Absolutely, yes.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

As I said, the bells are ringing.

I appreciate it. I just wanted to get those quick questions in. Thank you so much.