ICNIRP 2009 draft

This page concerns the 2009 draft guidelines for consultation produced by ICNIRP, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.  On other pages we give more information on:

• an overview of this consultation draft
• details of what it says about possible health effects at lower levels of field
• the existing ICNIRP guidelines which remain in force

On this page we give the details of the numerical values proposed in the guidelines.  We give just the values for 50 Hz (values at 60 Hz are sometimes different).

We give the basic restrictions and compare them to the equivalent values in the existing 1998 ICNIRP guidelines and in the ICES standard.  The existing ICNIRP guidelines gives the basic restrictions in terms of induced current density; the draft new guidelines and the ICES standard give basic restrictions in terms of induced electric field.

All these guidelines and standards give reference levels (ICNIRP terminology) or "maximum permissible exposures" (ICES terminology) in terms of the external fields.  We give these values and also the values of the external field actually required to produce the basic restriction based on the latest numerical dosimetry.

[1] "Occupational exposure" is the ICNIRP terminology, ICES use "controlled exposure"

[2] the ICNIRP basic restrictions apply to the central nervous system.  ICES give separate basic restrictions for the brain, the heart, the hands, wrists, feet and ankles, and for other.  We give here just the value for the brain but see details of the others

[3] for brain only - if the spinal cord is included as well the value becomes 905 μT for occupational exposure and 309 μT for public exposure

[4] In ICES the maximum permissible exposures for electric fields are derived from indirect effects so the field corresponding to the basic restriction is not relevant

[5] 5 kV/m in general but 10 kV/m in the right of way of a power line