Institution of Engineering and Technology

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, formerly the Institution of Electrical Engineering, IEE) maintains a Policy Advisory Group on possible biological effects of EMFs. The Group issued a FactFile in 2001. In a section entitled “Should I be worried?”, this concluded for power frequencies:

“It will, unfortunately, never be possible to say with certainty that fields are safe. Science can never prove that anything is totally safe. Quite properly, on a sensitive public-health issue, research continues. However, there is a broad consensus among the many national and international bodies that have reviewed the evidence (including the IEE): the balance of the evidence is against the fields encountered by the public being a cause of cancer or any other disease.”

They also issue position statements roughly every two years. The most recent, in May 2006, concludes:

“At low frequencies, the cumulative evidence from the large body of literature built up from intensive research over the past 25 years suggests that the existence of harmful health effects remains unlikely. No generally accepted exemplar of any biological effect of such fields has been established. However, pooled analyses of epidemiological studies have suggested an association between higher magnetic field levels and childhood leukaemia, and a recent major U.K. study suggests an association with residential proximity at birth to high voltage overhead power lines. In the absence of convincing mechanistic and biological evidence of 50/60Hz (“power frequency”) field effects these epidemiological findings are difficult to interpret as evidence for a causal link….

In summary, the absence of robust new evidence of harmful effects of EMFs in the past two years is reassuring. The Group is of the opinion that this should be a major factor to take into account by policy makers when considering both the implementation of precautionary approaches to public exposure and also during the development of exposure guidelines.”

back