December 18, 1998
Dear Colleague:
Everybody has been wondering how the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) would handle the designation, last summer, of EMFs as "possible human carcinogens" by one of its own working groups.
NIEHS' strategy became crystal clear on December 14: the NIEHS plans to ignore it.
At the last meeting of the National EMF Advisory Committee (NEMFAC), held jointly with the EMF Interagency Advisory Committee in Washington on December 14th, the NIEHS staff distributed a 352-page document, titled: "EMF RAPID: Program Report." This report, which details research results from studies sponsored by the NIEHS, neglects to even mention the conclusions of the NIEHS Working Group. It only states that the Working Group had issued its own report. Nor is there a single word about the three science review symposia that the NIEHS organized to prepare for the Working Group meeting held last June in Minneapolis.
The report does specify that the NIEHS spent $2,569,064 to run the science symposia and the Working Group meeting -- which is close to 10% of **all** the moneys spent on research by the NIEHS under the EMF RAPID program. Nevertheless, none of this work was seen as important enough of being included in NIEHS' own "Program Report."
This is how the four authors of the NIEHS report --Drs. Gary Boorman, Michael Galvin, Christopher Portier and Mary Wolfe-- began their overall conclusion:
"The results of the research supported by this program provide substantial evidence that there is not a robust biological effect of EMF exposure at environmentally relevant levels. These data when taken together with the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] report provide a basis for concluding that environmental EMF exposures at the levels to which human exposure occurs in the environment do not demonstrate an effect on critical biological processes and functions that could be expected to adversely affect human health...."
Note that the NIEHS cites the NAS EMF report but not its own Working Group report --even though the latter is more recent, and Portier himself has
said that the two reports are **not** inconsistent.
The members of NEMFAC could not believe what the NIEHS was doing --and said so openly. It's "shocking" said NEMFAC Chair Shirley Linde. "Stunning," said Margaret Seminario of the AFL-CIO. And Dr. Peter Bingham, who recently retired from Philips Electronics, commented that, "You would think we were in a different universe."
The December 14 meeting was surreal even by Washington standards. NIEHS' Portier, who had organized the Working Group meeting as well as the science review symposia, refused to say whether he stood behind the conclusions of the report, which bore his and Boorman's names. When asked directly whether he agreed with what was written, he replied "I have no comment." He then left the meeting.
When Congress established the EMF RAPID research program in 1992, it required that the Director of the NIEHS, Dr. Kenneth Olden, report back at the end of the program on "the extent to which exposure to EMFs produced by the generation, transmission or use of electric energy affects human health."
Many of those at the meeting observed that Boorman's report could easily have been mistaken for Olden's report. After all, it was titled, "Program Report" and it included a cover letter from Olden, which began: "I am pleased to provide this report on the Electric and Magnetic Fields (EMF) research and communication activities that have been conducted over the past six years..."
But, in fact, Olden's official report to Congress is separate and will be issued later. Portier stressed that the Boorman Program Report "does not reflect the overall conclusions of Dr. Olden's report." But he and others from NIEHS declined to be specific as to what Olden will tell Congress.
Boorman's report, with its bright yellow cover, was given out with a rubber stamped "DRAFT," in small type on the front cover. But that draft stamp seemed almost an afterthought. Most government reports that are still in draft form have the words "draft: do not cite or quote" printed on the top of every page.
In response to NEMFAC criticism, Boorman said he would make some changes before issuing his report.
Last summer in its press release announcing the Working Group's decision to classify EMFs as possible carcinogens, the NIEHS included a quotation that if EMFs did in fact present a health risk, it would be a small one -- even though the subject of risk assessment was never discussed by the Working Group. At the time, some observers suspected that the press release was an early indication of how NIEHS would try to bury the EMF question. The new Boorman report appears to confirm these suspicions.
Portier said that NIEHS Director Olden will send **his** report to Congress sometime in February. At that time, it will also be released to the public.
Louis Slesin
Editor, Microwave NewsP.S. I should note that I am a member of NEMFAC and I too was amazed by Boorman's brazen report.
P.P.S. The full text of the Working Group report is available on the Web at
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