Summary of the situation report bulletin (2/2014) published online

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After the summer, the year saw another series of diverse events on electromagnetic fields. Examples include the 8th International Workshop
on Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, held in September in Varna, Bulgaria, and the European Economic and Social Committee public
hearing on electromagnetic hypersensitivity on November 4 in Brussels. Related material can be found on the respective websites.

At the national level, the preparation of national regulations implementing Directive 2013/35/EU of the European Parliament and of the
Council on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents
(electromagnetic fields) is still underway.

Once again, I have found some fascinating scientific articles for this bulletin. This time, the bulletin starts with articles on field exposure and childhood leukemia. My attention was drawn to the fact that, according to one of the authors, the discussion on whether extremely low-frequency magnetic fields are causally linked with childhood leukemia has been ongoing for almost four decades.

A couple of the articles discuss the association between magnetic field exposure and different physical symptoms. This has already been
extensively explored in earlier bulletins, but there are again some interesting observations.

The bulletin ends, as many times before, with articles on occupational exposure. This time, the research focus covers areas such as brain tumor risk.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!

Summary of the situation report bulletin (1/2013) published online

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As usual, I start the editorial of the situation report bulletin by sharing the latest about the EU Directive being prepared on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields). As far as I know, further progress has been made in the matter, and I expect the completed directive to be published in the next few months. At the BioEM2013 conference in Thessaloniki on 10–14 June, there was a session on the forthcoming directive, but it has not been officially published yet.

In addition to the BioEM2013 conference, some other events related to electromagnetic fields have been organised in the past six months. In February, the European Commission discussed risk communication by hosting the “Workshop on risk communication – electromagnetic fields and human health”. The workshop presentations are available on the conference website.

Again, I found some fascinating new scientific articles for this bulletin. This time I included more articles on occupational exposure, as more of them were available than usual – and this was the case with articles related to adults in general too. I also thought that with the new directive right around the corner, occupational exposure is now of even more interest than usual.

I start, however, with an article dealing with childhood leukaemia. This study was conducted in France, and it seems they will continue their research on this topic there. From children, I move on to adults and to a study that investigated the potential association of exposure to overhead power lines with adult cancers.

Magnetic field exposure caused by cars has also attracted researchers’ attention, so I chose two vehicle-related articles for this bulletin. The first one compares the magnetic field exposure caused by electric and petrol-driven vehicles, and the latter one focuses on occupational exposure in the automotive industry. Magnetic fields seem to be low in electric cars, yet somewhat higher than in petrol-driven vehicles.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!

Summary of the situation report bulletin (2/2012) published online

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It is time once again for a new situation report bulletin, and, as usual, I shall start by sharing the latest about the EU Directive being prepared on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields). As far as I know, the Directive has moved forward within EU institutions, but it has not yet reached its final form.

Several interesting conferences or other events have been organised in the past six months. Two examples worth mentioning are the 34th Annual Meeting of the Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS), held in Brisbane, Australia, in June, and the 7th International Workshop on Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields in Malta in October. Both of these conferences included interesting presentations.

The workshop titled “EMF Health Risk Research: Lessons Learned and Recommendations for the Future”, held in Monte Verità, Switzerland, in October, focused on finding novel hypotheses for research (especially regarding interaction mechanisms) and also on reviewing current understanding of the possible mechanisms. Some of the material presented is available on the workshop’s website.

I again found some fascinating new scientific articles for this bulletin. Starting with two articles on childhood leukaemia, the bulletin first reports on a study on potential associations between paternal occupational exposure and the child developing leukaemia, followed by an article on a study conducted in the Czech Republic examining the association between exposure to magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia. The third article includes evaluations of published exposure limits. As usual, I finish the bulletin with an article on occupational exposure and the effects related to it. This time, it’s an Indian study on chromosomal alterations in electrical workers exposed to electromagnetic fields.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!

Summary of the situation report bulletin (1/2012) published online

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In the previous bulletin, I promised I’d get back to the EU Directive being prepared on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields) in this bulletin. As far as I know, the directive proposal is still being discussed within EU institutions, so there is nothing new to report on it.

Quite a few scientific articles have been published since the previous bulletin. Several articles discuss the association between childhood leukaemia and magnetic fields. One of them includes calculations on the estimated overall population attributable risk of leukaemia cases caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields. Another study examines the way policy decisions are made, sometimes based on insufficient information. The topic can be approached from a wide range of perspectives.

While looking for material for this bulletin, I found so many articles on childhood leukaemia that it started to look rather an unbalanced collection. In the end, I managed to find articles on some other themes as well. One group, for example, has studied whether maternal exposure to magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines is associated with the risk of birth defects. The researchers conclude that the study did not provide support for the assumption that exposure to magnetic fields during early pregnancy would increase the risk of birth defects in offspring. This is a positive piece of news for all who might have worried about the issue.

Finally, I’d like to mention two more articles. I found quite an interesting article that explored whether the magnetic fields generated by incubators might influence melatonin production in newborns. I don’t remember seeing any similar studies before. The bulletin again concludes with an article related to occupational exposure; this time it’s a study on various blood chemistry parameters in employees.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!

Summary of the situation report bulletin (2/2011) published online

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I concluded my previous editorial by saying that the European Commission had just given its proposal for the directive on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields), and I promised to return to subject in the next bulletin.

My plan was to write a separate news article on the Commission’s proposal for this bulletin, but I realised it is not worth sharing information that is far from being finalised. As far as I know, the directive proposal has been discussed and is still being discussed within EU institutions. Since the matter is still being processed, it is best to patiently await the final result. I will address this subject again in the next bulletin.

Since writing the previous report, I have had the opportunity to attend some interesting conferences. The Bioelectromagnetics Society had its 33th Annual Meeting in Halifax, Canada, in June. Another interesting conference related to our theme was EMF 2011, organised by the European Commission in Brussels in November.

Quite a large number of interesting new scientific articles have been published recently, so it was easy to find some for this bulletin. The first article reports on a piece of research that examined the possibility of children developing asthma if their mothers were exposed to magnetic fields during pregnancy – a topic that has not been studied much in the past. The next two articles discuss the effects of high magnetic fields; the exposure levels are much higher than those people are normally exposed to.

The very last article on occupational exposure is rather technical. It is about a study that used calculations to estimate the exposure to electric fields in live-line work. The reason I included this article was that in some tasks it may be important to be able to find out the level of exposure to electric fields. The future employee directive will obviously specify the situations that require the measuring of exposure levels.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!