This summer started with a busy congress period. The first week of June saw the 31st International Congress on Occupational Health in Seoul, South Korea, held by the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH). The event was followed by the BioEM2015 conference in
California.

The European Commission and its Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) have now published the final “Opinion on potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) 2015”, with similar conclusions to those drawn in the 2009 Opinion. The report is available for a closer look on the SCENIHR website.

At the national level, the preparation of national regulations implementing Directive 2013/35/EU 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 intriguing pieces of research for the bulletin. As many times before, the bulletin starts with papers on field exposure and childhood leukemia. Towards the end of the bulletin, there is a paper reporting on the magnetophosphene perception of volunteer individuals exposed to 50 mT magnetic fields. Their descriptions of the phenomenon make for quite interesting reading. The last article deals with occupational exposure. This time the focus is on oxidative stress.

Hope you enjoy reading this summary in English!

Leena Korpinen

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!

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!