For decades there has been an ongoing conflict between independent science and corporate science in regard to the health effects of EMF radiation. Independent science recognizes both the non-thermal and thermal health effects of EMF radiation, while corporate science only recognizes the thermal health effects at extreme levels. The problem is that international and national health authorities including the FCC and Health Canada have adopted the corporate science position on EMF radiation, which basically protects the telecommunication industry from liability, while people in general are subjected to health effects from this industry’s profiteering. As Dariusz Leszcynski states, “International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection’s (ICNIRP) goal is to set safety limits that do not kill people, while technology works – so something in between.” This amounts to the difference between what will kill people slowly over time vs. killing them instantly.
Through corporate capture and global systematic corruption, ICNIRP is deemed the international authority on EMF radiation protection. National governments in Europe, Australia, U.S.A. and Canada use the ICNIRP’s standards to form and justify their own national standards.
When governments such as the Government of Canada talk about the “new multilateralism” and the great benefits of it, remember the corruption involving ICNIRP, the UN, WHO and national governments.
ICNIRP, based in Munich, Germany, is a 13-member non-governmental, private organization on EMF radiation. The organization is self-regulated, and the members are appointed internally. Below are excerpts from a recent 98-page report “The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection: Conflicts of interest, corporate capture and the push for 5G” by Klaus Buchner and Michèle Rivasi, which exposes the systematic corruption on EMF radiation protection involving ICNIRP and other international bodies, national governments, and the telecommunication industry (underline by NCA).
Overlap of International Bodies
The ICNIRP membership overlaps with the membership of other international organizations, most notably the World Health Organization. In fact, in the 1990s, the Chair of ICNIRP was the same as the Chair of the WHO.
“Most European governments and radiation protection authorities rely mainly on these four scientific bodies for advice on non-ionizing radiation protection:
ICNIRP, The EU Scientific Committee on Health, Environment and Emerging Risk (SCENIHR / SCHEER), The World Health Organization WHO’s International EMF Project, The WHO Cancer Unit IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Investigate Europe showed the close links between especially the first three bodies. “The groups, however, are to a remarkable degree, staffed by the same experts,” it stated. “Of 13 ICNIRP scientists, six are members of at least one other committee. In the WHO group, this applies for six out of seven (members).” The SCENIHR Working Group on EMF also counts two ICNIRP-members…
“The Investigative journalists describe an “astonishing phenomenon: the members of ICNIRP are simultaneously active in all the relevant institutions and thus have control over the official discourse.” They then go on to note that, legally speaking, ICNIRP is an association that auto-controls itself and thus avoids dissenting opinions, but in the first instance, the connection with the German state begins with the chosen address of ICNIRP which is the same as the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BFS)…
Twenty years ago, Cherry said: “This issue has been so politicized. There are two major casualties, the truth and public health. On these matters, I have no respect for the position of ICNIRP, nor that of the WHO. The WHO position is taken solely by Dr Repacholi. ICNIRP is a small self-appointed, self-promoted group that claims standing by having WHO recognition. In other words, a body formed in part and led by Dr Repacholi, claims its standing by being recognized by Dr Repacholi.”
Cherry used harsh words for INCIRP under Repacholi’s chairmanship. “They consistently misquote and misrepresent the published research results. They reject all epidemiological evidence because every single epidemiological study occurs with mean exposure levels and orders of magnitude below their thermally-based standard. They are highly selective, using only a small proportion of the available studies in order to construct and defend their own case. They prefer author’s conclusions that there are no effects, even when the data and analysis in the paper clash with this and contradict it. They dismiss large, reliable and well-defined studies as ill-defined and unreliable. They state that studies don’t show significant increases in CNS cancers when they actually do, even when the papers include significant dose-response relationships. Both the WHO and ICNIRP, under Dr Repacholi’s leadership, have maintained the thermal view to the present, despite the large and ever-growing body of scientific research that firmly and conclusively challenges this.”
Self-Regulation
The ICNIRP self-regulates its research and ultimately the standards it sets for EMF radiation protection. There is no accountability to the public who these standards are supposed to be set for. Rather, the standards are set to protect the telecommunication industry from the harmful effects of liability.
“Given the important effects of funding on research outcomes described above, there can be no doubt that it is extremely important for ICNIRP to ensure it avoids any possibility of conflicts of interests in the way that it or any of its members function. In its statutes it writes: ‘No member of the Commission shall hold a position of employment that, in the opinion of the Commission, will compromise its scientific independence.’
The crucial words here are ‘in the opinion of the Commission’. The Commission evaluates itself about possible conflicts of interest. There are no clear rules by which the Commission judges if any of its members interests compromise its scientific independence. In its statement on the declarations of interests ICNIRP writes:
“The evaluation of personal integrity is very complex and might never be achievable in a perfect way. It is the duty of the ICNIRP Commission to carefully consider and decide if the declared interests potentially constitute a conflict of interest.”
It is clear from this that ICNIRP itself does not have a sharp definition of conflicts of interest (CoI’s), nor does it have a well-developed policy to avoid these kinds of conflicts.”
ICNIRP, National Health Authorities and Telecommunication Industry Collusion
In order to protect the telecommunication industry from liability internationally, there must be collusion throughout the world through international and national EMF health bodies, and the telecommunication industry.
“In his review, “A hard nut to crack”, professor Hardell writes: “Michael Repacholi immediately set up a close collaboration between WHO and ICNIRP (being head of both organizations) inviting the electric, telecom and military industries to meetings. He also arranged for large part of the WHO EMF project to be financed by the telecommunication industry’s lobbying organizations; GSM Association and Mobile Manufacturers Forum, now called Mobile & Wireless Forum (MWF).” Hardell states that Repacholi acted like “a representative for the telecom industry while responsible for the EMF health effects department at the WHO.”
An investigative article in a U.S. magazine The Nation stated: “Although Repacholi claimed on disclosure forms that he was “independent” of corporate influence, in fact Motorola had funded his research: While Repacholi was director of the WHO’s EMF program, Motorola paid $50,000 a year to his former employer, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which then transferred the money to the WHO program. When journalists exposed the payments, Repacholi denied that there was anything untoward about them because Motorola had not paid him personally.”
According to The Nation, “eventually, Motorola’s payments were bundled with other industry contributions and funnelled through the Mobile and Wireless Forum, a trade association that gave the WHO’s program $150,000 annually. In 1999, Repacholi helped engineer a WHO statement that “EMF exposures below the limits recommended in international guidelines do not appear to have any known consequence on health.”
Cellular Biology & Anatomy at the LSU Medical School in Louisiana wrote: “In 1996 the World Health Organization began what it said was a program to assess the scientific evidence of possible health effects of EMFs. But the project was corrupted from the start because it was controlled by the power and cell-phone companies in the industrialized countries. The companies designated Michael Repacholi as the project head. He had long been a consultant and spokesman for power companies, so it was unrealistic to expect him to conduct an open and honest inquiry, but his performance in office was even more miserable than could have been anticipated based on his known conflict-of-interest.”
Marino: “While heading the EMF program at WHO, Repacholi dealt almost exclusively with experts on the payroll of cell-phone and power companies. Scientists who disagreed with the viewpoint of the EMF companies were excluded from the EMF evaluation process. The public was also excluded from participation even though it was a major stakeholder in the EMF debate. Only pro-industry spokesmen were heard in Repacholi’s star-chamber processes, which ultimately resulted in reports and evaluations that exonerated the companies from any responsibility for human disease produced by their EMFs.”
According to Chris Portier, who chaired the expert EHC panel for the WHO, Repacholi has misrepresented the group’s conclusions: “The paraphrasing sometimes has gone a bit far and may be misleading”. Portier is the associate director for risk assessment at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).” (see below).
Portier cites a couple of examples. For example, in a summary of the WHO report, Repacholi states that the EHC panel concluded that “The epidemiological evidence cannot be used as a basis for standards (exposure limits)”. Portier retorts, “Such a statement is absurd, since they obviously can be used…”
A year later, in 2007, Microwave News reported that “Mike Repacholi has now revealed that up to half of the funds raised for his EMF Project came from industry. This admission was made in an interview with Resource Strategies Inc. in an effort, he states, to “set the record straight.” While Repacholi has acknowledged in the past that he raised funds from industry, the extent of the industry support is much greater than anyone has previously suspected. Repacholi has never disclosed how much money he received nor from whom. He insists that the EMF Project was “not influenced by industry…”
Investigate Europe wrote that the conflicts in EMF research run deep: “Historically, science in this field has been associated with the telecom sector and the military. ICNIRP’s safety limits primarily take into account the needs of the telecom industry” claims Dariusz Leszczynski, former long-time researcher at the Finnish radiation protection agency. In 2011, he sat on the committee of IARC, the cancer body of the World Health Organization, when it decided that EMF is “possibly carcinogenic” to humans. ICNIRP’s goal is to set safety limits that do not kill people, while technology works – so something in between”, says Leszczynski.”
Dariusz Leszczynski has written about this many times on his blog and has often referred to an unbalanced expert composition: “ICNIRP can, and should, be considered as a “private club” where, members of the new Main Commission are selected by the members of the outgoing Main Commission. It is a self-perpetuating and self-promoting German NGO that is not accountable for its actions at all. Nobody controls it. Nobody supervises it. Nobody checks it for conflicts of interests. Nobody checks it for the scientific accuracy. In all what and how ICNIRP does, we, the general public, must rely on the self-assurances, from the
ICNIRP, that all is in order. One may ask whether such self-assurances are sufficient when ICNIRP is preparing advisories ‘enforced’ world-wide by the WHO and applied by the numerous governments and by the multi-billion industry.’“
Corporate Capture
The collusion between ICNIRP, WHO, and national governments has evolved into the phenomenon called corporate capture, in which the entire process is controlled by corporate interests, thereby ensuring that corporate interests are served.
“This appears to be a global issue. US researcher, Norm Alster, in his report ‘Captured Agency’ describes what this kind of corporate capture can lead to by referring to the workings of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which is the main official US institution that deals with Telecom issues, and is sometimes mentioned in critiques of ICNIRP: “That is a term that comes up time and time again with the FCC. Captured agencies are essentially controlled by the industries they are supposed to regulate. A detailed look at FCC actions— and non-actions—shows that over the years the FCC has granted the wireless industry pretty much what it has wanted”. [Health Canada is the same.]
“As a result, consumer safety, health, and privacy, along with consumer wallets, have all been overlooked, sacrificed, or raided due to unchecked industry influence. (…) Most insidious of all, the wireless industry has been allowed to grow unchecked and virtually unregulated, with fundamental questions on public health impact routinely ignored. (…) Industry control, in the case of wireless health issues, extends beyond Congress and regulators to basic scientific research. And in an obvious echo of the hardball tactics of the tobacco industry, the wireless industry has backed up its economic and political power by stonewalling on public relations and bullying potential threats into submission with its huge standing army of lawyers. (…) Industry behaviour also includes self-serving public relations and hyper aggressive legal action. It can also involve undermining the credibility of, and cutting off funding for, researchers who do not endorse cellular safety. It is these hardball tactics that recall 20th century Big Tobacco tactics.”
Impact of Corporate Capture of EMF Radiation Protection
The systematic corruption of EMF radiation protection has ensured that the telecommunication industry is protected from liability, while the public in general are unnecessarily put in harms way from the dangers of non-thermal and thermal EMF radiation.
The non-thermal health effects including cancer, blood and organ disorder, severe oxidative stress, cell death and many other serious chronic health issues are disregarded. The thermal health effects are disregarded as well because the standards for thermal health effects are set so high, they will never be reached. For example, Health Canada allows a peak EMF signal of 20,000 V/m, whereas independent scientific bodies like the BioInitiative and Standard for Building Biology say it should be around 0.5 V/m. Similarly, Health Canada allows EMF power to 2,000,000,000 uW/m2, and yet the BioInitative and Standard for Building Biology say it should not more than 1,000 uW/m2 in public, and no more than 25,000 uW/m2 around cellular towers.
“ICNIRP under Michael Repacholi’s chairmanship
As early as 1992, ICNIRP adopted Repacholi’s 1984 IRPA proposal that the only health issue to address in standard setting was the short-term effects due to the absorption of RF/MW energy of sufficient power to be converted to heat, based on the IEEE’s (Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Radiofrequency standard philosophy. Since then it seems to be carved in stone that ICNIRP only recognizes the ‘thermal effects’ of radiation as a serious concern. This is a crucial element to understand the position of ICNIRP, it was built on the logic and thinking of electrical and electronic engineers who are completely lacking in any biomedical expertise.
A fierce and long-standing critic of the first ICNIRP guidelines was Dr Neil Cherry, Associate Professor of Environmental Health. In November 1999, Dr Cherry was invited by the Ministry of Health/Ministry for the Environment of New Zealand to carry out a peer-review of the proposal to adopt the ICNIRP guidelines for cell sites in New Zealand.
Cherry: “The ICNIRP guidelines were covered by a published assessment in 1998. This review shows that the assessment had ignored all published studies showing chromosome damage. It was highly selective, biased and very dismissive of the genotoxic evidence and the epidemiological evidence of cancer effects and reproductive effects. The assessment gives the strong impression of being predetermined in the belief that the only effects were from high exposures that cause electric shocks and acute exposures that cause tissue heating. For example they cite two studies claiming that they do not show any significant increased effects of Brain/CNS cancer from microwave exposures when the actual published papers, Grayson (1996) and Beall et al. (1996), both do show significant increases of Brain/CNS cancer.”
It is quite revealing that Repacholi writes, “ICNIRP has been subjected to criticism and close scrutiny by the public, media, and activists” and yet forgets to mention it has also been criticized by scientists. Because, since the first publication of guidelines by ICNIRP in 1998, there has been a never-ending stream of critical academics publishing harsh analysis on the scientific work of ICNIRP. The issue is that Repacholi has not only been a dominant figure, but also a very divisive figure, in the international EMF-debate and he has been able to make sure that independent scientists who do not agree with the ICNIRP-dogma of ‘thermal effects only” have not become part of ICNIRP nor of the WHO EMF Project…
In 1999, Repacholi published the Proceedings of an International Seminar on EMF Risk Perception and Communication that took place in Canada. The event was not only sponsored by the WHO, some government ministries and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, but also by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and some electricity companies. The almost 300 page document published by Repacholi’s “International EMF Project” (part of the WHO’s Department of Protection of the Human Environment) kicks off with this statement: “Possible health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) have led to concerns among the general public and workers [ignore independent science] that appear to go well beyond those that are attributed to well-established risks. It is necessary to understand why this occurs and to deal with it through an effective communications programme. People have the right to access reliable, credible and accurate information about any health risks from EMF exposure.”
The corruption of the ICNIRP is reflective of the global systemic corruption in the guise of the so-called “new multilaterialism”, which is really the old Liberal International Order. As the ICNIRP shows this order is toxic to humanity and needs to be stopped.
National Citizens Alliance supports an immediate moratorium on 5G deployment to address the serious health and privacy concerns through independent science. In addition, we support an upgrade to the Safety Code 6 that reflects the work of the BioInitiative and Standards for Building Biology Mechanism Interpretation. Further, we support a comprehensive review of Health Canada for its lack of integrity and corruption, whereby the upper echelon of Health Canada is replaced.
https://www.nationalcitizensalliance.ca/
References:
https://klaus-buchner.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ICNIRP-report-FINAL-19-JUNE-2020.pdf
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