1 Introduction
1. The Committee launched a major inquiry into the
Government's handling of scientific advice, risk and evidence
in November 2005.[1] In
addition to taking evidence on these issues at a general level,
we decided to further inform our work by undertaking three case
studies. This Report on the UK's involvement with, and response
to, the EU Physical Agents (Electromagnetic Fields) Directive
(referred to hereafter as "the Directive") represents
the outcome of the first such case study.[2]
We chose to examine this subject partly in order to test the way
in which scientific advice is used by the UK Government to influence
policy at an EU level, and partly in response to concerns from
the medical research community about the potential impact of this
Directive on the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment
for diagnosis, treatment and research. This case study also gave
us an opportunity to examine how the precautionary principle is
used in practice.
2. The Directive was adopted on 29 April 2004 and
must be enshrined in law in Member States by April 2008. Implementation
in the UK can be achieved through secondary legislation under
the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The Directive is subject
to a review in 2009, when Member States are required to report
to the Commission on the practical implementation of the Directive.
3. As part of this inquiry we received 15 memoranda
of written evidence: from Government and its agencies; the medical
and research communities; and from industry. We undertook a brief
visit to Brussels in which we held meetings with the UK Deputy
Permanent Representative at UKREP, Anne Lambert, and the official
responsible for negotiations on the UK side, Mr Kevin Dench; the
Director General of the Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
Directorate at the Commission, Mr Van der Pas; and a British member
of the European Parliament Committee which considered the draft
Directive, Liz Lynne MEP. We also took formal oral evidence from
two officials from the Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
Directorate, Mr Bernhard Jansen and Mr José
Ramon Biosca de Sagastuy. They subsequently made it clear that
the views expressed were personal, rather than those of the Commission.
However, Mr Biosca de Sagastuy has been the lead official on the
Directive since 1997 and his views are therefore a useful gauge
of the approach taken in the Commission. The following week we
took evidence from representatives from the medical resonance
(MR) community and the Chief Executive of the Medical Research
Council (MRC), Professor Colin Blakemore. The views of the MR
community were represented by Dr Stephen Keevil, Head of Magnetic
Resonance Physics, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.
He was speaking on behalf of the joint submission of evidence
from the five organisations whose members stand to be the most
affected by the Directive in terms of MRI: the Royal College of
Radiologists (RCR), the British Institute of Radiology (BIR),
the Institute of Physics (IOP), the Institute of Physics and Engineering
in Medicine (IPEM), and the British Chapter of the International
Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). This evidence
is referred to as the "joint submission" throughout
this Report. Finally, we took evidence from the Minister responsible
for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Lord Hunt of Kings
Heath, together with the Chief Executive of the HSE, Mr Geoffrey
Podger, and two representatives of the Health Protection Agency
(HPA), Dr Alastair McKinlay and Dr John Stather. We are extremely
grateful to all those who contributed written and oral evidence
to this inquiry and to all those whom we met in Brussels.
1 www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_and_technology_committee/scitech091105.cfm. Back
2
The other two case studies are on the Classification of illegal
drugs and the Technologies supporting identity cards.
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