Examination of Witnesses (Questions 820-839)
DR STEPHEN
KEEVIL, PROFESSOR
COLIN BLAKEMORE
AND PROFESSOR
RAY DOLAN
17 MAY 2006
Q820 Chairman: We specifically
asked that question and the response from the Commissioners was:
No, there are none.
Dr Keevil: Yes, and yet their
Directive is based on the premise that there are.
Q821 Chairman: Absolutely.
Dr Keevil: If you read the Directive,
it says this is to prevent known adverse effects.
Q822 Bob Spink: In fact
the only evidence they gave was that of flying chairs and scissors—which
we all know about.
Dr Keevil: Quite.
Q823 Bob Spink: They can
be controlled.
Dr Keevil: These are rather different
issues.
Q824 Chairman: I am sorry,
perhaps you would finish that reply and then we will move on.
I should not have interrupted you.
Dr Keevil: I think that is an
important point. If they have made that statement which contradicts
themselves in their own statement, that is interesting. Coming
back to the issue of the ICNIRP guidelines, we would say that,
if you look at that 1998 document, first of all, it is 1998 and
ICNIRP themselves have subsequently said in 2004, in a paper that
dealt specifically with MR, that that 1998 guidance was "written
many years ago" and is now under review—so they themselves
have cast some degree of doubt on it or at least acknowledged
that it needs updating—and it also acknowledges that there
is a wide degree of uncertainty in the scientific evidence that
is available. It says that the aim of the guidance there set out
is to provide an adequate level of protection, given a number
of differing expert opinions. So there is not a settled consensus,
even in the expert community, informing the ICNIRP guidelines
and they do not pretend there is.
Q825 Dr Iddon: I was not
there, but I am looking at the evidence that was collected, and
the officials said that there was consensus in the scientific
community.
Dr Keevil: The ICNIRP document
1998 does not give that impression. It says there is a number
of differing expert opinions and I think that remains the case.
There is uncertainty. It is the nature of science. There are wide
uncertainties. The NRPB review more recently underlined that and
acknowledges the breadth of the uncertainties that there are.
The ICNIRP document expressly is setting out to provide an adequate
level of protection. I think the way of interpreting that is that
it is saying what levels of limits should we adopt if we want
it to avoid any possibility of an effect, not that these are limits
that are evidenced by positive evidence but that they are there
to avoid any possibility of effects.
Q826 Mr Flello: I want
to pick up on something you said a few moments ago in terms of
the dizziness effects that have been noted. You said there was
some suggestion that it was to do with calcium ions but then I
think you said, "We think it has more to do with the inner
ear." Do you have any evidence on which this conclusion is
based?
Dr Keevil: I am not a physiologist.
I would look to others for that. My understanding is that the
state of the literature at the moment is that it is likely to
be an interaction. As you move through the static field, currents
are induced in the fluid in the inner ear which causes dizziness.
This may be more Professor Blakemore's area.
Professor Blakemore: I do not
know the evidence in detail in this field but that seems a much
more plausible explanation of acute dizziness.
Q827 Mr Flello: You feel
it is plausible but you do not have the evidence on which to base
that.
Professor Blakemore: I do not
have knowledge of the literature in that area; it just seems more
plausible from a physiological point of view.
Q828 Dr Harris: Mr Biosca
said, "The ICNIRP guidelines are not contested anywhere in
the world. They are the world authority in this field." When
the Chairman probed on that, at question 802 of that transcript,
"This is in line with the American, Canadian, Australian
and Japanese standards because everyone in the world follows ICNIRP."
I do not understand how you can say it is sparse when he is so
didactic and specific about how it is the authority.
Dr Keevil: It depends how you
regard it. It is true that they are the international commission
that set guidance in this area, but, if you look at the evidence
base underpinning what they have said, it is all about effects
that occur at a few tens of hertz, which they have then extrapolated
over much higher frequencies. And it is guidelines. You have to
look at it intelligently and apply it to your situation and not
turn it into a one-size-fits-all set of regulations. It does not
make sense to do that. Also, it emerged later in that evidence
session that these numbers are not used in the US at all but they
have limits that are set out by the IEEE, which it was claimed
in that evidence are the same as the ICNIRP.
Q829 Chairman: We asked
that.
Dr Keevil: Over the gradient frequency
range, which is of most interest to us, they are not the same
at all. There is a quite a wide margin. I cannot remember the
exact factor but there is quite a wide factor of difference between
the exposure limits in those two sets of guidelines. Both of them
are based on the same evidence base, it is just that they are
given a slightly different interpretation by those different bodies.
Q830 Dr Harris: We asked
about how firm this evidence was, because it had been said that
this was sparse and the official had a sheaf of papers which were
studies. We asked if they were published and he said yes. He talked
about experts from the NRPB, the German Institute of the Protection
Against Non-Ionising Radiation, the Italian Institute—the
results were published in Physica Medica—the Finnish
Institute, the Health Council of the Netherlands: a study commended
by the Government of the Netherlands, and that was in relation
to earlier work, but, nevertheless, there was a volume of stuff
that he claimed was peer reviewed and published, setting out the
basis of the evidence base for these figures.
Dr Keevil: ICNIRP have looked
at all that evidence and reviewed it, and yet their conclusion
in the 1998 guidelines was that there are a number of differing
expert opinions. So it is not the case that all that literature
supports a single viewpoint leading to concrete limits. They have
said there is uncertainty; there are a number of different views;
let us adopt numbers that give an adequate level of protection.
There is no inconsistency between saying all that evidence is
peer reviewed and published but it leaves a range of uncertainty,
and somebody has come up with some numbers to provide what they
describe as an adequate level of protection in that situation.
Mr Flello: At the risk of the Chairman
pulling me up on this, what is your view on how ICNIRP can be
held up as a good authority when it comes to mobile phone emission
limits that—
Chairman: I am going to pull you up on
that because that is a whole new inquiry.
Q831 Dr Iddon: My question
is related to that. Colin, I am referring to the Weak Electric
Fields Group which you work on. Can you tell us what the purpose
of that group was? Was it to deal with the controversy about power
lines or mobile telephones? Indeed, did you know that your work
was going to influence the Directive that has been produced? In
the light of that, are you happy at the way in which the group
that led to that Directive used your work on the Weak Electric
Fields Group?
Professor Blakemore: The Weak
Electric Fields Group was set up by the NRPB in 2001. I had been
a member of the NRPB's Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation
since 1992. That group's remit is to review the evidence for interactions
between electromagnetic fields and the body and possible hazards
associated with them across the whole range of non-ionising radiation.
During the previous years, we had dealt with much of the rest
of the spectrum, with ultraviolet light, with lasers, with certain
parts of the low frequency spectrum, with fields associated with
video displays and, of course, with radio frequencies and mobile
phones. One could argue that it was just part of the natural progression
of review of the evidence that the NRPB should want to move on
to the low frequency part of the spectrum. It has to be said,
though, that was not unconnected with some concerns that had been
expressed about risks from power lines and part of our remit was
to think about that.
Q832 Dr Iddon: Could I
pursue that a little further. Are you surprised at the way in
which the Commission have adapted their work there? Are you happy
with the way they have used it?
Professor Blakemore: I am not
sure of the extent to which the review of the Weak Electric Fields
Group fed into the discussions of the Commission. It certainly
influenced some of the recent discussion of the HSE. I should
point out that the Weak Electrical Fields Group considered of
a small group of experts who met only once and wrote a brief report.
One of their recommendations was that there should then be a workshop.
That workshop was conducted—it was chaired by my colleague
Professor Noble from Oxford—and there is a full report of
that workshop, published in 2003.[1]
I suspect that the Commission drew on the extensive published
record of that workshop in their considerations.
Q833 Dr Iddon: But you
had no idea your work was going to lead into the MRI Directive?
Professor Blakemore: No, I did
not. It was a surprise to discover that the report of the sub-committee
had been quoted during the discussion at HSE a few months ago
and cited as evidence in favour of the limits and therefore of
the Directive. You will note that I and my colleagues, all the
external expert members of that sub-committee, in fact wrote a
letter to HSE expressing ourconcern about the interpretation of
our report.
Bob Spink: Perhaps we can go to very
short questions and answers now because much of what I am going
to ask on engagement you have already mentioned to some extent.
We have already heard that the MR community came to this feast
late. When did you first formally know about this? When did you
get notification of it and when did you formally respond first?
Q834 Chairman: Professor
Dolan, could you start on this one, please?
Professor Dolan: Yes. Just to
put things in perspective, I am director of the Wellcome Trust
Funded laboratory whose principle investigative technique is using
MRI at 1.5T and 3T. I heard rumblings of this last summer. I was
formally notified at a meeting of the Wellcome Trust in October
that this legislation was on its way and that it would have a
bearing on us, so I have known for six to nine months.
Q835 Bob Spink: This is
well after the event has taken place.
Professor Dolan: During the consultation
neither I nor any of the experts in my laboratory who would be
seen as international experts were ever consulted.
Q836 Bob Spink: Have you
drawn the conclusion that this was rushed through without getting
a decent evidence base for it because of your opinion in the light
of the political considerations?
Professor Dolan: Certainly that
is the impression that I and my colleagues—and I think not
just in my laboratory but nationally—have formed. The range
of application of this Directive was clearly not taken into account,
particularly its profound likely effects upon the direction of
very important research that is likely to have ramifications for
all the major neurological diseases, from dementia right through
to schizophrenia.
Q837 Bob Spink: Stephen
mentioned this earlier, so I will not ask him again, but the original
Directive was flawed: there was no evidence base for the inclusion
of static magnetic fields. That was removed, showing the flaw.
Did anyone have the opportunity to talk about time varying fields
during that period or were time varying fields just not considered
at that stage?
Dr Keevil: I have been involved
for slightly longer than Professor Dolan in this issue and we
first became aware in the UK of this as an issue sometime in the
middle of 2003. I have not been able to trace the exact date but
it is around that time. In April of that year, industry in Europe,
primarily Siemen and Philips, wrote to the European Commission
expressing concerns, not only, as has been suggested, about the
static field but in fact about the gradient and time varying field
issues as well. It is on the record that that was submitted as
early as April 2003. Contact with the HSE in the UK started a
few months later. We wrote to the HSE around July 2003, we wrote
to NRPB (as it was then), and since then have been involved with
them in a dialogue of sorts. I think it is fair to say that our
concerns were not taken particularly seriously initially but more
recently there has been much better engagement and we are looking
together for a solution.
Q838 Bob Spink: From that,
do I take it that you were not satisfied with the help you received
and the response you got on your behalf from the HSE and the Government
during 2003, at least on time varying fields?
Dr Keevil: Certainly not from
the HSE. There was no involvement directly with the Government
at that stage. That came rather later in the process. With the
HSE, no we were not happy with that because, to some extent understandably,
their initial response was that this was an issue that should
be taken up with NRPB (as it was then—now HPA) because they
set the guidelines and the HSE were obliged to implement them—in
much the same way as we are hearing from the Commission in relation
to ICNIRP: that you do not look at it intelligently; you just
apply the numbers as they come out. That was very much driven
by the view that was prevalent in Europe and still is, so that
is understandable. It became a different story when we started
to engage at Government level. I have to say that. That really
is where we are now. There is much more an attitude of working
together to try to find a solution to this problem.
Q839 Bob Spink: Do you
think the industry was at fault in not providing enough evidence
or making the HSE aware enough about the issues and consequences
of the Directive for the industry?
Dr Keevil: Not to the best of
my knowledge. I would not say that. I am not here representing
industry and I am not aware of all the lobbying that they carried
out. Certainly at the European level, as early as April 2003 they
were lobbying about not just the static field but time varying
fields. Industrial colleagues were also involved in the lobbying
that took place in the UK. So, no, I would say industry were fully
engaged.
1 Note by the witness: The citation is: Radiation
Protection Dosimetry, volume 166 (2003) Back
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