WHO: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the electric utility industry, has lots of money and is not shy about using it to push its agenda.

Today, EPRI is the only source of research funds on power line EMFs in the U.S. In recent times, practically all of EPRI’s money has been devoted to pushing the idea, championed by staffer Rob Kavet, that contact currents —not EMFs— are responsible for the oft-observed increase in childhood leukemia. Kavet may be on to something, but at the moment only Kavet himself and his contractors embrace this hypothesis.

When asked by a Canadian who is electrosensitive for a response to our July 5 commentary, “Time To Stop the WHO Charade,” here’s part of what Repacholi replied:

“As you know WHO has built the highest possible reputation in public health matters among the public and governments world wide and the EMF Project will not be deviating from the sound science course that sustains this high esteem, no matter what the pressures from self interest groups or individuals. Louis appeals to people who do not believe in the scientific method for resolving issues. He, like others who are unable to argue a scientific case always claim WHO decisions are industry biased—a completely untrue position.” [our emphasis]

Now we know what Mike Repacholi has been doing since the infamous Mike-and-Leeka flip-flop of 2003. Back then Repacholi and his assistant Leeka Kheifets decided that there was no need to apply the precautionary principle to EMFs—soon after telling everyone that the time for action had finally arrived.

It appears that for the last two-and-a-half years, when not shuttling from one meeting to another, Mike has been cataloguing ways the WHO can avoid taking precautionary steps to reduce EMF exposures.

Mike’s apologia will be presented next week at a three-day workshop in Ottawa, July 11-13. He calls it a policy framework. We call it a sham. Mike has assembled a list of reasons for doing nothing. Electric utilities and telecom companies could have written the WHO plan. They may well have played a leading role.

Precautionary policies to protect children from power line electromagnetic fields (EMFs) should have been adopted years ago. It’s a no-brainer, yet health officials continue to sit on their hands.

There has long been widespread agreement that EMFs are linked to childhood leukemia. They are also likely to play a role in both brain and breast cancer as well as in miscarriages and in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But health agencies have been unwilling to move against these largely preventable risks. It’s astonishing that those charged with promoting public health —not just electric utility executives— are the roadblocks to change.

The brains of young children absorb twice as much as RF energy from a cell phone as those of adults, according to a set of new calculations carried out by Joe Wiart's research group at France Telecom in the suburbs of Paris.

On March 15, Richard Saunders, head of the non-ionizing radiation effects group at the U.K.’s National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), will join the WHO’s EMF project in Geneva for an 11-month sabbatical. Saunders, who received his doctorate in zoology and comparative physiology in 1973, has spent most of the last 30 years at the NRPB. He is a member of ICNIRP’s standing committee on biology.