Mobile phones and antenna booster: no health dangers?

No, using your mobile is not a danger to your health. These are the conclusions of a 500 page report published by AFSSET, the French government body responsible for environmental health. Radio waves, a sensitive subject in France for the last ten months, are also reported not to have any negative effects on health. The phone operators are of course delighted, green groups much less so!

AFSSET made public its findings in the French daily, Le Figaro, yesterday. The information comes from a report commissioned by the Ministry of Health and The Environment that was written by a group of experts and assembles results and analysis from hundreds of studies.

The objectives: to inform (reassure?) the French public as to the possible dangers of waves emitted by booster antennae and the use of mobile phones and calm the controversy between mobile phone operators and ecologists.

"Doubts remain as to long term effects"

Several months after a special summitt on the question and the rather vague conclusions that were then drawn, this report is much more reassuring. At least when it comes to short term effects: "The epidemiological data indicates that there are no short term effects from exposure to radio waves. Doubts remain on long term effects though none of the biological mechanisms analysed indicate that this might be the case", states the report.

It continues: "No convincing evidence of specific biological effects from radio waves has been shown to result from non-thermal levels of exposure under the test conditions."  AFSSET nevertheless recommends that studies continue to analyse the possibility of long term effects and says that it cannot formally exclude the existence of such a risk.

When it comes to the possibility of reducing emission levels from booster antennae, AFSSET is more categorical: reducing emission levels would necessitate an increase in the number of anntena installed (which would be costly for the operators) and the report says the advantage of this is based on no scientific justification. Another point for mobile operators against green groups.

Does this mean that the French public will now be reassured? It certainly seems likely that court cases requiring operators to remove their antennae from buildings will become more rare on the other side of the channel.

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