This information is for those of you who's business will be adversely affected by the 1997 ICNIRP recommendations for human exposure to electromagnetic fields.
DG5 of the European Commission has drafted a European Recommendation that the member states adopt the ICNIRP public limits. In effect they are saying that CENELEC will not set exposure limits and the states should not use ENV 50166-1 and -2. Note that this is a "recommendation" and not a Directive. The states are free to do what they want which may lead to many conflicting regulations. The document is expected to be voted upon in about six months. Germany, via the DKE, is already moving to adopt the recommendation. While there are concerns that the limits are being reduced below the CENELEC limits, the largest concern by some is that there are no short term exposure limits at the lower frequencies. The failure of ICNIRP to provide short term limits will greatly affect many industries and products. DG5 will address this lack of short term limits by ammending the recommendation to say that the member states should take short term exposures into consideration. However, DG5 will not provide guidance on relaxation of the limits for short term exposure, so the member states will be left without any guidance whatsoever. ICNIRP plans to address the many questions that they have received, including concerns about short term limits, in a letter of "clarification" to be published in Health Physics in August. However, it is understood that they do not plan to add short term limits at this time. I strongly recommend that you quickly address your comments and concerns in writing to the ICNIRP secretary, Mr. Roger Matthes, Budesmat fur Strahlenschutz, Instute fur Strahlenhygiene, Ingolsthadter Landstrasse 1, D-85764 Neuherberg. Tel: +49 89 31603 288; fax: +49 89 31603 289. Email: [email protected]. I understand that Mr. Matthes speaks excellent English. Richard Woods Sensormatic Electronics [email protected] Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of Sensormatic.
