ARPANSA - Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

Date: 12 May 2006

ARPANSA COMMENTS ON MEDIA REPORTS OF BRAIN TUMOUR CASES AT RMIT UNIVERSITY AND POSSIBLE LINK WITH MOBILE PHONE TOWERS ON ROOF OF BUILDING

RMIT University announced on Thursday 11^th May that is was closing two floors of a building in Bourke St, Melbourne, because of concern over an occurrence of seven brain tumours amongst occupants in the past seven years. The building has several mobile phone base station antennas on its roof.

The CEO of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, Dr John Loy said today that it was understandable that the University had taken this action but that he wanted to emphasise that there is no established scientific link between RF EMR and brain tumours, either malignant or otherwise.

‘There has been widespread community suspicion that mobile phone handset use may increase the incidence of brain tumours but this remains unproven. The World Health Organisation is coordinating epidemiological research in 13 countries to investigate this in a consistent manner. The studies published to date from this coordinated program have not demonstrated a link with brain cancers’ Dr Loy said.

‘There is also community concern about radiofrequency emissions levels from mobile phone base station transmitters. The levels from these at ground level are generally 10 to 100,000 times lower than from a handset and well below safety limits specified in the ARPANSA radiofrequency safety standard. This safety standard is, in turn, set well below the levels at which any health effects are known to occur. Levels within a building below rooftop antennas are also expected to be very low.’

ARPANSA has completed detailed and extensive survey measurements of environmental levels of radiofrequency radiation in the vicinity of mobile phone towers throughout Australia. The ARPANSA survey results clearly show that the RF EMR from mobile phone towers is generally only an extremely small fraction of the RF exposure standard limits.

Contact:
John Loy 02 9541 8301
Colin Roy 03 9433 2286

ENDS.

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