Ref. Ares(2019)7835902 - 19/12/2019

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL EOR HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY
Deputy Director General for I lealth responsible for Directorates B and C
The Deputy Director-GeneralBrussels
SANTE.DDG 1 .C.4/FK (2019)8638170

Dear Prof Nyberg, dear Dr Hardell,Thank you for your letter of 24 October 2019 to Mr Arūnas Vinčiūnas, Head of Cabinetof former Commissioner Andriukaitis, in which you raised your concern about thepotential adverse health effects of electromagnetic fields.
Further to our previous correspondence, I can now confirm that the revised guidelines ofthe International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection will be publishedvery shortly.
Once the new guidelines are out, the Commission could refer them to the ScientificCommittee on Health, Environment and Emerging Risks for an opinion as regards theneed to review the Council Recommendation.
A second option is to refer the guidance to the Scientific Advice Mechanism for anopinion, which would cover both public health protection and the necessary legislativechanges.
The Scientific Advice Mechanism consists of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, anexpert group of the European Commission that provides independent scientific advice tothe College of European Commissioners to inform their decision making, anadministrative Unit within the Commission, and the Science Advice for Policy byEuropean Academies consortium. The consortium consists of the 5 European Academy
Networks bringing together the outstanding knowledge and expertise of Fellows fromover 100 Academies and Learned Societies in over 40 countries across Europe and spansthe disciplines of engineering, humanities, medicine, natural sciences and social sciences.
As regards the point of the impartiality of the Scientific Committee on Health,Environment and Emerging Risks, a point which we have already extensively covered in
Professor Rainer Nyberg
Fredsgatan 16 A 3565100 VasaFinland
Email: nmyberg@abo.fiDr Lennart Hardell
lennart.hardell@environmentandcancer.com
Commission européenne, 2920 Luxembourg, LUXEMBOURG - Tel. +352 43011
Office: HTC 01/087 -Tel. dirccl line +352 4301-33165
Franz. Karcherfglec.europa.eu

previous correspondence but which you now raise again, let me recall that theCommission takes great care to ensure that the work of this important Committee issubject to stringent rules. For example, the Commission carefully cross-checks that any
conflict of interest which a member of the Committee may have on a specific topic isimmediately declared. Such a conflict will in any case lead to the immediate exclusion ofsuch a member from any further engagement. This approach has been acknowledged by
the European Ombudsman as good administrative practice.
As regards your point of the availability of scientific literature, please be informed that
the Commission is advised by its scientific bodies, such as the Scientific Committee onHealth, Environment and Emerging Risks or the Scientific Advice Mechanism. Thesebodies are, of course in position of or have access to all the available scientific literaturethat is needed to carry out sound and unbiased evidence based risk assessment in their
specific areas of competence. It is simply impossible to cite in my reply all the literaturethat is relevant for appropriate risk assessment in the wide area of electromagnetic fields
and may be used by the Commission’s scientific bodies.
Let me finally reassure you that the Commission will keep abreast of future
developments in view of safeguarding the health of the European citizens at the highest
level possible and in line with its mandate.
Yours sincerely,

2Electronically signed on 19/12/2019 14:59 (UTC+01) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563