David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-05-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government took in response to the report of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, chaired by Sir William Stewart, published in 2000; what steps the Government has taken in response to that report’s recommendations on limiting children’s use of mobile phones; what research the Government has commissioned or undertaken since that report on that issue; and whether any such research supported or contradicted the findings of that report.

Jane Ellison

The Government published a detailed response to the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP) report’s recommendations and set in place a range of measures to address concerns about mobile phones and health. International guidelines for limiting exposures to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields were adopted, and precautionary advice to mobile phone users was published. The Mobile Telecommunications Health Research Programme ran for 11 years after the IEGMP report and government continues to support research on this topic.

IEGMP concluded the balance of evidence at the time of its report did not suggest mobile phone technologies put the health of the population at risk; that remains the case after a considerable volume of more recent national and international research.

Precautionary advice to mobile phone users has been maintained and is available here:

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Mobile-phone-safety/Pages/Introduction.aspx

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