The study was carried out under a contract to the Mobile Communications Research Foundation (FSM), which is resident at ETH. (1) The required funding amounting to 723,000 Swiss francs was provided by the Swiss and Dutch authorities (60 percent) and by the mobile phone industry (40 percent). Gregor Dürrenberger, general manager of the FSM, emphasized at the media conference that the study had been carried out absolutely independently in spite of this partial financing linked to an interested party. For example he said the contract had specified that neither the Research Foundation nor the financial backers would receive any access to the research design, proposal or progress until publication of the results. The study appeared on Tuesday 6 June 2006 in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives”. (2)

The investigation was prompted by the results of the TNO study in 2003. (3) These implied that the exposure of test subjects to mobile phone (UMTS) radiation led to a deterioration in their well-being. Experts in the field were astonished by the finding. Predictably, the TNO study met with a strong response in the public arena and among citizens’ groups with a critical attitude to mobile phone radiation.

Doubt as to the robustness of the data

However, there was controversial discussion from the start as to the robustness of the TNO study’s data. This is why the FSM spoke out at an early date in favour of repeating the study. The question focused on whether the astonishing finding relating to mobile phone signals was reproducible. In 2004 the go-ahead was given for a Swiss follow-up study in which the Dutch authorities also had an interest. It was carried out by a consortium consisting of Peter Achermann from the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Zurich, Niels Kuster, ETH Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT’IS), and Martin Röösli from the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of Bern.

“Our results cannot confirm the results of the TNO study,” was how Study Director Peter Achermann summarized it at the media conference. A total of 117 persons were exposed to mobile phone radiation. Of these, 33 had previously declared that they were electro-sensitive and 84 that they were not electro-sensitive; the total number of persons in the TNO study was only 48. The test persons, who were between 20 and 60 years of age, were exposed to two levels of field strength corresponding to a mobile phone antenna: one volt per metre and 10 volts per metre, with an interval of one week between them. Each person underwent two 45-minute tests and a third without any radiation as a control condition.

A mobile phone irradiates the organism much more intensely

The assessment of the well-being questionnaires completed during the tests did not reveal any change correlated with the radiation intensity compared to the control condition. However, electro-sensitive persons reported more symptoms independently of the field strength. In addition, according to Achermann, the test subjects were unable to perceive mobile phone fields. Here again electro-sensitive persons estimated the field condition to be more intense – but without any connection with the field strength actually present. The same picture emerged during the testing of cognitive abilities: here again it was not possible to detect any consistent influence by the mobile phone radiation.

Gregor Dürrenberger from the Mobile Communications Research Foundation (l.) took part as a co-ordinator and ETH Professor Niels Kuster collaborated as an author in the TNO Follow-Up Study of mobile phone radiation. large

The studies also showed that the maximum value of radiation absorption in the brain at 10 volts per metre is about one hundred times less than the internationally recommended threshold value. This is in turn one hundred times less than when using a mobile phone. Niels Kuster illustrated the radiation ratio between a mobile phone and an antenna like this: the exposure from 24 hours of continuous irradiation by an antenna corresponds to two seconds of telephoning with a mobile phone: "That’s just about long enough to say ‘Hello’."

So does that mean that the UMTS (mobile phone) radiation from antennas is completely harmless? No. The authors say it should be borne in mind that the study examined only the short-term effects of a mobile phone antenna signal on well-being and intellectual performance. This study could not be used to say anything about the health risk caused by hand-held UMTS mobile phones or by chronic irradiation – such as when a person lives in the immediate vicinity of an antenna. Information about this might possibly be given by, among other things, the recently launched National Research Program 57 “Non-Ionising Radiation – Environment and Health". (4)

Swiss government: focusing on research and the precautionary principle

Based on the study, the mobile phone operators Swisscom Mobile, Orange and Sunrise now expect that "The barriers to the approval of transmitter installations will now be removed,” says Michael Burkhardt of the telecom providers’ trade association. Jürg Baumann of the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, also representing the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health and the Federal Office for Communications, thought that the study made the moratoria imposed on UMTS (mobile phone) antennas by individual local government authorities in Switzerland appear unfounded.

In addition to the NFP 57 and other international research, the Swiss Federal Government is relying on the precautionary system with scientific immission (environmental input) threshold values and much stricter installation threshold values. The latter apply to places were people remain for a prolonged time. For UMTS (mobile phone) antenna radiation this threshold value is 6 volts per metre. This means it is ten times stricter than the immission threshold value. According to an announcement on Tuesday 6th June 2006, environmental protection doctors are continuing to hold firm to their demand for a moratorium on the further expansion of the mobile phone network. The justification stated that there were grounds for fearing health problems as a result of the long-term pollution caused by mobile phone antennas.