Hansson Mild letter to Ryan 28 April 2014 on SCENIHR

From: kjell.hansson.mild@radfys.umu.se
To: John-F.Ryan@ec.europa.eu
CC: Giulio.Gallo@ec.europa.eu; Eileen@radiationresearch.org; lennart_ha
rdell@hotmail.com; theosama@auth.gr; Mats-Olof.Mattsson@ait.ac.at
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 09:30:03 +0200
Subject: Regarding SCENIHR EMF text
Comments on the RF fields epidemiology section pages 57-68 in
SCENIHR approved at the 4th plenary of 12 December 2013
Dear Mr Ryan,
I got a copy of an e-mail you sent to Eileen O�Connor regarding the part in
SCENIHR that involves my person, see below:
“Let me also stress that Dr Kjell Hansson Mild is a member of the EMF
Working Group and also actively working with Prof. Lennart Hardell’s
group. He is co-author in 4 of the 5 studies of Professor Hardell, which you
have brought to my attention. Likewise, Dr Joachim Schüz is a member of
the EMF working group and Head of Environment and Radiation Section
at IARC. He was involved in the IARC classification of EMF RF you
mentioned in your email.”
I feel a need to inform about how the work in the group has been
proceeding since it is not correct as stated in your mail to O�connor . First I
must stress that Dr Schüz was not involved in the IARC classification of
EMR-RF. He was part of the IARC secretariat but not a member of the
Expert Group, thus without influence on the working process and voting of
the final classification.
Regarding SCENIHR I have been a member of the working group and
been in charge of the description of the occupational exposure mostly. I
have also been doing evaluation of the exposure set up in the experimental
studies and the exposure assessment in the epidemiological studies. But I
am also an author of key papers on glioma and acoustic neuroma risk that
have been systematically excluded from the SCENIHR review process,
over my objections.
Joachim Schüz, who did the evaluation of the epidemiological studies on
mobile phone use and brain tumour risk, intentionally disregarded key
epidemiological studies that provide evidence of risk for glioma and
acoustic neuroma from mobile and cordless phone use. He was not
interested in taking relevant studies, see below, into the text. He clearly
stated that the epidemiological part was solely his responsibility to write
and furthermore he himself was to decide what to include.
I did inform the group about our upcoming publications directly when
they were accepted for publication. I also presented the results from all of
our three latest studies, references 2-4 below. The study in reference
number 1 was published nearly one year before SCENIHR and reference 5
was available before the final SCENIHR report.
It must be clearly stated that Dr Schüz refused to include these studies in
SCENIHR and that the omission is his responsibility. It is the more
remarkable that two articles by Benson et al published in 2013 were
included with Schüz as a co-author although the publication dates were
about the same as for our studies, or even later (Benson VS, Pirie K, Schüz
J, Reeves GK, Beral V, Green J. Int J Epidemiol 2013, Sep 27, see page 64
in the report).
These later studies from the Hardell group strengthen the association
between use of mobile and cordless phones and malignant brain tumours
(mostly glioma) and acoustic neuroma, whereas the results for meningioma
are inconsistent of an association.
According to my opinion, the epidemiological section in SCENIHR has
fatal flaws that need to be corrected. I object to the way Ryan has used my
name as a contributor in this process. Now my name and reputation is used
to justify a process that I have not had the possibility to influence but
instead been isolated and blocked from meaningful input. Major revision
of the epidemiological section regarding content and conclusions is
needed.
I hope that the update of the preliminary Opinion will resolve these issues
and our papers will be included in the new version.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Kjell Hansson Mild, PhD
Department of Radiation Sciences,
Ume� University,
SE-90187 Ume�, Sweden
Recent studies from the Hardell group not included in SCENIHR 2013:
1. Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. Use of mobile phones
and cordless phones is associated with increased risk for glioma and
acoustic neuroma. Pathophysiology2013;20:85-110. Epub 2012 Dec 21.
2. Carlberg M, Söderqvist F, Hansson Mild K, Hardell L.
Meningioma patients diagnosed 2007-2009 and the association with
use of mobile and cordless phones, Environ.
Health 2013;12:60, doi:10.1186/1476-069X-12-60. Epub Jul 19, 2013
3. Hardell L. Carlberg M, Söderqvist F, Hansson Mild K. Pooled
analysis of case-control studies on acoustic neuroma diagnosed 1997-
2003 and 2007-2009 and use of mobile and cordless phones. Int J
Oncol. 2013;43:1036-1044. Epub 2013 Jul 22.
4. Hardell L, Carlberg M, Söderqvist F, Hansson Mild K. Casecontrol
study of the association between malignant brain tumors
diagnosed 2007-2009 and mobile and cordless phone use. Int J
Oncol. 2013;43:1833-1845. Epub 2013 Sep 24
5. Hardell L, Carlberg M. Using the Hill viewpoints from 1965 for
evaluating strengths of evidence of the risk for brain tumors
associated with use of mobile and cordless phones. Rev Environ
Health 2013;38:97-106. doi: 10.1515/reveh-2013-0006.

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