Strategic Problems in the Drafting and Implementation of Safety Guides for the Prevention of Radio Frequency Radiation Hazards

The nature of radiated radio frequency fields and the ways in which they may cause either beneficial or deleterious effects are reviewed. The uniqueness of this phenomenon in relation to the drafting of safety guides, and hence ultimately in relation to law, is pointed out. The existing strategy for the drafting of safety guides depends on the determination of “reasonable worst‐case” parameters for each of the mechanisms involved in the coupling process from source to potential hazard. The decisions on what constitutes a reasonable worse case are taken by an expert committee, but comparison of the resulting safety guides with the scant evidence of proven hazards suggests that the worst‐case view leads to a substantial overestimate of the actual hazards. It is suggested that this situation would be likely to be found to be extremely unsatisfactory if ever a hazard situation (whether proven, contended or hypothetical) were to be the result of litigation between belligerent parties. It is further suggested that substantial amelioration of this situation could result if a probabilistic view of the problem were taken. In this case the expert committee would decide on realistic probability density functions, rather than realistic worst‐case factors.