Children's health and RF EMF exposure

$\textbf{Aim}$ The report is reviewing and evaluating the current state of the scientific evidence of the effects of EMF exposure from cell phones and base stations on children’s health. Three main areas of children’s health were assessed: - Cancer (brain cancer and leukaemia) and health disturbances, - Effects on embryonic development, offspring, and blood-brain barrier investigated by animal research, - Effects on cognition and the central nervous system (CNS). Additionally, dosimetry issues were considered, i.e. whether children do absorb more power than adults when exposed to RF EMF. $\textbf{Procedure}$ The report is based on the scientific opinions of 7 international recognized experts and 4 advisory experts from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland as well as on a series of workshop discussion. An important criterion for the selection of the experts was that they have a strong record in EMF research, as documented by publications in internationally recognized and peer-reviewed academic journals. Advisory expert panelists supported the discussions of the expert opinions during the workshops. For their selection, it was not required that the scientific research of the advisory experts focuses specifically on the EMF field. Rather, the selection depended on their theoretical and methodological knowledge for the respective topic area to critically review the expert opinion reports. Subsequently, for all relevant endpoints evidence maps were constructed, i.e. graphical representations of the main arguments on which the conclusions are based as well as a description of the remaining uncertainties. The dialogue project was initiated in October 2007 and completed in August 2009. $\textbf{Results}$ Dosimetry For children under 8 years no conclusive evidence exists for the assumption that the SAR level in children’s head is higher than for adults. For whole body exposure, there is some evidence that the ICNIRP reference level cannot ensure that basic restrictions are not exceeded under any circumstances. This applies for children younger than 8 years at specific frequency bands, e.g. around 100 MHz and 1.8 GHz. However, even if further research would prove this it has to be taken into account that ICNIRP basic restrictions comprise large safety factors and real-world [...