Joint FGF-FMK Meeting: "Can we trust in Exposure Limits?"
26.02.2009
On March 31, 2009, the 4th information conference of the lecture series "Handy & Co." took place in Urania in Vienna. Experts from authorities and research institutions in Austria, Germany and Switzerland answered the following questions:

What is the basis of the limit recommendations?

Why are they not integrated into standardized national laws?

Are there new research results that questiond these recommendations?

What international efforts for the standardization of regulations have been realized?
Conference language was German.
Further information and presentations at: http://www.fgf.de/english/research_projects

Rapporteur’s reports of the FGF Workshop “Open Questions in the Research on Biological and Health Effects of Low-Intensity RF-EMF”
29.01.2009
About 60 scientists from Europe, Israel, the U.S. and Australia met in Stuttgart from November 17 to 19, 2008, to discuss open questions on the biological effect of radiofrequent fields. Central subjects were the research on children, on possible long-term effects as well as on mechanisms on a cellular or a sub-cellular level. The Rapporteur’s Report of Ken Foster and Jochen Buschmann summarizes the lectures and results of the workshop. The report as well as all presentations are now available for download at our website.
A short report of the workshop, which was organized by FGF with the support of the Environmental Ministry of Baden-Württemberg, will be published in our next Newsletter.
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Presentations from the Joint FGF-FMK Meeting "Mobile radio and cancer - What says epidemiology?"
09.12.2008
This information meeting was held in Vienna, Austria on December 02, 2008. It offered an overview of the results of the INTERPHONE study and the planned subsequent studies. Furthermore, methodology and statistics in epidemiology was presented and the results of epidemiologic studies was confronted with experimental biological studies on this subject. Priority was given to the review and discussion of the results of different research areas.
Download the presentations from the workshop (in German) at:
http://www.fgf.de/forschungsprojekte/ws20.html

Genetic harm through mobile radio? - FGF/FMK workshop in Vienna (Austria)
17.09.2008
Four international experts dealt with this topic at an information meeting of FGF and the Austrian Forum Mobilkommunikation (FMK) in Vienna on September 17, 2008.
The participants got an introduction to the complex topic and an overview of the scientific state of knowledge on the question of the genetically harmful effect of electromagnetic fields of mobile radio. Other important topics of the workshop were questions on scientific methodology and communication as well as on the reproducibility of studies on genotoxicology.
More information on the workshop, abstracts with speakers\' presentations and original soundtracks of the event at:
http://fmk.at (in German only)

BfS review of much discussed mobile radio studies
18.07.2008
On the subject "Potential health effects of radiofrequent electromagnetic fields" and mainly caused by mobile radio, different studies and reports were published during last weeks, that have aroused public interest and lead to fierce discussions. These studies have been listed, their basic content briefly described and reviewed by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS).
This synopsis is available in German as a pdf-file (56 KB):
http://www.emf-forschungsprogramm.de

Monograph: “Gepulste Felder – eine besondere Gefahr für die Gesundheit?“ (German only)
27.06.2008
In this book about pulsed fields and the question if they are a special health risk, FGF deals with the controversially discussed topic of possible biological and health effects of pulsed electromagnetic waves, as they are used today in numerous technical applications, for ex. in mobile radio. With the present 158-pages publication it is tried to approach this important and interesting subject in a neutral way and from a scientific point of view.
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Results of the German Mobile Telecommunication Research Programme presented in Berlin
17.06.2008
During the six years project time of the programme, open questions on health risks through radiofrequent electromagnetic fields were investigated in more than 50 individual projects and the public perception of mobile communication was recorded. At the conclusive conference on June 17 and 18, the final results of the programme are currently presented.
The programme was carried out by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) commissioned by the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU). The existing limits were sufficient to protect the public properly against the known risks of mobile radiaton, so the BMU’s conclusion.
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Longterm cohort study COSMOS launched in Great Britain
16.06.2008
Within the context of the British Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR), the national part of the longterm Cohort Study on Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) was launched in April 2008. In the international study it should be investigated if there is a connection between the longterm use of mobile phones and the incidence of brain tumours and neurodegenerative diseases.
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Confusion about studies of University of Vienna on genetic harmful effects of mobile radio fields
28.05.2008
After Professor Alexander Lerchl had expressed his doubts about the data validity on April 29, 2008, in a scientific comment (Lerchl 2008) on the study about the genetic harmful effect through UMTS fields (Schwarz et al. 2008), the principal of the Medical University of Vienna informed on May 23, 2008, in a Press Release , that an independent statistical data assessment confirmed the suspicion that the data have not been measured in experiments, but have been produced. This did not only concern the data of the study published 2008 on UMTS fields, but also the study by the same research team from 2005 (Diem et al. 2005). As a first step, he now wants to inform the editors of the two scientific magazines where the data have been published that the two publications mentioned are based on a scientific inappropriate behaviour.

Hugo Rüdiger, one of the co-authors of the studies, rejected the reproach of falsification. “It is incredible, I am bewildered”, the scientist explained on May 23 towards Austria Presse Agentur (German only). He conceded that there had been problems with the study published in 2008 – “but only in this study” – because the so-called “blindness” was not guaranteed anymore.
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Programme and abstract book on FGF/IMBA workshop:
“ Omics for assessing unclear risks“
20.05.2008
The workshop from 26 to 28 May 2008 explores biological effects of radiofrequent electromagnetic fields and with this example it tries to answer the question what importance new biological methods of analysis such as genomicx, transcriptomics and proteomics have for the risk evaluation with respect to carcinogenic qualities of certain substances. The programme of the workshop as well as the abstract book with the abstracts of all workshops are now online available.
http://www.fgf.de/forschungsprojekte/workshops.html

FGF Annual Report 2007
31.01.2008
The Report 2007 offers a view into the operational business and scientific activities carried out in the last year. It covers all important information about the past fiscal year of the FGF which includes:

Membership development and organisational structure

FGF research activities: projects, colloquia and cooperation

Workshops

Public relations activities: publications, website, media relations

Prospects for 2007
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