Final report | PDF-file (9,5 Mb)

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Summary

HERMO (Health Risk Assessment of Mobile Communications) was the fourth one in a series of national research programmes in Finland since 1994. These programmes, held by Finnish universities and research centres have aimed to answer the needs of people and to support international projects in the area of health effects of electromagnetic fields. The planning of the HERMO programme was based on the research needs listed in the WHO Research Agenda and review of recent literature.

The aims of the HERMO research programme were:

• to study acute and chronic effects of RF fields on the nervous system and sensory organs
• to investigate the effects of RF fields on children
• to study the sources of error in an epidemiological study on mobile phone use and cancer
• to improve dosimetry and to provide dosimetric support for biological studies of this project
• to study the dosimetry of RF fields near metallic implants
• to provide materials for risk communication on RF fields
• to study the biological relevance of amplitude modulation

No evidence of detrimental health effects were obtained in the studies on cell cultures, laboratory animals, voluntary persons, or theoretical modelling. Some interesting biological effects were found, however.

The programme was coordinated by the University of Kuopio. The other participants responsible of the 13 sub-projects were University of Turku, University of Helsinki, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Tampere University of Technology, STUK Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The total costs of the programme were about 1,9 million euros, of which over 80 % were covered by governmental sources and the rest by mobile phone manufacturers and network operators: Tekes- Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (46 %). Universities and research institutes (37 %) Nokia, Sonera, Elisa and Finnet (17 %).