Virginia Department of Health
A federally coordinated EMF Research and Public Information Dissemination (RAPID) program was established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Section 2118 of the Act directs the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a comprehensive program to:
DOE is responsible for the overall administration of the 5-year, $65 million EMF RAPID program and directs research on exposure assessment and field management techniques. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) directs the risk assessment and health effects research. The public information component of the program is the responsibility of both DOE and NIEHS. The program will be jointly funded by both Federal and non-Federal sources. Non-Federal source contributions will account for at least 50% of the total funding (23).
The Act also establishes two committees and their responsibilities to ensure broad representation of expertise and interest in the EMF issue. An Interagency Committee representing nine Federal agencies is responsible for developing the program agenda; establishing guidelines for interagency coordination; and monitoring, evaluating, and reporting program results. The Interagency Committee includes:
The Interagency Committee, established by the President of the United States, must also prepare two reports to the Congress: an interim report in 1995 and a final report in 1997.
The RAPID Program also receives guidance from the National EMF Advisory Committee (NEMFAC), whose members are drawn from representative constituencies including public interest groups, organized labor, state governments, academia, and industry. The Advisory Committee also provides recommendations to the Interagency Committee on several tasks. The National Academy of Sciences will review and evaluate the research conducted under the EMF RAPID program (23).
The RAPID Program has the central goal of determining if electric and magnetic fields associated with the generation, transmission, and use of electrical energy pose a risk to human health. The fact that twenty years of research have not answered that question is clear evidence that health effects of EMF are not obvious and that risk relationships, if risk is identified, are not simple. Because epidemiologic studies have raised concerns regarding the connection between certain serious human health effects and exposure to electromagnetic fields, the program adopts the hypothesis that exposure to electric or magnetic fields under some conditions may lead to unacceptable risk to human health. The focus of the program is not only to test, as far as possible within the statutory time limits, that hypothesis for those serious health effects already identified, but to identify as far as possible the special conditions that lead to elevated risk and to recommend measures to manage risk. The RAPID program complements other Federal and non-Federal EMF research, and the results of these other programs will be considered in light of the new data obtained from the RAPID program.
An important feature of the RAPID program that distinguishes it from previous programs is its focus on a risk assessment framework for decision making. This includes the specific task of developing a detailed risk assessment model for potential human health effects of fields as well as adopting an overall risk assessment approach for all activities funded. The risk assessment approach during the early phases of the program will be useful in reviewing the evidence of existing research to determine gaps and areas where resources should be focused. In the later phases of the program, risk assessment research will form the basis for decision-makers' interpretation of the health effects research and suggest directions for assessing the nature and extent of any risk. Further, risk assessment research is expected to assist program managers with systematic identification of key issues related to potential health effects. Consequently, it will be an invaluable tool in directing the communication component of the program (23).
The risk assessment framework is an important cornerstone of the entire RAPID research program. The framework provides a context for making funding decisions and should not be confused with the formal risk assessment model, which will be independently developed for the program. Since research funded under the RAPID program must be oriented toward testing the overall hypothesis, some methodology must be employed to ensure that all research incrementally addresses the hypothesis in the context of the specific human endpoints selected. Thus, the hazard identification process must be employed to determine what additional information is needed to test the hypothesis. This approach will ensure that all research is policy focused. Specific steps for implementing the risk assessment framework will be developed by NIEHS.
Essential to the RAPID program strategy is a continual application of the risk assessment approach. Evaluation of research conducted through the program, and independent of the program, will be ongoing and will be used to refine program activities by redirecting, expanding or concentrating the areas of research. Such refinements should result in narrowing the focus to those health effects and areas of research that will maximize the chance of being able to answer the statutory questions within the program time frame (23).
The RAPID program awarded more than $4.7 million in grants in 1994 to scientists who will study gene expression, melatonin, calcium signaling, cell membranes, tumor promotion, cell behavior, and brain receptors. Of the 21 awards, 11 were funded for four years. Another seven received funding for three years, two for two years and one grant was funded for a single year. First year costs for individual studies range from just over $108,000 to $377,600. Subsequent yearly totals for the grants are $4.21 million in FY 1995-1996, $3.99 million in year 3, and in the fourth year, $2.56 million (24).