4. Does regulation protect the population?

Swiss ordinance is a two-tier regulation. On one hand, the international exposure limits apply to all places to which persons have access. Those limits are based on scientifically accepted health effects caused by excessive eddy currents (low-frequency fields) or excessive tissue heating (high-frequency fields). Exposure limits protect people against all known detrimental health effects. A large «safety factor» (factor 50) is included in the limits.

Based on the precautionary principle, Switzerland has defined in addition to these exposure limits precautionary limits for so-called «sensitive places» like apartments, schools, offices, etc.: for low-frequency fields an additional factor of 100 (magnetic field), and for high-frequency fields an additional factor of 10 (electric field) was introduced. Precautionary limits account for people's concerns and for still unsettled scientific questions and, hence, uncertainty in risk-assessment.

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