Does mobile phone radiation cause cancer? Principle findings Following detailed lab experiments, researchers at the US National Toxicity Program (NTP[1]) have published[2] data which provides evidence of a statistically significant association between high exposure to radio frequency emfs (RF emfs) and malignant schwannoma of the heart in male rats. The evidence revealed thus far is consistent with a causal explanation. Extrapolating to human disease is however unclear; as this depends on the mechanism behind this association. It is hoped that in the final report, NTP will be as specific about this mechanism as they can be. As it is, there are signs in the data that the mechanism may be unusual, so much so that a new challenge could be made to the norms of cancer compensation. The final NTP report is due before the winter of 2018. As a draft for peer review, the NTP report may not be quoted. A challenge to the norms of cancer compensation The courts, and therefore insurers, nearly alwa

  Managing liability ENIDs using Radar Radar The Radar service provides an expert view of science-based changes to liability insurance exposure and provides quantitative estimates of that exposure. Some examples from the Radar database are appended here: American football and brain disease, LED lights and eye injury, wood dust and nasal cancer and, 3D printing. History The Radar service was first developed under contract to ABI[1] as a collective work on emerging liability risks. Radar was then commercialised by Re: Liability (Oxford) Ltd[2]. As ABI evolved, the service was passed to liability insurers to take up individually. Liability emerging risks are now more often referred to as liability ENIDs[3], for example in Solvency II guidance. Aim The aim is to inform judgement of factors that could drive changes to liability insurance exposure and to estimate the resulting size of that change. Method This follows the familiar method of identify, evaluate and take action. Identificat

Glyphosate Glyphosate[1] (GP) was introduced into the market in the early 1970s. It is a widely approved and widely used herbicide. If it caused injury during foreseeable use then liability insurance would be involved. Given both professional and amateur usage, the foreseeable uses would be many and non-compliant standards of use would be unsurprising. Generic and specific causation would be the key tests of liability. News Recent interest in causation includes requests to regulators to label foods as containing traces of glyphosate on the grounds that it may cause cancer. This would have a significant impact on sales of food and glyphosate. This follows on from a 2015 decision made by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to classify glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Californian law requires that it adopts IARC decisions[2]. The DeWayne Johnson (aged 46) claim for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) recently[3] reached a key step in awarding damages. The claimant made