Cautious optimism for proposed European MRI exposure limit exemption.

I n 2004 Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Liz Lynne was Shadow Rapporteur on a proposed European Union directive for what is now the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe. EU Directive 2004/40/EC aimed to regulate worker exposure to electromagnetic fields. “I did a lot of research work on it,” MEP Lynne said. “I contacted medical experts and consulted manufacturers to understand what the limits would mean if applied.” For part of her background research, she attended a meeting held by physicians at a prominent Belgian hospital where radiologists expressed their concern that the directive could cause health care turmoil. “They were very worried that if the directive was applied, they would not be able to use magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] for research or in the clinic,” she said. However, she found political resistance when she highlighted these concerns. “People were not listening to the medical experts,” Lynne said. “Under the original legislation, MRI scanners would have been effectively banned from 2012.” Although the directive passed, MEP Lynne continued to highlight the havoc it would produce for health care systems if implemented as scheduled in April 2008. Strong support came from other quarters when, in March 2007, the Alliance for MRI was formed. A coalition of 27 MEPs, 15 European and national-level patient groups, 13 scientifi c representative groups, and 28 institutional members of the European Society of Radiology, the Alliance for MRI also lobbied against implementing the directive. In October 2007, the European Commission proposed postponing the implementation deadline from April 2008 until April 2012 to allow time for analysis of what ramifi cations the directive could have in medical settings. The commission launched a study in four European countries (Germany, France, Belgium, and the UK) to evaluate the directive’s implications on medical MRI use. The study results indicated that the directive would negatively affect scanning of vulnerable patients that required technician assistance and interventional MRI, such as used for brain tumor surgery. The directive could also hinder adoption of MRI device development or how newer scanners could be used in clinical trial research. Emma Greenwood, policy manager at Cancer Research UK, said, “Going forward, there was some concern that in research it would be possible to technically breach the limits as they are set out — for example, if you were moving the patient around during the scan.” Yet in 2007, the European Commission invested approximately € 6,000,000 in MRI development projects as part of the 7th Framework Programme for Research.