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[http://www.powerlinefacts.com/includes/nav_orange_left.htm]
Summary
Recent studies
demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that there is a strong
statistical association between exposures to magnetic fields of
intensities greater than 4 mG and an increase risk of contracting a
number of deadly diseases.
The California Department of Health concludes it is
likely that this statistical association is due to the fact that the
magnetic fields cause the deadly diseases.
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New information on EMF
Introduction
When properly analyzed,
scientific data convincingly and consistently show a link between
magnetic fields greater than 2-4 mG and cancer. New analyses of older
data have induced a
wholesale revision in the views of high-level authorities,
including the utilities themselves, who have dramatically revised their
own statements on EMF.
Therefore, the information on
this site is focuses primarily on "Recent Studies," which were published
after September 2000, and does not cover earlier studies, which do not
incorporate the recent revisions in the findings.
A Connecticut law requires the Connecticut Siting Council to include
health and fair market value issues when deciding on the application to
expand and build 345-kilovolt lines.
Here is the rationale for the law. As a followup, the Council study
shows that
burying long lines is feasible.
Based on experiments involving rats and ozone, scientists at the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory h ave
identified a chemical reaction that may
explain higher rates of illness observed= among some people exposed to
strong electromagnetic fields such as those produced by high-voltage
power lines.
A California Department of Health Sciences Evaluation concludes EMFs
"can cause some degree of increased risk of childhood
leukemia, adult brain cancer, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and miscarriage"
[emphasis added]. The Evaluation—which is the
culmination of a 9 year, $7 million research effort—further concludes
that magnetic fields may cause suicide and adult leukemia.
The Final Evaluation is dated June 2002, but was only released about
October 13, 2002.
The Final Evaluation uses as a standard causation,
which is a more rigorous test than the more common standard that seeks
to demonstrate of an association between EMF and many of these
diseases. Here is an
analysis of this important report. In addition, the California
Health Department also produced a relatively short analysis of the
policy options implied by the Evaluation. The Department discusses
the policy implications of its analysis it a
separate report.
The
California Department 0f Health
will decide on August 19, 2004, whether to tighten standards in
response to this report.
Even
though the incidence of all these diseases (except miscarriages) is
low, the California Department concludes EMF represents a
significant health risk. "[I]f EMFs do contribute to the
cause of these conditions, even the low fractions of attributable
cases and the size of accumulated
lifetime risk of highly-exposed individuals could be of concern to
regulators. Indeed, when deemed a real cause, estimated lifetime
risks smaller than these...have triggered regulatory evaluation and,
sometimes, actual regulation."
Microwave News,
Wired.com,
CNN, and
The
Electronic Daily, have already reported upon this important
study. Here is a transcript of
CNN's August
15 report on the final evaluation. On October 6-8, 2002, further
information on the final report
was reported in prominent foreign newspapers including London's
Sunday Times and
Sunday Telegraph and Canada's
Montreal Gazette,
Windsor Star, and
National Post.
An
October 17 article in the San Francisco Gate (the online arm of
the San Francisco Chronicle) discusses the report's implication in
length.
As a direct result of the
California Report, parents in Edmonton, Canada,
were
able to temporarily delay construction on a new school that they
feared was too near a transmission power line. However, ultimately,
the school board decided to proceed.
During the week of
March 31, 2002, the Minnesota Department of Health posted an
evaluation of the massive
report of the California Health Department that found that
magnetic fields probably cause a number of deadly diseases. The
evaluation, whose authorship is not stated, was produced in secret
utilizing a process that was completely closed. Perhaps as a result,
it contains numerous factual errors. Nothing is known about the
people or process through which reached its conclusions, nor the
standards it used. Additionally, in Minnesota, a so-called
Interagency Working Group on EMF issues issued a
report dated September 2002, but likely also published last
week. It also contains numerous errors. Again, no authors were
identified, and the process through which this report was produced
was completely closed. Perhaps as a result, It is clearly not a
serious report but rather a reiteration of the utility industry's
position
A California Administration
Law Judge
recently agreed, concluding that power lines represent a health
risk.
The Japanese news service reports that
new Japanese study finds that EMF is linked to children's brain
cancer. This is part of a three-year research effort into the impact of
EMF being conducted by the former Japanese Science and Technology
Agency, now part of the education ministry. Nevertheless, the Minnesota
Department of Health
continues to cite this study as not finding such a link.
 A
new UK study similarly finds a link between power line EMF and
childhood leukemia. (Also
reported by the BBC on October 30, 2004.) It is now asserted
UK authorities supressed this information for 3 years.
New
information developed for the Connecticut Siting Council
demonstrates that is
technically feasible to bury power lines for at least 20 miles.
In an
advertisement appearing on page A3 of the November 1 Wall Street
Journal, the engineering firm ABB
promotes its "no EMF technology, saying "Invisible Power Lines...From a
revolutionary approach to underground power transmission....we're
serving the world's energy needs while reducing impact on the
environment. Delivering reliable,
'invisible' energy without any electromagnetic fields is just one of
the ways we bring competitive advantage to customers...Welcome to the
world of ABB."
Richard
Box from Bristol is the winner of the
Bombay
Sapphire Prize 2004 – the world’s biggest award for artists,
designers and architects working with glass. With a prize value of
£20,000, this prestigious annual award that rewards and promotes
excellence. “The piece drew attention to the presence of the
electromagnetic field in a dramatic way, making the invisible, visible.
For many who saw Field, it was a beautiful, magical and sinister
experience, which was both thought provoking and educational.”
The UK's National Radiological Protection Board
may
reduce its limits for EMF exposures. (October 20).
New reports suggest that the NRPB will require homes to be at least
150 meters (about 450 feet) away from power lines (October 27).
One of the issue confronting policymakers is the value of a human
life. Does it make sense to spend $4 million to bury a line if the
reduction in EMF will safe one life? An
article in the on-line magazine Slate suggests a human life is worth
between $4 million and $8 million.
A three-fold increase in overall spontaneous abortions and a
six-fold increase in spontaneous abortions occurring before the 10th
week of pregnancy is associated with even momentary exposure to magnetic
fields greater than 16 mG. This is the conclusion of new
research by Dr. De-Kun Li reported in the January 2002 issue of
Epidemiology. Similar results were found
in a separate paper on spontaneous abortions prepared for the
project by G. M. Lee which is printed in the same issue.
A study reported in the October 11th edition of the UK Sun newspaper
compared people living within 25 meters of a power line with others in
the same area outside the 25-meter boundary. It found that more than one
in seven pregnant women with homes near transmission power lines had
miscarried, compared to one in 29 living further away. Of men and women
living close to the lines, 27 per cent said they had suffered from
depression compared to 13 per cent further away. Sixty-three per cent of
those within 25 meters reported regular headaches compared to 39 per
cent of those outside that distance. Insomnia and dietary problems were
reported to be around 50 per cent higher near the power lines.
According to a January 4, 2003,
article in the Toronto Star, Canadian scientist Magda Havas has
determined that 42 of 60 measured Canadian cities had magnetic field
intensities that exceed those shown to be associated with childhood
leukemia.
According to a
news
report in New Scientist of January 10, 2002, Li's results caused a
California Health Services department scientist, Raymond Neutra, to
reexamine his 1991 study of 727 women. Originally, his group's study
had measured average magnetic field exposures and with inconclusive
results. However, when Neutra recently reanalyzed the data from his
earlier study, he discovered the results were similar to Li's. Women
exposed to peak magnetic field levels greater than 14 mg doubled their
risk of miscarriage over those who had no such exposure.
The results of nine major studies on EMF are reversed in a
major analysis, Most of these studies originally had failed to
find a link between electromagnetic fields (EMF) and cancer. The new
review concludes that, upon reanalysis, the data used in the earlier
studies do identify an association between cancer and EMF. The authors
of the new analysis are the same researchers who headed the earlier
studies that had failed to find an association. (See also the
appraisal of this study in the industry journal,
Microwave News.)
The authors now conclude, “The level of [statistical] significance
that we see for the excess risk at high [EMF] exposure makes chance an
unlikely explanation.”
A doubling of risk among children with average exposures above 4 mG
is "unlikely to be due to chance," according to ICNIRP, a leading
European quasi-governmental authority on the dangers of radiation. In a
detailed review of the literature on ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), the
ICNIRP believes that the data "point toward a possible risk increase."
A dose-responsive relationship between magnetic fields from power
lines and asthma and combined chronic illnesses is identified in
an August 2001 Australian study. The study concludes, "The results
are consistent with a possible adverse effect of environmental magnetic
field exposure on immune-related and other illnesses."
Dr. Paul Vailleneuve of the University of Ottawa finds in
study published in February 2002
that those who were exposed to a moderate 6mG of
magnetic fields increased by a factor of 12 their odds of developing an
agressive brain tumor know as glioblastoma multiforme.
The
Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies and the National
Cancer Center, in midterm analysis of a joint three-year survey project,
have
concluded children who are often exposed to such electromagnetic
waves, emitted from high-voltage power lines and some household
appliances, are on average more than twice as likely to get leukemia
than those who are not exposed to EMF.
A
study conducted in the Netherlands shows that intermitted power
frequency magnetic fields cause more DNA breaks than do steady fields.
(August 2002)
A new study, published in Cancer Cell International,
presents experimental evidence to show that extremely low frequency
electromagnetic fields can have a potentially damaging effect on the
process of cell division in (already) radiation-injured cells, which
could lead to them becoming cancerous. (August 2002)
Research is being conducted in Brussels to determine the maximum
exposure for ELF-EMF (September 2002)
In a
significant July 2002 study sponsored by, among others, the National
Institute of Enviromental Health and the Department of Energy, Reba
Goodman and Martin Blank (who testified for the PLTF) note "It is now
well established that low frequency (<300 Hz) electromagnetic (EM)
fields induce biological changes that include effects ranging from
increased enzyme reaction rates to increased transcript levels for
specific genes... Despite cell and tissue differences (e.g.,
mammalian,dipteran, yeast, bacteria), approximately the same EM field
exposure, 60 Hz, 80 mG for 20 min, (Goodman and Blank, 1998) induces
hsp70 synthesis in all systems studied... DNA is known to conduct
electrons, and studies on ATPase, cytochrome oxidase, and the BZ
reaction, show that EM fields accelerate electron transfer rates. We
have suggested that EM fields activate DNA by generating repulsive
forces when accelerating electrons within the DNA double helix (Blank
and Goodman, 1997, 1999, 2001)."
The highly respected industry journal
Microwave News
concludes
there is a scientific consensus people exposed to
above-average levels of EMF experience "a
clear and consistent pattern" of increased cancer risk."
There is
solid evidence that second hand smoke is less dangerous than
magnetic fields.
The State of Connecticut
has enacted a law that effectively requires the burial of all large
transmission power lines built near residences, schools, and other
sensitive facilities.
Another
Minnesota community is
impacted by a power line proposal.
As
reported by The San Francisco Examiner, on June 8, 2004, A
California Administration law judge
has expressed concern over EMF's. However the PUC's chairman
indicates he will ignore the judge's recommendation.
The UK's National Radiological Protection Board
has lowered its maximum recommending expsoure limits by adopting the
Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP)'s standards for
maximum exposure to EMF from power lines. This standard sets the
maximum exposure at 1000 mG, which is still a ridiculously high level,
given the scientific consensus that there is a statistical link between
EMF's greater than 4 mG and increases in the rate of cancer.
According to a
March 22,
2003 newspaper report, the EU plans to limit power line magnetic
field emissions. (Switzerland already has limited them to 10 mG and
Spain has declared such emissions to violate human rights.) It also
reports that the world’s largest insurance body, Lloyds of London, is
now refusing insurance coverage to power generating companies against
damage to workers and consumers’ health.
A new
technological development may defer for many years the need to build new
transmission power lines. However, it also means that existing lines
will become potentially much more dangerous than they are at present.
 3M
is supporting the advanced testing of its new
Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced (ACCR) conductor. The new
conductor uses a core of aluminum-matrix-composite wires surrounded by
temperature-resistant aluminum-zirconium wires. According to officials
at the Department of Energy, the composite core is stronger than steel,
but doesn't elongate as do conventional cores.
The new conductor, which has been under development for many years,
carries up to 3 times as much current as conventional steel conductors
of the same size.
Accordingly, it is likely most of the need for new transmission
capacity can be met merely by replacing existing conductors with the
ACCR conductor. Therefore, it will no longer be necessary to build new
transmission lines, and it should now be possible to remove those
existing lines that have undue environmental or human impacts. However,
once existing lines are restrung with the new conductor, the magnetic
fields they emit will become three times as intense.
Field tests are underway. The National Transmission Technology
Research Center in Oak Ridge,TN,
is testing the
new conductor. Separately, the Tennessee Valley Authority has strung a
test line near Oak Ridge. Using a $4 million Congressional
appropriation, the Western Area Power Administration
has
just begun a year-long test of a one mile, medium sized 795 kcmil
conductor in a 230-kv installation near Fargo, N.D., under some of the
most challenging weather conditions in the U.S.
As
reported on June 13, 2004, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the
energy utility Xcel plans to begin using this new wire. Elsewhere,
construction of power lines using this technology is now undeway.
An
article in the New York Times magazine
of May 5, 2002, discusses "Evidence Based Medicine"
(EBM). The application of EBM to ELFEMF would lead to far stronger
actions than are currently entertained by public health authorities. The
article suggests that resistance to EBM is lead by doctors who are
unequipped to deal with rigorous science and who therefore feel
threatened by this new trend in medicine. Another article in the
August 10 New York Times points out that the causes for most cancers
are not known. Given that the causes are unknown, it is unreasonable
for the
Minnesota Department of Health and others to decry the dangers of
EMF on the grounds that it is not shown there is a cause and effect
relationship between EMF and cancer.
A recent article in the Lakeland Florida ledger relates how
prospective homeowners fear transmission power lines.
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