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'industrial forest' of the San Bruno mountain & magnetic fields of our electric devices

Associated with the generation, transmission, and use of electrical energy is the production of weak electric and magnetic fields (EMF). In the United States, electricity is usually delivered as alternating current that oscillates at 60 Hz putting fields generated by this electrical energy in the extremely low frequency (ELF) range. Prior to 1979 there was limited awareness of any potential adverse effects from the use of electricity aside from possible electrocution associated with direct contact or fire from faulty wiring. Interest in this area was catalyzed with the report of a possible association between childhood cancer mortality and proximity of homes to power distribution lines. Over the next dozen years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and others conducted numerous studies on the effects of of ELF-EMF on biological systems that helped to clarify the risks and provide increased under- standing. Despite much study in this area, considerable debate remained over what, if any, health effects could be attributed to ELF-EMF exposure.

The scientific evidence suggesting that ELF-EMF exposures pose any health risk is weak. The strongest evidence for health effects comes from associations observed in human populations with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in occupationally exposed adults. While the support from individual studies is weak, the epidemiological studies demonstrate, for some methods of measuring exposure, a fairly consistent pattern of a small, increased risk with increasing exposure that is somewhat weaker for chronic lymphocytic leukemia than for childhood leukemia. In contrast, the mechanistic pattern across studies although sporadic findings of biological effects (including increased cancers in animals) have been reported. No indication of increased leukemias in experimental animals has been observed. The lack of connection between the human data and the experimental data (animal and mechanistic) severely complicates the interpretation of these results.

NIEHS Report on health effects from exposure to power-line frequency electric and magnetic fields, NIH Publication No. 99-4493, May 4, 1999.

 
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Krešimir J. Adamić