Can Transmission Lines and Appliances cause Cancer
Document Title: Can Transmission Lines and Appliances
cause Cancer
Document Ref No: R9705151
First Published: Reflections - TBA
Publication Date: 15th May 1997
Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen, MSSC
I am writing this on my laptop as I sit on an enclosed platform attached to an electric power pylon sixty feet high as part of a protest campaign against the high tension electric cables being erected by the National Power Corporation in readiness for the APEC meeting this November. These cables pass close to the Preda home for abused children where as many as thirty children and 15 staff are in daily residence. The electromagnetic radiation from the cables pose a serious risk of cancer and brain tumors and so we asked the NPC to reroute at least two of them along an existing transmission route. The local mayor Kate Gordon refused to grant the NPC a right of way so there I am with a magnificent view of Subic Bay and with a lot of worries raised by the studies conducted about electromagnetic radiation from power cables. Some deny there is any danger, others minimize it as being generally harmless but does it cause cancer?
We are surrounded by electricity, radio antennae, cell phone sites, high and low tension cables and household appliances. Electricity passing through electrical wire or cable sets up it own electromagnetic field (EMF. The strength of radiation given of various according to the strength of the voltage passing through a cable. Electricity literally surrounds our lives. Our factories, workshops, offices and homes are wired inside and out and furnished with appliances that give off EMFs and many are now asking can they be the source of so much cancer that is spreading through the world. Our very lives sometimes depend on these as an essential source of power for industry, communication and home use.
But are they safe? It is only decades ago few asked this question. The attitude was see no harm there is no harm. Aside from the serious cases of electrical line men and radio antenna technicians getting various forms of cancer not much evidence was available to determine if there is any connection the electromagnetic fields until recently. Now even cell phones which give off EMR are highly suspect. To be sure electric power corporations and cell phone companies have a vested interest in playing down any such dangers. They go out of their way to minimize and even deny any known danger. If the truth were that such EMR from power transmission lines cause or contribute to cancer, brain tumors, genetic disease then they would have enormous moral and financial liabilities and huge costs in rerouting. This is an unpleasant reality that they will strive to avoid. It is also the basis for the denial syndrome that surrounds suspect products and public safety, British beef, lead content and cigarettes being examples. So it is up to the potential victims who live near such electrical pylons, transmission lines and antennae to delve into the facts as they are available and to study the results of research studies and find out the truth for themselves. That is what I have attempted to do here make available the research in a readable way.
Ten years ago when the first scientific evidence emerged that mad cow disease was transferable to humans and posed a threat to public health the British government and Beef industry minimized the danger and even denied the link between mad cow disease and humans illness. But subsequent studies have shown the link although not conclusively proving it. The denial and cover up has led to the collapse of the British Beef industry and likely the loss of the general elections by the conservatives.
Likewise with cigarette smoking. Despite overwhelming evidence that smoking causes cancer and damages unborn children government and industry denied it and demanded that clear conclusive proof that smoking causes cancer. But today that is an established fact and anti-smoking campaigns by health departments and individuals are commonplace. Who would have thought of such dangers fifteen or twenty years ago?
Likewise with the health hazards posed by electromagnetic fields radiation (EMR) from high tension electrical transmission lines, it is mired in official denial not only in the Philippines but in most countries. There is so much economic dependency and money at stake in providing electrical power that it is not surprising that dangers are played down or ignored. Electricity dominates modern society and yes it even kills us by fire, shock and magnetic fields radiation although few are ready to accept the results of scientific studies that Electromagnetic radiation is linked to cancers of various kinds. But this is changing as citizens groups in many countries are opposing the construction of these transmission cables or powerful radio antenna near homes schools and communities and are winning court cases to have lines rerouted or instigating investigations.
In the United States there are many such actions. In Clifton, New Jersey an unusual high rate of cancer among police officers working in an office within 20 or 30 feet of a radio tower giving off electromagnetic fields has stirred the community. According to a front page story in the Dateline Journal two officers have died of cancer, a third has cancer of the testicles and two more retired with another form of cancer. No direct evidence can be found linking the cancer to the electromagnetic fields from the antenna. Residents there are also battling with cellular phone companies to remove antenna towers from their neighborhoods.
David Hutt M.A., Med. a preventive specialist based in a science school in New York says that after conducting exhaustive research on the possible harmful effects of EMR and public response he says it is crystal-clear that there is widespread social denial. Only hardened skeptics would continue to deny that there is a relationship between the radiation and forms of cancer. The relationship between EMR and human stress ..appears to me to be clear dangerous incontrovertible and growing exponentially ..to claim that there is no relationship between EMR and our bodies, regardless of the amount, is patently absurd". He says that the staggering increase of EMR globally is one threat that we cannot run from. "There is no doubt to me that EMR represents the biggest foreseeable public health threat for the next generation. It a simple matter of cause and effect."
In Umatilla, Oregon residents are bringing complaints opposing a 500 Kv. line that is to traverse their community. In Southwest Nebraska farmers are also contesting a transmission line that they fear will effect their health with EMR and they report that the company is constructing day and night to forestall the action. In San Diego California, CAUSE a consumer advocate organization are exposing the misrepresentation of the facts made by the power company in regard to the dangers of their transmission lines and are opposing the company who is backed by government officials. In South East Queensland, Australia, a people's organization has emerged to fight the proposed power line that would run across the state damaging the environment, threatening communities and end up delivering only 90 megawatts of power but costing US $500 million.
The Australian senate recently conducted an enquiry into the effects of electromagnetic fields on public health. They invited Dr. Richard Luben an expert on the effects of EMR from the University of California to testify. While conservative in his conclusions he said; "There is some statistical correlations between proximity to power lines and leukemia in Children..... There have been some studies in recent years which make it look like there is a weak correlation with breast cancer and possibly other tumors."
This is the conservative scientific view and studies to produce that elusive absolute proof are still ongoing in many countries but not yet available for the hardened skeptics. No more than early studies could show the connection that mad cow disease and human brain disorders were connected or smoking caused lung cancer and deformities in the unborn. But with strong evidence already emerging as to the danger why put people at risk, especially children? To get conclusive proof sooner volunteers prepared to be exposed for long periods to various does of EMR are needed but few are willing to take the risk.
This is such a growing issued in the public health debate in the United States and elsewhere that an international organization called The EMR alliance has emerged. This joins together national land local groups fighting the construction of high powered transmission lines and exposing the health hazards associated with the radiation from them. The world wide EMR Alliance has this to say in its mission statement; "We believe that electromagnetic (EMR) radiation is hazardous to life and constitutes a significant threat to public health".
The jury is still out on the EMR conclusive proof issue. But that does not say there is no danger. For generations lead was not seen to be hazardous to health but now it is banned in paints and many other products and unleaded gas is the rule in most parts of the United States and Europe. It took years for them to respond to the warning signs and accept the truth. Even hardened critics of the existing evidence that EMR is linked to cancer will themselves shun living close to suspect cables or allow their children to attend a school built close too them.
There have been many studies of unusually high numbers of incidents of cancer in people living in proximity to such cables. The EMR alliance states that; "exposure to Electromagnetic fields has been linked to a host of illnesses and diseases including brain cancer and tumors, breast cancer in both men and women, various forms of leukemia and lymphoma,spontaneous abortions, birth defects and Alzheimer's disease and other life threatening health disorders". A few of the more notable studies include the following :
Wertheimer and Leeper - Childhood Cancers. This landmark study of children who lived in homes near high current electrical distribution lines found that these children were approximately twice as likely to develop childhood cancer than other children.
Ahlbom and Feychting - Childhood Cancer. This extensive research covered twenty-five years and a half million people in Sweden. The study concluded that children living close to electrical transmission lines with a 2mG exposure level were 2.7 times more likely to develop cancer as unexposed children and those with a 3 mG exposure level were 3.8 times as likely. There are strict laws regarding the construction of transmission lines close to residential areas.
Demers - Male Breast Cancer. This strong study concluded that male electricians, telephone linesmen and electric power workers were six times as likely to develop breast cancer as others not so exposed to transmission lines.
Kuijten - Brain Tumors. This study found that children whose fathers worked as electrical repairmen with EMF exposure prior to the child's conception were eight time as likely to develop astrocytomas (brain tumors).
Doctor Clark Heath of the American Cancer Society states that EMR is linked to childhood cancers and leukemia and that experiments on animals have shown birth deformities, behavioral change, changes in the immune system and other symptoms.
With all of this evidence pointing only one way - danger, why could anyone ever consider putting them at risk from electromagnetic radiation and the real possibility of cell damage and cancer? However there are those whose only ambition is to gain increasing amounts of power and money - at any cost and it is them, the hard of heart, the entrenched dynastic families who have an iron grip on political power and whose only interest is to tighten that grip. It is they who would have children and others exposed to such radiation so long as its not themselves or their children.
Millions of people are at risk from electromagnetic radiation. Not only are power lines dangerous but household electrical appliance and office equipment. The US National Council on Radiation the official advisers to the US government in a report, according to the New Scientist Magazine, October 1995 warned that international safety levels for radiation from electric power transmission lines have been grossly incorrect and must be reset to reflect the real danger as revealed by recent studies. They recommend up a safety standard to 5000 times more than the existing international standard. The report compiled over the past nine years by a committee of eleven leading experts in Electromagnetic radiation. The committee's chairman neurologist Ross Adey from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in California says" There is a powerful body of impressive evidence " to suggest that very low level exposures to Electromagnetic Fields (EMF's) to suggest that very low exposures to EMF's has subtle long-term effects on human health. "The sensitivity of the brain and it's mechanisms to these fields the key to understanding this issue." He told New Scientist . The report highlights the effect of the electromagnetic fields radiation on the brains production of the hormone melatonin that once disrupted prevents the formation of estrogen receptors in the breast .Researchers are investigating that this may be linked to breast cancer. The blocking of Melatonin may also may leave the way open for molecular changes in tissue which can cause degenerative disorders such as coronary artery disease,Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
The report from the committee of expert scientists says that there is strong epidemiological and laboratory evidence to suggest that children exposed to EMF's from power lines are at greater risk of developing leukemia and brain cancer. Other studies indicate that low level exposure could help tumors grow by causing genetic or chemical damage to cells.There is also evidence of effects on the immune system and the reproductive system. "These finding appear to warrant a substantive national commitment to further research,and serious attention of the regulation agencies and the general public" the reports says. " A significant proportion of the worlds population may be subjected t to a low level risk," The report concludes, the "pervasive nature and the serious consequences " of that risk make it significant for society at large.
The report recommends that future developments adopt a safety limit of o.2 microteslas. The New Scientist goes on; This is a very weak magnetic field and stronger fields are common around electricity pylons and close to electrical appliances.
Exposure to electromagnetic fields directly below 400 kilo-volt power lines is 40 microteslas. It is known that the strength of a electrical magnetic field one meter above the ground under a typical national power grid transmission line is 5 kilovolts . The report says Nurseries,schools and houses should not be built where the exposure level breach that guideline,and power lines should be kept away from residential areas.Offices should be designed to keep workers exposure from computers, photocopiers and printers below 0.2 microteslas. This same safety limit as the committee recommends is similar to the thinking in Sweden which has ordered no buildings should have any exposure more than O.2 Microteslas. This report nine months in the making was being held back from publication by government officials but it was leaked to Microwave News a specialist journal in New York.
Robert McGaughy, leading expert on Electromagnetic radiation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that the EPA's own report on the connection between electromagnetic fields radiation and the risk of cancer reaches conclusions similar to those of the committee of experts. His views is that exposure to low EMFs is a "possible risk factor" for cancer.
I hope that for the public safety this can be widely distributed so people can know the dangers even from computers and other high voltage household appliances to to mention industrial dangers to workers. In Porta Princesa, Palawan, The National Power Corporation with a grant from the Spanish Government were to erect high powered transmission lines. But many people objected to the route as it would pass over their homes and villages. They had enough common sense to know that the cables were dangerous to their health. The city government then studied the situation after consulting with the people and arranged with NAPOCOR to reroute the cables along a safer route. So victories are possible we only need the truth to tell us that we are right and the courage to pursue it without compromise. END
