Subject:  Magnetic Fields Deemed No Threat, Associated Press....
Date:     Fri, 3 Dec 1999 093647 -0600 (CST)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" 
To:       emfguru 
--------------------------------------------------


........If this is all the depth of understanding we are going to get
from "the press" -- God Help Us!!!

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com

.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
                       NEW!!!  Website 
...................People are more important than profits.................

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 10:32:21 EST
From: PDepippo@aol.com
To: "Roy L. Beavers" 
Subject: Magnetic Fields Deemed No Threat

Magnetic Fields Deemed No Threat

.c The Associated Press

 By EMMA ROSS

LONDON (AP) - New research concludes there is no evidence to support the 
controversial theory that children face an increased risk of cancer from 
electrical wiring in the home or power lines.

The study, led by a Cambridge University scientist, is the largest ever 
undertaken into childhood cancers and electromagnetic fields. But World 
Health Organization scientists say it is not the definitive study they had 
hoped for.

The study, published Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet, 
concluded that children exposed to high levels of magnetic energy from nearby 
power lines or from home appliances were no more likely to get leukemia or 
any other childhood cancer than children exposed to low levels.

The study of 4,452 children under 14 compared 2,226 children diagnosed with 
cancer in the last four years - including all the nation's leukemia cases - 
and matched each of them with a healthy child of the same sex and birthday.

The researchers, led by Nick Day of Cambridge University, measured the level 
of magnetic emissions from power lines within 200 yards of each child's home 
and school.

In addition, they measured the magnetic emissions from electrical wiring 
inside the children's homes, testing everywhere from next to the children's 
beds to the middle of the kitchen.

To verify the doses found inside the home were the same as those absorbed by 
the children, 100 of the children wore monitors for one-week periods, three 
times a year. The levels matched.

The study found about 2 percent of the children were exposed to levels higher 
than 0.2 microtesla, the threshold at which other studies have suggested a 
link with cancer.

In a commentary in The Lancet, World Health Organization scientists said the 
investigation was ``very large and well conducted, (but) it is not the 
'definitive' study that scientists have been hoping for.''

They noted that while high levels of exposure are rare in Britain, a U.S. 
study reported 10 percent of children above that level and a Canadian study 
had 15 percent.

Day said the higher levels in North America were because electricity is 
supplied at 110 volts, compared with 220 volts in Europe. That means that for 
the same power consumption, North Americans use twice as much current as 
Europeans, which produces a stronger magnetic field.

Only 17 children in Day's study had readings of 0.4 or more, but that didn't 
change the results. Eight had cancer, while nine did not.

However, Day said the number of children exposed in the study to 0.4 or more 
was too small to draw conclusions about safety at that level.

``Almost all of the high exposures were not due to proximity to overhead 
power cables, but to electrical wiring in the house,'' Day said.

Only seven children lived near a power cable, but they also had no increased 
cancer risk.

The issue of whether exposure to electromagnetic fields increases the chances 
of childhood cancer has been debated for years.

A high-profile study by California-based researcher Robert Liburdy in 1992 
linked power lines to cancer, fueling fear among people living near them.

But in 1994, Liburdy's lab reviewed the findings after a student challenged 
his results. The U.S. Office of Research Integrity, contacted by the lab, 
later found he intentionally falsified and fabricated data. Liburdy was 
forced to resign from his job at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 
but has stood by his findings.

Scores of subsequent studies have found little evidence to support his 
findings, while others have found a weak link.

AP-NY-12-02-99 1901EDT



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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com