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Reviews
PressFear of frying: power lines and cancer
Those in the media who believe that high voltage power
lines and pylons cause cancer in children are like the plucky, armless black knight in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail:
they just won't give up.
Last week they thought their Christmases were all about to come at once
when they got wind of a report not yet published that was "expected
to show" that the power lines were killers. Even better, among the
authors of the report was none other than Sir Richard Doll, whose every
mention noted that he was the first to show conclusively the link
between smoking and lung cancer. These electricity doomsayers were
about to be vindicated over their perennial story by the Mike Tyson of
epidemiology: if Doll said there was danger, there was no turning
back.
Except for one tiny problem-ette. The then unreleased report was not
actually going to say that. The UK National Radiological Protection
Board (NRPB) review (www.nrpb.org.uk/Absd12-1.htm) published on 6 March
concluded: "There is . . . some epidemiological evidence that prolonged exposure to higher levels of power frequency magnetic fields is associated with a small risk of leukaemia in children. In practice, such levels of exposure are seldom encountered by the general public . . . the epidemiological
evidence is currently not strong enough to justify a firm conclusion
that such fields cause leukaemia in children."
And how small was this "small risk"? The NRPB estimated that in the
United Kingdom the additional risk from power lines meant an extra case
of childhood leukaemia every two years, an increase in the annual risk
in all UK children from about 1 in 20 000 to 1 in 10 000. In children
highly exposed, this would mean an increase from 1 in 1400 to 1 in 700.
So how did the media handle it? On 4 March the Sunday Times
carried the front page headline "Pylons are cancer risk Although the NRPB report noted "it has not been possible to detect
this increase in the UK," some journalists and headline subeditors
were not fussed by this and used the theoretical estimates to talk
dramatically about a "doubling" of the risk.
Other publications played it down, doubtless, if you asked the
doomsayers, fresh from secret deals done between their advertising departments and the electricity industry. In the United States the
New York Post said "Leukemia link to power lines
minimal," the Irish Times said "Report discounts cancer
risk from pylons," and the Guardian noted "Leukaemia
study finds unexplained home radiation," focusing on the idea that
electrical fields in ordinary homes might actually pose greater risk
than evil high voltage pylons.
Interviewed by Angela Catterns on Sydney radio on 7 March, Doll was
asked, "Can we extrapolate that there is indeed a link between power
lines and cancer?" Doll replied firmly, "No we can't, and that is
one of the things we say very clearly Speculative and alarmist reporting is bad enough, but the consequences
can be more serious. Cancer agencies in Australia have received many
calls from anxious people wanting to know if they should sell their
house or have their children "tested." Land and house values may
fall around power lines, causing financial grief to perhaps thousands.
One angry man cancelled his regular donation, saying that the cancer
council had neglected this important issue. Enter "power lines
radiation and cancer" in a web search engine, and you can put the
kettle on waiting for hundreds of sites to download Professor D'Arcy Holman from the University of Western Australia
calculated that, even assuming a worst case scenario, the UK
projections would mean that in Western Australia there would be three
extra cases and one extra death from childhood leukaemia every 50 years. By comparison, there are an estimated three childhood deaths
every year in the state from asthma and lower respiratory illness
caused by passive smoking and about 10 childhood deaths every year from
drowning, including those in unfenced residential pools. Would that
these could get such headlines.
official." Britain's Independent Television News thumped its dictionary of quantification rhetoric and came up with the headline "Pylon report reveals 100 000 at risk." On different days the BBC's web page ran
"Fresh pylon link to child cancer" and "Watchdog confirms pylon
cancer link." The Sydney Morning Herald carried the story three days in a row: "First official link between power lines and
cancer," "Cancer and powerlines: painful questions return with the
grief," and "Powerlines double cancer risk."
that you cannot conclude
this. . . . That was a report in a newspaper
that is not known for the reliability of its scientific reporting.
It's not what we said."
all with the same
message, that power lines are killing our children. Any scientist who
so much as nods in the direction of agreeing with this is a heroic
whistleblower, and inconclusive results simply mean scientists aren't
looking hard enough to find what we all know to be the case.
Simon Chapman University of
Sydney, Australia
© BMJ 2001
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--------------C8313283CF9262947F566D26-- Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com