Subject: LINET Study (fwd)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 152048 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@mail.llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------
Hi everybody:
Marjorie has long championed the explanation she provides below....
The only part about it that troubles me ... is that it is saying "only"
the RF signal is the villain.......
I think she could have something here worth pursuing -- because it is
true that many (not all) utilities "communicate" on their power lines
(usually for SCADA purposes, "system control and data analysis")
using very weak RF "rider" signals.....
But (1) there is now just too much research showing that "RF" alone is not
the ONLY biologically active EMF band..... (It appears that they all are!
IF we just look for it!) In particular, the melatonin research has
been related to the ELF (60 Hz) band, raising questions about
immune system impact and thus a possible factor in the childhood
leukemia scenario (even though breast cancer has captured the attention so
far).......
.......And, (2) the power line studies (including the Linet study!) ARE
consistently showing "modest" risk factor associations of 1.5 to 2.5 with
childhood leukemia (rather than "no association" as Marjorie states
below). Remember, that was one of the conclusions of the NAS/NRC study,
also!!!
Where Marjorie and I agree ... is that measuring the magnetic field alone
-- while not allowing for the other possible active agents ("her" RF
riders, "my" transients boosted by electrical storms, and a half dozen
other "suspect" metrics, including the electrical field) -- will not
"explain" the phenomenon ........
BECAUSE THE MAGNETIC FIELD IS ONLY A "PART" OF THE TOTAL EMF EXPOSURE
THAT IS THERE "IN THE REAL WORLD."
Thanks, Marjorie.... Keep up the good work.... You may be right.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
................................It is better to light a single candle ...
than to curse the darkness...............................................
DO YOU KNOW OF OTHER PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE ADDED TO THIS LIST????
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 18:33:50 -0600
From: "Marjorie A. Lundquist"
To: rbeavers@mail.llion.org
Subject: LINET Study
Roy, all the debate and discussion over the Linet study makes as much
sense to me as having a hot debate over what color eyes make a scientist's
work of value! Imagine one faction arguing that only the work of blue-
eyed scientists can be trusted, while another faction argues that only
those researchers with brown eyes produce valid scientific studies! And
then there is a third point of view: that it is REALLY only people with
grey or violet eyes whose work can be relied upon!
Most of us would recognize that such a debate was a tempest in a teapot,
because the eye color of a person has no relation to the validity of his
scientific work!
The same is true with 60-Hz EMF from power lines. There is indeed an EMF
associated with electric power lines that can produce disease, but it is
NOT any power-frequency EMF. It is the radio-frequency EMF that has been
placed on the power line by the power company: power line carrier.
Within a single power company's area of service, the relation between the
60-Hz field, which has been measured, and the RF field that causes disease
(which has NOT been measured) is pretty consistent. Therefore studies such
as those in the Denver area produce consistent results. (See Wertheimer &
Leeper, also the Savitz study done there; the latter confirmed the former.)
The next study done was in Rhode Island; it did not appear to confirm the
Denver study of Wertheimer & Leeper. This is because the relation between
RF and power frequency was undoubtedly different there than in the service
area of Public Service of Colorado (which serves Denver).
This is why studies done in different geographic areas produce wildly dif-
ferent results. And this is why the Linet study could not possibly have
produced either a relationship between wire code and disease, or between a
specific value of 60-Hz magnetic field strength and disease. The children
in this study came from a variety of communities across the USA, so there
was no consistent relationship between RF and 60-Hz magnetic field in the
population under study, because they came from the services areas of many
(or several) different local electric power companies.
The Linet study was well designed for its stated purpose: to examine the
relationship between 60-Hz EMF and childhood disease. There is no such
relationship, which is exactly what it showed.
But the Linet study was very badly designed to demonstrate that there is a
relationship between EMF exposure and disease, because it did not measure
the EMF that ACTUALLY gives rise to the disease (the RF EMF) nor was it
confined to the service area of a single electric power company, which is
what enables an association with wire codes, and with the 60-Hz magnetic
field strength, to become manifest (these acting as surrogates for the RF
EMF that is the real agent of interest).
Anyone who has obtained and read a copy of my paper on power line carrier
(the RF that electric power companies put on electric power lines) would
probably understand this. -- Marjorie
***************************************************************************
Marjorie Lundquist, Ph.D., C.I.H.
Bioelectromagnetic Hygienist
P. O. Box 11831 Milwaukee, WI 53211-0831 USA
e-mail: marjorie@omnifest.uwm.edu
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Permission to post this message is granted.
.-
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html