Posts Tagged ‘EMF’
Breast Cancer Study Finds No Link with EMF Exposure
A study of Long Island women recently found that there was no association between breast cancer and exposure to electromagnetic fields.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, examined 576 women with breast cancer and 585 women without the disease. Researchers at Sony Brook University measured the electromagnetic fields in various rooms of the houses of the women, and also mapped the power lines around each house.
Like previous such studies, it found no association between EMF exposure and breast cancer risk. The study also took pains to examine only women who had lived in their houses for at least 15 years, to test if there was any association with long term exposure to EMF.
Dr. M. Cristina Leske, who headed up the six-year, $2.5 million study, said in a press release announcing the results of the study,
The results are reassuring in that residential levels of EMF, such as from electrical wiring in or around the home, were not related to breast cancer. Given these results, we now have valuable information that leads us to conclude that we can now focus on other possible risk factors. Our team is most grateful for the support of the Long Island women, who made our study possible.
Sources:
Study finds no link between breast cancer, power lines. Associated Press, June 25, 2003.
Breast Cancer and Electromagnetic Fields Study. Press Release, Stony Brook University, June 25, 2003.
British Study Finds No Link Between EMF Exposure and DNA Repair
A study published this month in the British Journal of Cancer finds that there is no link between exposure to electromagnetic fields and the ability of cells to repair DNA damage — one hypothesis on how EMF exposure might possibly increase risk of cancer in young children.
Researchers at the UK’s National Radiological Protection Board exposed human blood cells to very strong magnetic fields to see if the exposure would affect the ability of the cells to repari DNA damage. In a press release describing the results, researcher David Lloyd said,
Some studies in the past have thrown up evidence of a weak link between unusually strong magnetic fields experienced in some homes, and leukemia in children. We tried to produce this effect in cells in the lab, but couldn’t find it even using magnetic fields stronger than people would experience in every day life.
This again suggests that there likely is no connection between EMF exposure and cancer. As Lloyd put it, “Studies like ours have so far failed to uncover a pathway by which magnetic fields could cause childhood leukemia — and it’s looking probably that none exists.”
Source:
UK study doubts power line, leukemia link. Reuters Health, June 11, 2003.
Tags: EMF
Cell Phone Lawsuit Dismissed
In early October, Steven Milloy wrote an excellent story about a federal judge’s dismissal of an $800 million lawsuit that claimed cell phone use had cause a man’s brain tumor.
Judge Catherine Blake dismissed the lawsuit citing the plaintiff’s failure to provide any valid scientific evidence for this claim.
Milloy notes that the plaintiff’s main body of evidence were studies by Dr. Lennart Hardell, who has published two studies on cell phone use and brain cancer. A 1999 study by Hardell found no “overall increased risk for brain tumors associated with exposure to cellular phones.” A 2001 study claimed to find such a link, but was criticized for being a flawed rehash of the 1999 study. Finally, Dr. Hardell has conducted as-yet-unpublished research that, again, found no link between cellular phone use and brain tumors. Despite this, according to Milloy,
. . . Dr. Hardell nonetheless maintained the overall findings didn’t matter because the cancer was only associated with ipsilateral phone use, in which the cancer develops on the same side of the head as the phone is held — as in [the plaintiff, Christopher] Newman’s case.
Judge Blake dismissed this claim since Hardell also reported a statistical association between ipsilateral use of cordless phones and cancer, “even though there is otherwise no scientific claim that cordless phones cause brain cancer.” A defense expert attributed Hardell’s results concerning ipsilateral use to “recall bias” — study subjects’ inability to accurately recall which side of their heads phones were used.
At one point, Milloy notes, the plaintiffs lawyers actually called a meteorologist to give testimony about radiofrequency radiation! That tactic didn’t work, but it did give Milloy an opportunity for a great one-liner which pretty much sums up the “cell phones cause cancer” claims,
It’s comforting to know that while cell phone reception has improved, reception of cell phone junks science hasn’t.
In fact it’s a very good sign to see the cell phone nonsense rejected by court so soundly and relatively quickly rather than seeing a repeat of what happened with breast implants and other similar unfounded health claims.
Source:
Cell Phone Suit Gets Bad Reception. Steven Milloy, FoxNews.Com, October 4, 2002.
Tags: EMF
Animal Study Finds No Evidence of Harm From Cellular Phones
A study of rats exposed to intensive radiation designed to simulate heavy exposure to the electromagnetic fields of cellular phones found no evidence to support claims that such exposure could cause cancer or other ills.
The study exposed the rats to levels of electromagnetic fields that people would receive from a cellular phone. The rats were exposed to such radiation for four hours a day, five days a week, for two years to simulate the exposure that an extremely heavy cell phone user might receive. But at the conclusion of the study, researchers found no signs of increased risk of cancer in any of the 31 tissues they examined.
Researcher Joseph Roti Roti, a professor of radiation oncology at the Washington University School of Medicine told the BBC,
We tried to mimic a high level of exposure that humans might experience. We found no statistically significant increases in any tumor type, including brain, liver, lung or kidney, compared to the control group.
The BBC reported that such research is consistent with similar studies performed in the 1970s and 1980s that found no ill effects caused by exposure of cellular phone radiation in animals. The Washington University study was funded by the cellular phone industry.
Source:
Mobiles ‘do not cause cancer’. The BBC, June 25, 2002.
Tags: EMF
Study Finds No Link Between Cell Phones and Ear Cancer
Apparently there has been some fear in Great Britain that cell phone use might contribute to acoustic neuroma, a cancer of the inner ear. A study investigating the possible connection, however, found no evidence of a link between cell phone use and acoustic neuroma.
The study, published in Neurology, looked at the cell phone usage of 90 patients with this form of cancer. It found there was no link between the level of cell phone usage and cancer.
It did find a “slightly elevated risk” for people who had used cell phones for three or more years, but those patients tended to be the most infrequent users of their cell phones.
Dr. Joshua Muscat told the BBC that, “No association was observed with cumulative use, and we found no evidence of a trend in the odds of risk with increasing levels of exposure.”
This is just one of dozens of ongoing studies of cell phone use in Great Britain, where the biggest association with cell phones seems to be an increased level of hysteria over the devices.
Mobiles cleared of ear cancer link. The BBC, April 23, 2002.
Tags: EMF
Do Household Appliances Increase the Risk of Miscarriages?
In January reproductive epidemiologist De-Kun Li released a study of 1063 women in San Francisco purporting to show that exposure to high peak levels of electromagnetic fields dramatically increased the risk of miscarriage. But other researchers urge caution noting that previous studies purporting to show a connection between miscarriage and EMF later proved to be unfounded.
Most studies of EMF exposure measure or estimate the average exposure. In Li’s study, however, women were asked to wear a meter that measured electromagnetic fields, and Li focused on the peak magnetic field the women were exposed to rather than average exposure over time.
Li’s research found that women exposed to high peak fields were three times as likely to have a miscarriage compared to women who were exposed to lower peak fields.
Li believes his study breaks new ground. “People have never looked at peak EMF’s before,” Li told New Scientist. “My study opens a new chapter for these EMF effects. Not just for miscarriages, but for other health effects.”
But does it?
Yale University epidemiologist Michael Bracken told New Scientist that he worries that such studies might scare people before they have been adequately investigated. Bracken said,
There are numerous ways of measuring these fields, and one worries that if you do it enough times, then you are going to find positive associations. There’s a real risk in these things getting over-interpreted and scaring the dickens out of people.
The obvious concern is whether or not Li has properly controlled for confounding variables. University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill epidemiologist David Savitz noted, for example, that women with health pregnancies tend to have a lot of nausea. But that nausea could make women with healthy pregnancies more likely to stay at home more and be less active, thereby reducing their exposure to EMF.
Michael Clark of Great Britain’s National Radiological Protection Board warned that previous studies linking EMF to miscarriages had later been found to be a result of just such issues. Clark said,
A few years ago there were studies which resulted in scare stories about VDUs [computer monitors] and miscarriages which turned out to be mistaken when confounding factors were analyzed independently.
Lets see this study replicated and independently analyzed before running off with a new round of EMF scare stories.
Sources:
Warning over miscarriage research. The BBC, January 9, 2002.
Electrical appliances linked to miscarriages. Anil Ananthaswamy, New Scientist, January 10, 2002.
Tags: EMF
Mendocino, California, Held Hostage by EMF Quacks
Wired News ran a report this week about the sad state of affairs in Mendocino, California, where a small group of individuals opposed to all wireless technology has been extremely successful in imposing its views on the small town.
The group is led by Arthur Firstenberg who maintains that he is “electrically sensitive.” Firstenberg claims that wireless radio signals are responsible for everything from irritability up to and including cancer. Firstenberg moved to Mendocino to escape the radio waves in New York City he thinks were harming him, and has attracted other people who believe that radio waves are harming them to move to Mendocino.
Firstenberg is president of the national Cellular Task Force and a member of Wireless Free Mendocino, which attempts to keep wireless services out of Mendocino. That group has already been successful at blocking construction of a cellular phone tower and a wireless broadband Internet initiative. It has now set its sights on the local high school radio station.
When the Mendocino Community Network wanted to offer broadband wireless Internet service, Wireless Free Mendocino showed up at public forums (including, according to Wired News one woman who was wearing protective headgear to protect herself from radio signals) to denounce the plan as dangerous.
Wired News sites former English teacher Christy Wagner who insists that a wireless transmitter installed on the roof of her school cause herself and her students to become “irritable and easily distracted” (imagine high school students being easily distracted! Must have been the wireless transmitter. Wagner eventually took medical leave and insists the transmitter ruined her life,
This overexposure to pulsed microwaves has been a personal tragedy for me. I’m left hypersensitive — even my mouse burns my hand when I use my computer now.
Or as, Scott Southard, who manages the radio station the anti-wireless group wants to destroy, puts it, “There have been radio towers on the high school for 30 years and there were never complaints about them until Firstenberg started his campaign of misinformation and fear. You can’t argue with zealots.”
Source:
Mendocino, CA: Microwave Hot Seat. Julia Scheeres, Wired News, January 22, 2002.
Tags: EMF